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Canon Pixma PRO-10/10S printer review

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Canon PRO-10/10S printer review

Using the Pixma PRO-10 A3+ printer



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The PRO-10 is Canon’s replacement for the 9500 Mk2 A3+ pigment ink printer, which we looked at a while ago. It sits below the PRO-1 pigment ink printer (review) in Canon’s new ‘PRO’ range.

The PRO-10S is just an update in connectivity options

Canon PRO-10 printer

Keith has been testing out the printer with a variety of media and seeing how it performs.

Most of this review looks at a Canon PRO-10 driven directly from Photoshop and using an Apple Mac. Functionality is very similar if you were using a Windows PC.
Canon PRO-10 printer

Canon PRO-10

This review concentrates on using the printer for high quality print output, rather than covering the bundled software in any great depth.

Modern pigment ink printers are getting very good, and increasingly difficult to tell apart based on print quality alone. I’ve looked at colour and B&W printing with the PRO-10, which is excellent, but also looked at aspects of how easy it is to get these results.

  • Update Feb 2015. In Australia, Canon announce a PRO-10S model with improved connectivity, but no change to the actual printer. Looking at the specs, I’d say that my conclusions here are still valid.

This is quite a long review, but please do feel free to ask if you’ve any questions.

Buying? Amazon.com :- Canon PRO-10 PRO-10 at B&H, Adorama

What do you get with the PRO-10?

pro-10 printer controls
The exterior design of the printer is quite clean, with two main buttons, and no display or other indicators.

According to Canon, the key features of the printer are:

  • 4800dpi high-resolution printing.
  • Up to A3+ & 14″ wide prints.
  • 10 single LUCIA pigment inks with high longevity.
  • Exceptional glossy media printing via Chroma Optimiser.
  • Photolab-quality print head.
  • Neutral monochrome prints.
  • Archival prints on Fine Art media.
  • Wide range of third party media supported.
  • Print Studio Pro plug-in software supplied.
  • 16 bits per channel photo printing.
  • Ambient Light Correction feature.
  • Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity.

Our review printer was shipped in a heavy duty case (cardboard boxes don’t last long when shipped many times), which meant that we didn’t need to install the print heads to set up the printer. It was in much better condition than the PRO-1 we reviewed and did not need any particular cleaning, although I left it overnight to settle before any testing.

A new printer comes with the following

  • CD/DVD disc printing tray
  • Manuals and other documents
  • Setup CD-ROM
  • Setup ink cartridges
  • Power cord
  • Print head
  • USB cable

Canon initial setup instructions are very clearly written, and should give no concern, if you are comfortable with things as complex as changing an ink cartridge. No tools are required whatsoever

You will need a while to carry out the various head alignment prints, but this is a one off operation. The heads are user replaceable, but I’d expect several years of solid use before this was required.

printer data connectionsConnectivity

The printer incorporates wireless as well as USB and Ethernet wired connections.

  • Hi-Speed USB 2.0
  • 100Base-T Ethernet

Networking is quickest to set up if you have a direct USB connection to the printer, but the main software installation process guides you through network and wireless options.

network setup options

I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on during some aspects of the auto installation, with such requirements as waiting for a light on the printer to flash 11 times, but it worked.

installation of printer

It was quite easy to find the printer on our network from other computers, once everything was initially set up from my laptop.

printer visible on network

There is a PictBridge socket on the front of the printer – someone somewhere does use this I believe.

Using the PRO-10

Once you’ve got past the various installation and setup options, the printer is very simple to use.

I did all the printing via Photoshop’s print dialog. For our large Canon iPF8300, there is an excellent print plugin, but the version for the PRO-10 just seems overly complicated.

My advice is always to take some time to understand the printer dialog for your main image editing program, whether it be Photoshop or Lightroom, or whatever.

Print dialogues can appear complex with all the various options, but generally they have a consistent logic to them – this is obviously going to be a bit different if you use a Windows PC (we don’t have any here) but the principle is just the same – learn how it works. The benefits from taking time to experiment when you first get a new printer are appreciable – far fewer ruined/inferior prints as you go on.

  • Just one thing – you will get stuff wrong. I test printers all the time and expect to mess up a few prints at the start. The most common problems I find with smaller Canon printers is not getting the right paper in the right loading slot, and then just wondering why nothing is happening – sometimes a proper front panel display on a printer really does help…

For the best quality from this Canon printer you need to pay attention to getting the media settings right and understanding the different paper size options.

media settings for pro-10 printer

The installed manuals are worth looking through, since what you want is almost certainly in there. I know they are often a pain to read, but it really can help at the start.

variety of printer settings for paper size

Print quality at Standard is almost always good enough – I found it very difficult to see the benefits of the ‘high’ quality mode, since I rarely view my prints with a strong magnifying glass.

setting basic print quality

The installed ICC profiles for the PRO-10 are good, but do read the manual for what all those codes mean (the numbers refer to print quality settings).

various icc profiles installed

The profiles worked fine, but just like the ones for the Canon PRO-1, you should check options for rendering intent and BPC if available (the soft proof option in the Photoshop print dialog shows the variations well) I’ve addressed this matter in more detail in the PRO-1 review.

Changing ink on the PRO-10

The printer still had some of the initial setup carts installed (I’ve no info on how they are different from replacement carts)

After only a few prints there was a drastic drop in the levels.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

I’ve come across this problem before with Canon printers (including our iPF8300).

It’s just that the ink level indicators have a limited number of steps. This can cause big jumps in the level indicators. It means you can be looking at nearly full carts one minute, and only a few prints later, everything drops precipitously.

Once you’re used to it, it’s not an issue, but it still catches me out every so often…

The low ink warnings are also a little enthusiastic (note to developers – numeric codes here are never helpful to real users).

low ink warning

There does come a point though, where you really do have to change the ink.

The carts contain 14ml of ink and are available in multi-packs (the Chroma Optimiser carts can be found slightly cheaper – they get used up relatively quickly, particularly if you set the usage to cover the whole page) – see ink usage notes in the conclusions for more.

replacement ink cartridge pack

The carriage is accessed under the top flap.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

There are LED indicators for each ink tank – the tanks are simple and quick to replace.

changing canon pro-10 ink tank

The cyan cartridge first flashed as low as I started printing these glossy A4 prints.

printing multiple A4 prints

I finally needed to change the cyan cart after all these prints.

collection of A4 sized prints

Here’s a ’empty’ grey ink cart, opened up to show the ink bag. It still has around 1ml of ink in it.

I checked all the empty ink carts during testing and most had a bit of ink remaining, but not much.

empty canon pro-10 ink cartridge

The printer has a range of cleaning functions, including parts of the paper transport mechanism. The PRO-10 seemed much happier after being shipped to us than the PRO-1, so apart from a basic print head clean/test pattern when first starting up the printer, this wasn’t needed throughout our testing.

printer cleaning options

print quality tests

If left switched on, the printer automatically agitates the ink tanks every so often (pigment inks can start to settle if left for a while) – the ink maintenace option is for if you decide to deactivate this (I don’t know why you’d do this, but the manual suggests doing a manual cycle about once a week).

Not changing black inks and gloss optimiser

Different types of paper require a different type of black ink – Matt black and Photo black – both are continually installed, so changing paper types is instantaneous and requires no loss of ink in the process. Since some ink is required for head cleaning (automatic or on demand) levels will fall slightly over time, even if you only ever use one sort of paper.

The ink set for the PRO-10 includes a clear gloss overcoat – it’s one ‘ink’ that our 12 colour 44″ width iPF8300 doesn’t include.

This is a clear overcoating that as this (Canon) graphic shows, is meant to even up surface reflection from the droplets of ink sitting on the surface.

surface gloss with optimiser

This is intended to reduce gloss differential on some shiny surface papers.

It’s automatically applied as a default, with some paper types.

options for clear coat application

…or you can set an ‘Overall’ mode, which applies the coat to the entire print area.

applying overall gloss coat

The two prints below show the difference between coating modes.

visibility of gloss coat

Note how the ‘overall’ coating doesn’t quite go to the edge of the sheet, and that it gives a slight warmth to the image.

slightly warmer reflection from gloss coat

The reflections I’ve shown here, are from halogen ceiling lamps. It took a fair bit of moving around to get the differences to show up this much – most people wouldn’t spot them.

It’s worth experimenting with your own choice of papers, as to whether the gloss coat is needed, particularly if you do your own printer profiling.

The ‘overall’ setting also uses up the gloss coat at quite a rate.

One minor annoyance is that the automatic option can’t tell the difference between white un-inked paper in the border and in the images content area, meaning that bright parts of an image (cloud highlights for example) won’t receive the optimiser.

Paper Loading and Media handling

The printer loads paper at the back, with the trays folding out. There is no support for roll paper or long custom sheet sizes (for panoramic prints for example)

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

The main paper tray feeds paper centrally through the printer.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Depending on paper type, you can easily stack quite a few sheets (A4 glossy in this case).

stacked sheets in rear feeder

Thicker art papers are individually fed via the back loading slot.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

This folds out directly

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Gently push the paper up to the internal stop and hold for a few seconds – the sheet should automatically load.

rear sheet loaded

Paper loading at the rear is quite simple, but you do have to take care that stiffer papers go in far enough, for the mechanism to load the paper. This took a couple of tries, but one I’d got the feel for it, there were no further issues.

Printing on CDs and DVDs

The CD loading tray is fed in at the front of the printer – you lower a flap to insert it.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

The disk is held firmly in the tray.

blank CD for printing

You need to use the supplied software to print, and in this case I’m using the “my Image Garden’ photo software. This allows me to select images for disks.

When installing it, I was careful not to let it think it could analyse my computer. I have my own ways of dealing with many tens of thousands of images thanks…

using some Canon software for printing CD/DVD

Simple enough to pick some images.

print layout - CD

A disk of photos from my holiday.

Do be careful to follow the instructions for disc printing (mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Here’s the printed disk a few minutes later.

printed CD

Works just fine and very good print quality too.

Printer testing

I’ve started off with some Canon paper, Canon supplied ICC profiles and my standard test images.

(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

I always suggest that people look at prints of known test images, since they are (mostly) devoid of the subtle tricks that our memory plays on us when looking at a personal photo, particularly one that you’ve spent any time editing and working on.

The images (and many others) are available for free download on this site.

printer test image for black and white printingdatacolor test image for printer profilie evaluation

Both images have lots of components to specifically test different aspects of printer performance.

Another image I like to use, is this one of the Curve theatre at night – the reds and blues are a tough test of the printer and profiling accuracy (there is detail in that blue area).

highly coloured test print

For black and white, I’m also trying some cotton rag ‘fine art’ paper.

black and white print mode

The print is pretty neutral, using the B&W print mode – that’s a photographic grey card behind the print (used to set white balance in this picture).

neutrality of B/W print

The prints all looked fine, when using the supplied profiles.

I’ve heard concerns over this printer printing too dark, but could find nothing wrong whatsoever.

I do note that some of these reports came from when the printer was first announced, and that it took 6 months before Canon UK were able to supply this one for review, so perhaps any glitches were ironed out? I did notice that as with the PRO-1, the Canon profiles exhibit some unpredictable behaviour if you are using BPC (black point compensation) when printing with RelCol rendering intent – I always made use of the Photoshop print dialog’s proofing options to check images, before printing.

Colour profiles and profiling

I like to make our own colour profiles for papers and printers I’m testing, using i1Profiler from X-rite and an i1iSis XLscanning spectrophotometer.

Note – if you are not that much into colour management, you may want to skip over this section

Having made profiles for many different printers, there is often a certain subjective ‘look’ to profiling targets that tells you how well the printer will profile, with a particular paper, and as with the PRO-1, there were no obvious flaws visible

printed profiling target for ICC profle creation

It’s important to get the right media setting for the paper you are using, particularly if you are profiling a third party paper.

If you’ve no information from the suppliers, then go for one that most seems like what you’re using, although some of the Canon types don’t even match up with some Canon papers I’ve got.

setting correct media type for profiling

The good thing is that modern papers and printer drivers exhibit far less non-linearity than of only a few years ago, and appear far more forgiving of incorrect selections.

Canon provide a number of generic profiles – the numbers indicate print quality settings, but even reading the profile section in the manual didn’t make it overly clear what the differences were.

profiles installed during initial setup

If you’ve an i1Pro or ColorMunki spectrophotometer, you can use the supplied ICC profile creation software.

It also allows for printer calibration, which is useful if you want to ensure all your room full of PRO-10 printers are matched…

Seriously though, it’s worth running for a new printer, or after changing print heads, as an extra step in assuring the best quality output.

canon color management tool pro

The software is a little limited in options (A4/Letter paper only) but it is free…

test chart for profiling

Those wishing to experiment somewhat, and owning an i1 or ColorMunki spectro, might like to look inside the application package contents to find the actual target images (2 tiff files for a total of 731 patches). These could of course be printed any way you like to make profiles…

Black and White

The Canon print driver offers a specialist monochrome print mode, that in our large iPF8300 and the PRO-1 give very high quality prints.

The PRO-10 has only one grey ink, so I was keen to see if the B&W print mode was any different from the other two printers.

Here’s a test image on Canon Platinum glossy paper, using the B&W print mode, with no adjustments.

The image also shows a truly neutral grey card.(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

The print driver allows for adjustment of the tone of the prints, and just like the iPF8300 and PRO-1 benefits from an adjustment of a few points to the green (Y=3 to 5) for prints viewed in our room lighting (halogen spots – no nasty LED or energy saving horrors in this house thanks ;-)

fine adjustment for B&W image tone

A measurement of the 51 step wedge (using ColorPort software – or with i1Profiler) and running the data through the QTR software, gives this graph.

measured print linearity

A pretty good linear output, apart from that big crunch of the shadows in the last 5% of blacks.

The QTR profile easily fixed this, and made a visible difference to the test image in the shadow areas.

If you take the Lab values for a mid tone and put them into Photoshop, you can fill a patch with the actual colour the spectrophotometer measured – it’s grey, but turn up the vibrance a lot and a slight purple tinge comes through. This is what I’m correcting in the driver adjustments I mentioned earlier. This colour varies with paper type (optical brighteners may affect it), and on matte papers I found the prints more neutral.

Whilst on this glossy paper I could see that the B&W test images didn’t look quite as good as on the other two printers (PRO-1 and iPF8300), I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of actual printed monochrome photos.

Just remember that the test images are deliberately designed to show issues that won’t appear in most prints.

Additional software

I regularly use Canon’s print plugin in Photoshop to drive our iPF8300. It’s robust, simple, effective and easy to use.

Whilst the additional print software for the PRO-10 shows promise, I found it clunky and trying to do just too much.

Software designers for the PRO-10 should follow the example from the large format printers – do only so much, but do it well. I suspect that they know this, but the dead hand of marketing insists on shoving every possible ‘feature’ into the software. I note that the functionality is supposedly based on interviews with lots of photographers over what they wanted (no-one asked me, I wonder why ;-). As someone who spent years doing usability research and requirements analysis, I know that asking users what they want is a double edged sword – and can easily result in trying to do too much ;-)

The various software is easy to install, but in general not something I’d have much use for. The printer driver works just fine from my normal image processing software.

It’s obvious from the amount of software included, that Canon has put quite some effort into making it easy for people to print, with all kinds of options and the like. From my own point of view, learning to print well from Lightroom/Elements/Photoshop will be of much more benefit if you are after top quality results from your photography.

Buying a Canon PRO-10

We make a specific point of not selling hardware, but if you found the review of help please consider buying the PR-10, or any other items at all, via our link with Amazon.
Amazon UK link / Amazon Fr / Amazon De
Amazon USA link / Amazon Canada link

It won’t cost any more (nor less we’re afraid) but will contribute towards the running costs of our site.

PRO-10 at B&H, Adorama

Conclusions

Print quality is excellent from this machine and most people would be hard put to see the differences from prints made with the larger and more expensive PRO-1.

The PRO-10 has less inks and smaller cartridges, so is better suited for lighter use.

Looking at the Pixma 9500 MkII it replaced, there is now Ethernet and wireless connectivity. The green ink of the 9500 has been replaced with the gloss coat ‘colour optimiser’. The internal workings of the printer are very similar to the 9500 II although the rear single sheet feeder is an improvement on the 9500’s straight through path (see my 9500 ii review for more)

Paper handling was robust and effective – not a misfeed to be seen, even when I stacked up several packs of glossy A4 paper in the tray.

Margins and paper sizes

When I looked at the Canon 9500 Mk2 printer, the biggest issue for me was the huge top and bottom margins imposed on some media types.

Unfortunately this feature persisted into the PRO-1 and now the PRO-10

The range of fine art media settings is limited, and two the ‘other’ settings offer no real help as to why you might use them.

setting some media types results in large margins

I’ll ignore the Hagaki setting, as I suspect will almost anyone outside of Japan…

The size ‘issue’ shows up with the 30mm margins on A4

30mm top and bottom margin

This is expanded in part of the manual.

media choices, as mentioned in the printer manual

Indeed, when I first tried a particular B&W print, I’d forgotten this until nothing happened. Eventually I looked back at the computer I was printing from.

paper size warning

Ah, of course good old code 88 – as if any real user would know what this means or why it’s there ;-)

The problem is quite apparent when you look at what the Photoshop print dialog shows.

Move your mouse over the image to see the effect after I’d changed to the ‘correct’ media setting.

30mm top and bottom margins – pretty poor on A4 or smaller paper.

Original ImageHover Image

Just as well it was a nearly square image.

If you add to this the maximum custom page length of just 26 inches, I see too many features that seem needlessly restrictive. I also asked about this for the 9500 ii and PRO-1, and received the same answer that it was to ensure image quality.

Really? – I’d like to be able to decide for myself. Are you telling me that a company with the design experience of Canon can’t come up with a paper handling mechanism that works reliably for thicker paper?
From comments I’ve personally received from elsewhere in the world, the blame for this seems to be laid at the door of Canon in Japan.

I tried a sheet of panoramic paper, and as detailed in my PRO-1 review, the 26″ page limit meant no large wide prints (there is more info and photos in the other article)

Ink costs

I’ve run off quite a lot of prints, and once I got over the initial cries of ‘Low ink warning’ and pushed on with the yellow light flashing, the printer seems relatively economical in its ink usage.

I must mention that although I printed a fair few pictures, I was starting with a used printer, with partly filled ink carts, and didn’t have nearly enough spare ink carts to test this in a rigorous methodical manner.

To their credit, Canon publish ink usage figures, and the methodology they adopt to work them out.

10x15cm photo¹Photo Black: 510 photos*
Matte Black: 1640 photos*
Grey: 165 photos
Cyan: 525 photos*
Magenta: 710 photos*
Yellow: 377 photos
Photo Cyan: 351 photos
Photo Magenta: 303 photos
Red: 1045 photos*
Chroma Optimiser: 165 photos
A3+ photo²Photo Black: 44 photos
Matte Black: 202 photos*
Grey: 31 photos
Cyan: 73 photos
Magenta: 85 photos
Yellow: 85 photos
Photo Cyan: 89 photos*
Photo Magenta: 69 photos
Red: 144 photos*
Chroma Optimiser: 31 photos

*Estimated Supplemental Yield

Grey and the Chroma Optimiser were the ones that seemed to go relatively quickly. Indeed, it’s also the grey ink that goes down more rapidly on our iPF8300 (a similar inkset), but it has the advantage of 700ml ink carts rather than 14ml.

Looking at the suggested values, and how the inks ran down during testing, I’m minded to believe that these figures are relatively accurate for printing usage.

However they don’t include the amounts used in cleaning if you switch the printer off for a while, or the additional slight losses during the replacement of a cartridge.

This is countered, if you regularly change media types, by there being no loss in ink when switching from using Matte (MK) or Photo (PK) black inks.

That said any estimates are of use, and it’s good to see them.
Note that if you get through 3-4 boxes of A3+ paper a month, lowered ink costs would likely save you the cost of the printer in a year or so , if you were to get a bigger printer like the 17″ iPF5100. That’s not to say that the PRO-10 is expensive to run, just that bigger printers are cheaper to run, but cost more.

Overall

The printer produced some very nice prints, both colour and black and white. The supplied Canon ICC profiles gave good results on standard papers, and my own profiling gave very good print performance on a variety of papers.

The gloss coat cuts down on gloss differential on some papers and can make a distinct improvement to prints on some paper types. If you’re experimenting with new 3rd party papers, then do try a small test both with and without it.

Paper feeding is reliable, with not a misfeed during all the testing. Restrictive margin and maximum size limits may be a problem for some potential users.

Ink usage seemed reasonable, as long as you use the initial low ink warnings as no more than a reminder to have some spare ink ready.

Summary

10 ink A3+ printer (pigment inks – 7 Inks + black (matt or photo) + gloss coat)

CD printing option

USB, Ethernet and wireless connectivity.

Printer is successor to the Pixma 9500 MkII.

Amazon.com :- Canon PRO-10
PRO-10 at B&H, Adorama

SPECIFICATIONS (from Canon)

PRINTER FUNCTIONS
Print Resolution Up to 4800¹ x 2400 dpi
Print Engine Inkjet, 10 Single Inks, LUCIA ink system with Chroma Optimiser, 4pl droplet size FINE print head.
Photo Lab Quality Speed A3+: Approx. 3m 35s PP-201, LU-101, PP-201 ¹
A3+: Approx. 5m 20s PT-101 ¹
Ink Cartridge Configuration 10 separate ink tanks:
PGI-72PBK (Photo Black)
PGI-72MBK (Matte Black)
PGI-72GY (Grey)
PGI-72C (Cyan)
PGI-72M (Magenta)
PGI-72Y (Yellow)
PGI-72PC (Photo Cyan)
PGI-72PM (Photo Magenta)
PGI-72R (Red)
PGI-72CO (Chroma Optimizer)
Ink Tanks Life 10x15cm photo¹
Photo Black: 510 photos*
Matte Black: 1640 photos*
Grey: 165 photos
Cyan: 525 photos*
Magenta: 710 photos*
Yellow: 377 photos
Photo Cyan: 351 photos
Photo Magenta: 303 photos
Red: 1045 photos*
Chroma Optimizer: 165 photosA3+ photo²
Photo Black: 44 photos
Matte Black: 202 photos*
Grey: 31 photos
Cyan: 73 photos
Magenta: 85 photos
Yellow: 85 photos
Photo Cyan: 89 photos*
Photo Magenta: 69 photos
Red: 144 photos*
Chroma Optimizer: 31 photos
*Estimated Supplemental Yield
Media Type Plain Paper, Fine Art Paper “Museum Etching” (FA-ME1), Photo Paper Pro Platinum (PT-101), Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (PP-201), Photo Paper Pro Luster (LU-101), Photo Paper Plus Semi-gloss (SG-201), Matte Photo Paper (MP-101), Photo Stickers (PS-101), Other Fine Art and Glossy Photo Papers ¹
Media Input Rear Tray: Max. 150 sheets
Manual Feeder: 1 sheet
Direct Disc Print Tray: 1 printable CD, DVD or Blu-Ray Disc
Media Size Rear Tray: A3+, A3, A4, A5, B4, B5, Letter, Legal, 25x30cm (10×12″), 20x25cm (8×10″), 13x18cm (5×7″), 10x15cm (4×6″)
Manual Feeder: A3+, A3, A4, Letter, 36x43cm (14×17″), 25x30cm (10×12″), 20x25cm (8×10″)
Media Weight Rear Tray: Plain paper (64 to 105 g/m²), Photo paper up to approx. 300 g/m² (Canon special media)
Manual Feeder: Canon special media up to approx. 350g/m² and 0.6mm
DVD / CD Printing Yes (software included)
Two Sided Printing Available by manual operation only
Borderless Printing Yes (A3+, A3, A4, Letter, 36x43cm, 25x30cm, 20x25cm, 13x18cm, 10x15cm sizes)¹
INTERFACE AND SOFTWARE
Interface Type – PC Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (B port)
Ethernet: 10/100Mbps (auto switchable)
Wi-Fi: IEEE802.11 b/g/n
Wi-Fi Security: WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, WEP, Administration password
Interface Type – Camera Direct Print Port: Camera direct photo printing from PictBridge compliant digital cameras camcorders
Interface Type – Mobile Phone / PDA Android devices, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad ¹
Apple AirPrint
Photo printing via USB PictBridge
Supported Operating System Windows 8 (32 and 64bit)
Windows RT
Windows 7 (32 and 64bit)
Windows Vista (32 and 64bit)
Windows XP (32bit)
Mac OS X 10.5.8 – 10.8
Minimum System Requirements Windows 7: 1GHz or faster CPU, 1GB RAM (32bit) / 2GB RAM (64bit)
Windows Vista SP1 or SP2: 1GHz or faster CPU, 512MB RAM
Windows XP SP3: 300MHz or faster CPU, 128MB RAM
Browser: Internet Explorer 6 or higher
CD-ROM Drive
Display: 800 x 600 or better
Mac OS X v10.7: Intel Core2Duo (or higher) CPU, 1GB RAM
Mac OS X v10.6: Intel CPU, 1GB RAM
Mac OS X v10.5.8: Intel CPU, 512MB RAM
Browser: Safari 3 or higher
CD-ROM Drive
Display: XGA 1024 x 768 or better
Driver Features Borderless printing, Black and White Photo, Clear Coating settings, Manual Colour Adjustment, Collate, Multiple page per sheet print, Booklet print, Poster print, Scaled print (20-400%), Fit-to-Page print, Quiet Mode, Auto Power Off ¹
Software Included PrintStudioPro ¹, Colour Management Tool Pro (download), My Image Garden with Full HD Movie Print ², Easy-WebPrint EX (download) ³ and Quick Menu
GENERAL FEATURES
Power Source AC 100-240V, 50 / 60Hz
Power Consumption Standby: Approx. 2.3 W (Wi-Fi connection)
Off: Approx. 0.3 W
Printing: Approx. 17 W (Wi-Fi connection) ¹
Temperature Range Operating environment: 5° – 35° C
Humidity Operating humidity: 10 – 90%RH (no dew condensation)
Acoustic Noise Levels Approx. 33.9 dB(A) ¹
Dimensions (W x D x H) 689 x 385 x 215 mm
Weight Approx. 20.0 kg
Print Resolution ¹ Ink droplets can be placed with a minimum pitch of 1/4800 inch
Photo Lab Quality Speed ¹ 11″X14″ image printed with borders onto A3+ paper using default settings
Ink Tanks Life ¹ Declared yield value in accordance with ISO/IEC 29102. Values obtained by continuous printing.
² When printing ISO/JIS-SCID N2 pattern at 11″x14″ size continuously on A3+ photo paper Pro Platinum (PT-101), with the default settings using Windows 7 printer driver and Photoshop CS4.
Media Type ¹ Support for a range of non-Canon papers. ICC profiles and Art Paper Printing Guide instructions manual can be downloaded from http://software.canon-europe.com/
Borderless Printing ¹ When printing on Fine Art Paper top and bottom margins are minimum 30mm
Interface Type – Mobile Phone / PDA ¹ Requires connection over Wi-Fi network and installation of free Canon application: EPP for Android and iEPP for iOS. Not available in certain countries or regions.
Driver Features ¹ Some features available in Windows driver only.
Software Included ¹ PrintStudioPro is a printing software plug-in for the Canon Digital Photo Professional (3.12 or later), Adobe Photoshop (CS4 or later), Adobe Photoshop Elements (8 or later), Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (2.7 or later)
² Full HD Movie Print is available for MOV and MP4 movie files created by Canon digital and video cameras. Requires installation of software bundled with Canon video or digital camera, from which the movie was captured. MOV files require: ZoomBrowser EX / ImageBrowser (version 6.5 or later), MP4 files require: ImageBrowser EX (version 1.0 or later).
³ Easy-WebPrint EX requires Internet Explorer 7 or later.
Power Consumption ¹ When printing ISO/JIS-SCID N2 pattern on A4 size plain paper using default settings.
Acoustic Noise Levels ¹ When printing ISO/JIS-SCID N2 pattern on 10x15cm Photo Paper Plus Glossy II using default settings.
All specifications subject to change without notice.
Print speed may vary depending on system configuration, interface, software, document complexity, print mode, page coverage, type of paper used etc.
Ink yield may vary depending on texts/photos printed, applications software used, print mode and type of paper used. For yield information see www.canon-europe.com/ink/yield.

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6 Comments
  • MichaelAlan | Aug 2, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    Hi Keith, I know it’s been 5 years, but I’d be interested in seeing how your custom profiles compared to the canon supplied profiles. I’m having an issue with my Pixma-10 where on some images, some colors are just wrong. But 75% of the prints I send to it match the colors on the monitor.

    All known good test images match, but their color variation isn’t extensive.

    Thoughts?

  • Kjell Rilbe | Dec 19, 2017 at 11:50 am

    Done. Thanks for the pointer! :-)

  • Keith Cooper | Dec 19, 2017 at 11:03 am

    Well, first … use it more often. sorry but that is the no.1 factor in inkjet problems

    inkjet printers are simply not made to be left extended periods of time. Print something every few weeks, even on plain paper.

    That said, the best combination/time delay is not something I know, since I only get printers for a few weeks/months for testing. i’d suggest a forum. like the printer one on DPreview since the pro-10 is quite a popular printer and I’m sure that people have looked at this in depth?

  • Kjell Rilbe | Dec 19, 2017 at 10:40 am

    Hi, Thanks for the detailed review! I’ve had some older non-pro Canona printers, e.g. MP980, and had problems with large amounts of ink being wasted on deep cleaning. The problem stems from the fact that I do ink prints rather sparsely, perhaps a few times a year. (But when I do them, I really want the quality that inkjets can provide as opposed to lasers).

    So, when I finally switch on the printer after a long period, it ALWAYS performs a deep clean. In effect, I suffer a deep cleaning once per “print project”. I estimate that with the MP980 I had at least one ink tank run out every other print. Not acceptable, of course. I do understand that deep cleaning might be necessary after such a long time…

    So, my question is: how does the 10 (10S) handle this?

    Or how should I handle printer and the ink tanks in this usage scenario? Should I perhaps remove the ink tanks from the printer and store them in sealed airtight bags to prevent clogging? If that would work (no clogging) can I also prevent the automatic deep cleaning?

    I’d much prefer to simply do a nozzle check print before each job, and do a manual deep cleaning if it seems necessary…

  • Printer365 | Apr 7, 2017 at 12:25 pm

    Your article was excellent and erudite. Canon Printers are know for its high quality prints. Thanks for your support and sharing great Information about Canon Printer.

  • Bruno | May 14, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    Hi Keith.

    The price difference between this printer and the older 9500 mk2 is around 200 euros in France. (Around 650 euros for the pro 10 and 450 for the 9500 mk2)

    Does the pro 10 worth the 200 euros difference? or is the 9500 mk2 really good for this amount?

    Thanks.

    Bruno

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