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Printer review – Canon Pixma Pro-1

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Canon PRO-1 printer review

Using the Pixma PRO-1 A3+ printer



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The PRO-1 is Canon’s top of the range A3+ printer, representing many of their newest printer technologies. With 12 ink cartridges including 5 black inks, it has the potential to give a noticeable jump in print quality.

Keith Cooper has been looking at how it performs as a high end photographic printer.

canon pro-1 printer

Most of this review looks at a Canon PRO-1 driven directly from Photoshop and using an Apple Mac. Functionality is very similar if you were using a Windows PC.

Canon PRO-1

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

Update: October 2014 – Canon release a firmware update, that increases print area, canvas support and ink level detection.

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

Amazon.com :- Canon PRO-1 PRO-1 at B&H, Adorama

What do you get with the PRO-1?

The PRO-1 is a very solidly built printer. The review unit was shipped in a sturdy flight case.

I was able to lift it out, but at nearly 30kg you might want two people when shifting it if you’re not too strong.

pro-1 in shipping crate

This printer uses quite large ink cartridges, which remain stationary as the print heads move.

Canon’s key features for the printer are listed thus:

  • 12-ink system with exceptional colour gamut
  • Chroma Optimiser for uniform glossiness and crisp, sharp blacks
  • Optimum Image Generating system enhances colour reproduction
  • Stunning black and white prints with 5 monochrome inks
  • New LUCIA pigment inks ensure outstanding photo permanence
  • Create a gallery-quality A3+ photo in approx. 2 minutes 55 sec
  • High capacity ink tanks ensure long periods between replacements
  • Wide range of media support including 356mm (14”) wide and thick media
  • Easy-PhotoPrint Pro plug-in for efficient printing workflow

I’ll delve further into some of these features in the course of the review.

The printer is a clean elegant design, with just the two silver buttons on the front, and a button on top to release the cover for the ink carts.

Panels open up for paper trays when in use (move your mouse over the image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

As you can see, loading and printing an A3+ sheet of paper requires quite a bit more space (mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Full depth, with the trays out is around 34″ (you need to leave around 7″ from the printer back to the wall.

Connectivity

The printer incorporates both USB and Ethernet wired connections – wireless is not an option unless you get an external adapter.

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

The photo above shows an Ethernet cable coming from our network cupboard, plugged into the back of the printer.

After installing the drivers, the printer had no problem in connecting to our network, appearing in two different guises in the list of printers visible.

printer network options

The printer also has a USB socket at the front – this (PictBridge) seems to be aimed at people might want to directly print from their camera.

  • The fact that I’ve never met anyone remotely inclined to do this with a high quality expensive printer, suggests it’s very much a ‘consumer’ feature.

Using the PRO-1

Software is easy to install and gives a variety of options.

I’m minded to suggest that anyone interested in print quality will not need more than the driver and the manual. The Network Tool may be of interest to some, but the other print options would not I suspect feature highly in most people’s use.

software install options

Given that the printer was shipped in a working state, I didn’t need to install the print head (new printer hardware setup takes about 40 minutes, allowing for the printer to do all its ink charging after loading cartridges and the head).

The print head just drops into place and is locked in – this happens through the top access panel. Instructions are clear, and it really isn’t a tricky job. Just remember not to touch the actual print nozzle area or the electrical connections to the head.

I did however run the print head alignment, since I’d seen the flight case ‘unloaded’ from the van that delivered it…

print head alignment

The print head will need replacement at some point in the future, but based on experience with other Canon printers, that shouldn’t be for many thousands of prints.

Changing ink on the PRO-1

Ink levels can be checked a number of ways. As you can see, there are a lot of colours.

As with other Canon printers, I have a personal dislike of the level of granularity in their ink level displays – there just aren’t enough levels.

This means that the indicators can make big jumps even after one print – which is bad interface design (I used to do usability research and know that frightening users is not a good feature ;-)

The ink system splits the carts either side of the printer. With the ink lines and sub ink tank to be charged, expect a noticeable (20-30%) drop in levels when setting up a brand new printer.

ink feed system

If you lift the lid, and then the access panel, there is limited access to the inside of the printer.

Move your mouse over the image to see, including all the spilt ink from previous users of this printer and rough shipping

Original ImageHover Image

When I first saw all those ink stains, I knew I’d need to get my printer cleaner out…

In fact it took three A3+ prints for levels to drop, and a low ink warning to appear.

low ink warning and levels

If you ignore this warning and carry on, then more warnings will appear (note to Canon s/w developers – users rarely need to see numeric ‘support codes’)

In fact it took some 20-30 more prints and some cleaning, before the matte black ran out.

Low ink levels and an actual need for replacement are indicated by small red flashing LEDs in the top corners of the cartridges

The cartridges just pop out for replacement (move your mouse over to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Here is that empty black cart, with the cover levered off

canon ink cartridge

This is the ink bag inside the cartridge.

Ink ba inside cart

Wondering what that plastic pin was, I opened the bag.

I believe it’s some form of agitator, to stop the pigment ink settling out (anyone know for certain?)

inside of ink bag for canon ink cartridge

You can also see the cartridge’s data chip connections in the corner.

Not changing black inks and gloss optimiser

When pigment inks became popular some years ago, one problem was with black, giving rise to the need for matte black ‘mk’ and Photo black ‘pk’ inks for different papers. Indeed, this need to swap used to be a major issue for people like myself who might want to print on a variety of paper types.

With printers such as the PRO-1 (and our own large format Canon 8300) there is no swap or delay in switching inks – both blacks are loaded all the while. The black ink type is automatically selected by your media choice when printing.

I note that Canon claim “Stunning black and white prints with 5 monochrome inks” – well as I’ll show, the B&W print performance is very good, but with different paper types, it’s only 4 blacks in use at any one time (but that doesn’t make for such good marketing copy does it ;-)

One ‘ink’ that our 12 colour iPF8300 doesn’t include, is the clear colour optimiser coat. 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.

Don’t expect a perfect smooth finish, this isn’t like a smooth varnish coat.

These examples from a B&W print on lustre finish paper show the sort of improvement you can expect.

sparks at a foundry

I’ve had to take quite some care to show this effect with light from ceiling halogen lights. It is not normally a problem.

First a B&W solid white part of the image doesn’t reflect in the same way as the ink surface.

gloss differential without coating

Secondly, with the gloss coat, still some differential, but much more difficult to show.

reduced differential gloss

The colours are partly from the lighting, and much more obvious in these images than to the eye.

The coating is only available for some media types, and can be applied in an automatic mode, where it depends on the image content, or as clear coat to the whole printable paper area.

Note: When printing via our Macs, I try and set up print settings ‘presets’, so as to be sure I’m always using the same settings during tests.

settings for gloss optimiser

or ‘Overall’ mode.

coat all print - gloss setting

The two prints below show the difference between coating modes.

Note how the coating doesn’t quite go to the edge of the top sheet of paper.

gloss coating modes

Paper Loading and Media handling

The printer supports a lot of paper sizes, including borderless printing on some paper types.

I’ve selected paper sizes from the dropdown list in the print dialogue.

Note that different papers need different settings and may need a different feed source.

different paper sizes

The rear feed guides adjust to the paper width, ensuring that paper always goes through the centre of the feed path(mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

Paper can be stacked in the rear feed tray – I had no problems with twenty sheets of A4 photo paper, of 5 sheets of the A3 lustre finish paper shown below.

A3 paper feed

There is a manual, single sheet, feed tray at the rear (mouse over image to see extension)

Original ImageHover Image

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.

Using custom paper sizes

The printer supports paper at up to 14″ wide, and allows you to set custom paper sizes, such as this panoramic paper that is 594mm long (from a local supplier)

using panoramic paper

A bit more space is needed at the back.

feeding in long sheet of paper

It prints just fine (mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

A very useful solution if you want to do a few wide prints.

printed panoramic image

  • BUT… there are important page size limits, which I’ll cover later when looking at some of the printer’s less welcome features.
Printing on CDs and DVDs

The CD loading tray lives under the massive top cover, unfortunately it had been lost for this printer, so I unfortunately wasn’t able to test print quality.

I’ve seen it suggested that CD printing is not entirely straightforward, and well worth reading the manual first ;-)

The top cover is extremely solidly engineered – almost as if it ought to perform some other function, such as a small workbench (move your mouse over image to see)

Original ImageHover Image

The holder slides in at the front, to print on your disk.

cd printing on pixma pro-1

Printer testing

I’m assuming that most people wanting a printer like this want to make prints to look at, and that these prints are likely to be viewed at a reasonable distance.

Why do I say this? Well, modern printers with good paper and well made profiles are capable of producing stunning prints. Indeed, unless I’m putting prints next to each other under controlled viewing lighting, very few people could tell the difference between most images printed on different (good) printers on the same paper.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t differences, it’s just that the images that clearly show them are getting (much) more difficult to find.

For looking at colour and black and white performance, I’ve initially used a Datacolor test image for colour, and my own black and white printer test image. I know both images well enough to spot any problems with a new paper (my most common use for them)

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.

I also use both for testing the performance of printer profiles. If you use them, do be sure to read the explanatory notes that go with them.

I’ve made custom ICC profiles for all non-Canon media I’ve tested, and noticed, even when printing test targets that the printer is very linear. I’ve more about this in the section covering profiling and colour management.

I’m printing directly from Photoshop (CS5 in this instance) with a range of images I know well, and that have features in them that push different aspects of printer performance, such as the intense colours in this Aspen tree (up around 9,000 feet in Colorado).

The printer showed no problems with the deep saturated colours that give detail and depth to the tree.

colour print of aspen tree in fall

An A4 image with text, shows very crisp detail whether at normal high quality, or the (noticeably slower) highest quality.

With both print modes I’ll be honest and say that the next morning I could not readily tell the two modes apart without getting my pocket microscope out (if you’re testing this for yourself, be honest, and try and do a proper blind test).

mixed mode printing with text

If you have images at very high resolution (i.e. 600ppi of real resolution) then try out the print modes, you may notice a difference, but I’ll guarantee that most people won’t ;-)

For black and white, I used the printer’s monochrome mode, where you use the printer driver settings to specify B&W.

black and white printing mode

In the driver settings, you can alter some settings and fine tune the tonality of your print.

As with our iPF8300, I noticed a slight tendency towards prints looking magenta, under dim incandescent lighting.

I’ve looked at this elsewhere, and as with our 8300, found that slightly increasing the Y value in the dialog box below to +3 completely eliminated this.

This effect does vary with paper type, and no adjustment was warranted for any of the matte art papers I tried.

tint adjustment for monochrome printing

A minor glitch – cleaning

cleaning options in the printer utility softwareSince I get quite a few printers sent here for testing, I’m always wary of ascribing any problems to the printer, rather than the somewhat rough handling they may have experienced getting here.

Indeed, the printer took many minutes whirring away when it was first started up.

As I’ve pointed out, there was ample evidence of internal ink spillage, so I looked at cleaning ink rollers and the bottom plate of the print mechanism.

Fortunately, the printer utility offers a number of cleaning options beyond the normal head cleaning you see.

Do note though that running the ‘System Cleaning’ option is going to run down your ink levels quite appreciably.

In all the time I was using the printer, there was no sign of any print head clogging issues.

Some of the cleaning needs you to prepare paper to use for cleaning.

using paper to clean insides of printer

The sheet below is after the second cleaning attempt.

cleaning sheet

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.

The test sheets out of the PRO-1 were some of the most linear I’ve seen in a desktop printer, with clear gradations in tone and a wide range of colours.

I decided to profile some third party papers and also look at the supplied Canon profiles for their own media.

The range of colours (gamut) of the printer is wide, with very few parts of this Adobe98 test image being indicated as ‘out of gamut’ (move your mouse over the image to see grey ‘gamut warnings’)

gamut warnings on lustre paper

This was with a good quality lustre paper that I’d regularly use with our iPF 8300 44″ width printer (which has essentially the same ink set, but with green and blue ink rather than the extra grey and ‘colour optimiser’.

Eminently capable of producing real world images in suitably vivid colour. On a par with other advanced pigment ink sets you may come across. Indeed, fine gradations of tone in some areas of prints were exceptionally smooth.

I’d note that my own i1Profiler based profiles benefited from applying BPC (black point compensation) when printing in relative colorimetric mode.

Move you mouse over the image to see the difference in the gamut warnings and soft proof.

Original ImageHover Image

This is pretty much what I’d expect given the media and profiling settings. The software I’m using is what most people who would make custom profiles for you would be using, even if they are less likely to use the ~2900 patch targets I prefer.

However, if you look at the supplied Canon paper profiles, an interesting difference is visible.

The image on the left was printed (actually on Canon Matte Photo Paper) without BPC and the more washed out one on the right with BPC.

comparing use of BPC

I’m left wondering if some of the reviews questioning the quality of the supplied Canon profiles, fully investigated the range of printing settings? Where I tried some other Canon papers, the profiles were more than adequate (I’d probably be able to improve on them, but whether many could tell, wasn’t clear).

Several Canon profiles come in different versions, seemingly optimised for speed and quality – I couldn’t really see any problem with either, but the explanations in the manual could do with more clarity .

Canon actually have listed quite a range of profiles available for this printer, and Innova, one of my regular UK paper suppliers, have a range of profiles for their media.

My profiling targets were printed using the Adobe Color Printing Utility to ensure that I was getting them printed correctly without any hidden colour management being applied. This has been a problem in the past with some print set-ups.

Black and White

Canon printers like this one have a specialist black and white print mode.

You just choose it in the driver and you can print good neutral black and white prints with no further adjustment.

If you’re using a third party paper, then you need to choose a media setting that approximates the type of paper you’re using.

As a test, I printed my B&W test image on a lustre finish photo paper (not an economy brand, but not expensive)

It looked quite good, but I suspected that the shadows were a little blocked up.

Printing out 51 step wedge, I measured the actual printed values in order to make a QTR correction profile (the method is explained further in one of my i1Profiler articles)

The top of the graph shows the typical high ‘b’ values caused by the presence of some optical brightener in the paper. The important bit is the line of ‘L’s

It’s actually quite straight and only has that flat bit from 96-100% which does indeed indicate crunched deep shadows.

Making a QTR profile to correct this produced an almost completely linear output and a perceptibly better print of the test image.

graph of black and white print linearity

Note too, the slight wobbles in the ‘a’ and ‘b’ lines. These show where different inks are being used for different densities of printing.

Following this, I tested some Canon art papers, and although a correction profile could be seen to have some effect, print non-linearities with papers such as museum etching and photo rag were pretty minimal, and at that level where I might not even bother to use them.

Ink colours

With all those black inks to choose from, you might expect that only the black inks were in use. An actual check of printed test images shows the presence of yellow, cyan and magenta in the mix.

The three images below were taken with our MP-E65 macro lens at x5 on a 1Ds3, lit with an MT-24EX flash.

Important note: – These image have been processed to emphasise the distribution of yellow, cyan and magenta ink dots. They are magnified a lot and even wearing my glasses, I can’t see the dots by eye – the prints look very neutral, and I’d be happy supplying them to most people wanting my B&W prints (note though that I do say most., not all)

The paper was the lustre finish one measured above (the white specks are dust on the print, black specks are sensor dust).

Light printed area (~15%) mostly cyan and yellow dots, with a few light magenta.

print detail, showing ink dots 1

Medium (~50%) mostly cyan and yellow dots.

print detail, showing ink dots 2

Dark (~80%) – a few more magenta dots are visible.

print detail, showing ink dots 3

These colours could be introduced either to counteract any warmth of the pigment blacks/greys or even to better match the greyscale of the paper to the paper white.

A personal view ;-) … Some may be concerned at the appearance of colour inks, when considering print longevity, but I’m of the opinion that if this matters to you that much, why haven’t you got a large format printer with a black only ink set, or driven by software such as true black and white.
There does come a point when such details are pretty irrelevant to most people, but if they are important to your work and clients then you need to be doing a lot more experimentation and testing, rather than hoping to buy a ‘perfect’ off the shelf printing solution ;-)

Additional software

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

I’d hoped that this approach might appear in the PRO-1 software.

You can see two Canon tools in the Photoshop ‘Automate’ menu below.

canon print plugins

However, I forgot that despite its marketing as a ‘professional’ printer, this printer comes from the consumer division of Canon.

Suddenly we get all kinds of whistles and bells added to a print application, right from image selection options.

through to layout and ‘image enhancement’ options

This is a bit of a mess from a usability point of view. All I wanted to do was print the image I have open in Photoshop.

As a print option for software like Canon’s DPP it may be fine, but even on the odd occasion I’d use their software, it’s only for some aspect of RAW file conversion. Print Studio Pro is similar, but entirely different…

Canon can get it right, their plugin works just fine with my iPF8300. Why not produce a similar basic print plugin for the PRO-1?

I see the hand of consumer marketing in the PRO-1, not quite prepared to embrace the product as for ‘professional’ use and coming up with overly complex solutions for consumers and irritatingly complex ones for advanced users.

If Canon do release a bigger version of this printer, to replace the iPF5100 for example, then I sincerely hope they follow the software directions found in their large format printers rather than the mish-mash here. This isn’t just my own dislike of what they’ve produced, but also an appreciation that the plugins (such as I use with our 8300) may actually contain tweaks and improvements to print quality, compared to just using the normal Photoshop print dialog.

That said, do have a look at what the supplied software does, there may be a function hidden in their somewhere that is just what you need (such as some of the layout options you can see above).

Canon Colour Management Tool Pro

The Canon Colour Management Tool Pro is a standalone bit of software which allows for calibration and ICC profile creation.

It works with X-rite spectrophotometers, including i1 Pro, i1 Pro with UV Cutoff filter, ColourMunki Photo and ColourMunki Design. There is no support for the iSis or i1Pro 2 as far as I can see.

canon profiling tool

Obviously, it’s designed to work with a Canon printer, which it does perfectly well.

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…

Update 2014 – Info from Canon help

An optional measuring instrument is required for measuring the color differences to use Color Management Tool Pro.
Color Management Tool Pro supports the following measuring instruments:
X-Rite ColorMunki Series and i1 Series (not supported by the special display measuring instrument)
You have to install the software that came with your measuring instrument before installing the driver for the ColorMunki series or the i1 series.
With the i1 Series, the calibration base plate, the chart measuring ruler, and the measurement backup board are required in addition to the measuring instrument.
The i1 Series supports both i1 Pro and i1 Pro2.

Conclusions

Let’s get one thing clear, this printer can produce excellent looking prints.

Colour and black and white images produced prints I’d be more than happy to put my name to. Right from initial printer profiling, the attention to print quality is clear, and the gloss coat adds a visible improvement to prints on some glossier surface papers.

The supplied Canon paper ICC profiles produced acceptable results, and in terms of building custom profiles, the printer was extremely easy to profile. Do note though, the differences I observed when choosing BPC options when printing. This is a printer though that will likely benefit from getting custom profiles created.

For black and white printing, results ‘out of the box’ were generally acceptable, but could in many cases be slightly improved with the creation of linearising profiles.

Print speed

Print speed varies with quality settings and print area, but A3+ colour prints at normal resolution came out in less than three minutes (notably faster than the previous 9500 mk2 I looked at). Highest quality settings took a lot longer and to my mind were not generally worth the extra wait, since differences in visible image quality were minimal.

I’m of the opinion that printing images with higher PPI settings (400 or even 600 if the resolution is there) along with careful attention to print sharpening (i.e. not just hitting the ‘sharpen for print’ button) will more readily improve your visible print quality than going for the slower and more ink thirsty ‘highest quality’ settings.

The printer also happens to be one of the quietest I’ve tested.

Software and printer usage

The printer driver worked just fine via Photoshop. The supplied additional print software just tried to do too much – I can see that tools such as the layout options may be of use, but overall the software just didn’t feel like something I wanted to make the effort to learn (but do have a look at it, it might do just what you want).

After power up, the printer takes a minute or so to get itself ready – not as long as our large format 8300, but longer than the office printer.

The styling of the printer is quite striking, with just two buttons on the front. No LCD display for example.

Initially I thought this was just fine, since why did I need a complex interface when I could do everything from the laptop next to it. It was when I was driving the printer from the Mac in my office, for a manual feed print, that I realised how little use a single flashing light was in working out what I might have done wrong. After a couple of weeks use I started resenting the need to walk away from the printer to find out what it wanted to tell me to do.

The lack of LCD screen is obviously a key design decision for this printer, one that after a while I’m not so sure about.

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 persists into the PRO-1.

Given that I like printing some of my B&W images on cotton rag papers, the mandatory 35mm margins are most unwelcome.

Look at how much of the page below is truncated on an A3 sized print – it makes printing on small paper sizes (say cards) completely impractical, if you use good quality art paper.

margin size and print area

You might think that you can get round this with judicious setting of custom paper sizes, but no, that margin is set in firmware.

The only way round it is to print with a different media setting, but of course this invalidates profiles and potentially makes it difficult to get good quality ones, even if you make them yourself.

Back to custom paper sizes…

The printer has no roll paper support, so if you want to make panoramic prints, you might think of a specialist paper, such as the panoramic paper sizes I was looking at, from Paper Spectrum (a local supplier within cycling distance).

The picture below shows a box of 297mm x 900mm (panoramic A3) that I was going to try out.

I’d successfully printed a 210mm x 594mm with a custom page size.

900mm wide panoramic paper

So I went and created a new paper size…

900mm custom page length

Mildly annoying was the fact that I was able to print this, with no warnings or otherwise…

failed panoramic print

Then I looked in the manual (something I get less and less keen to do, the more printers I test).

There it is, clear to see.

A maximum page length of just over 26 inches.

Yes, really… 26 inches. Looking at how the paper actually fed perfectly well through the printer, I’ve no doubt that the mechanism is quite capable of handling the 900mm (~36 inches) paper, but someone somewhere would rather you bought a larger printer to do it.

Problems with this particular printer

The sheets of A4 lustre photo paper below, have just been taken out of a new box.

As you can see, there is a very slight curl. This was enough to leave head strike marks at the start and end of every sheet printed.

Even after various cleaning methods (outlined earlier) there were still small marks (enough to render the print unacceptable for commercial sale).

Exerting a bit of pressure against the curl (using the curved edge of the printer) was enough to get the sheets quite flat, but still elicited some strike marks.

How much of this is due to the printer being damaged in transit, I cannot say, but the printer does seem rather intolerant of any curl in media at the top and boom of a sheet.

Ink costs

Buying a Canon PRO-1

We make a specific point of not selling hardware, but if you found the review of help please consider buying the PR-1, 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-1 at B&H, Adorama

If there is one area that regularly appears in on-line discussions of printers of this size, it’s how much ink they use.

To their credit, Canon publish ink usage figures, and the methodology they adopt to work them out.
>I must preface this part of the discussion by saying 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.

Let’s just take Canon’s figures for A3+ paper and colour photos.

Ink tank Average yield (pages)
PGI-29C 230
PGI-29M 281
PGI-29Y 290
PGI-29PC 400*
PGI-29PM 228
PGI-29R 454*
PGI-29MBK 505*
PGI-29PBK 111
PGI-29DGY 119
PGI-29GY 179
PGI-29LGY 352*
PGI-29CO 90
* Estimated supplemental yieldInk yield may vary depending on texts/photos printed, applications software used, print mode and type of paper used.

I should still note though, that a ‘back of the envelope’ calculation shows that if you printed around 20 square metres of paper a month (~125 A3+ sheets), then compared with the 17″ Canon iPF5100, you would spend over £1500 a year extra on ink (based on MRP for inks)

This is certainly not to say that the PRO-1 is particularly expensive, just that if you are printing a lot of images, then you really should be buying a bigger printer.

Looking at the values, and how the inks ran down during testing, I’m inclined to think that these figures are not unreasonable, particularly the relatively rapid use of gloss optimiser. I see however, that the PGI-29CO cartridges are slightly cheaper to buy than the inks.

It’s worth noting though that these figures represent continuous printing, and when the printer first turned up, it used up rather a lot of ink in cleaning – the message here, being not to ship printers around full of ink, particularly by normal carrier.

Being of a curious nature, I weighed the ink cartridges before and after replacement.

With the black cartridge I dismantled, I’d waited until the printer absolutely refused to print – there was a very tiny amount of ink in the bag I opened.

If I were unwise enough to change a cartridge at the very first ‘low ink’ warning, then almost 20% of ink was unused. Waiting until the second ‘ink may run out’ warning, still had around 7% of ink remaining.

I’ve had to be careful in this review to make a distinction between the slightly battered printer we’ve reviewed and what a carefully looked after one would be like.

Overall

The printer is huge and very heavy for an A3+ printer – the build quality reflects this, and it’s an elegant design.

With the 12 inks, print quality is excellent for both colour and black and white, on a variety of media. The gloss coating ‘ink’ effectively lowers (but does not eliminate) gloss differential issues on some shiny surface papers.

The larger ink tanks give better value than smaller A3+ printers and are easily replaceable.

Paper size limitations and the need for a 35mm border at the start and end of some paper types may be a problem for some users. The printer also seems rather intolerant of residual paper curl at the top and bottom of pages.

Update: October 2014 – Canon release a firmware update, that increases print area, canvas support and ink level detection. The details are not clear, but it does not seem to completely remove the restrictions on top and bottom margins for fine art papers or change the maximum print length.

Summary

A 12 cartridge pigment ink based A3+ printer (14″ width) that produces excellent black and white and colour prints.

Supports a range of media, including thick paper and printable CDs. Some annoying limitations on print sizes and margins, with certain media types.

Operating Systems: Mac OS 10.3 – 10.8, Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/Vista/Win7.

PRO-1 at B&H, Adorama, Amazon.com

SPECIFICATIONS (from Canon)

Product Specification
PRINTER FUNCTIONS
Print Resolution Up to 4800¹ x 2400 dpi
Print Engine Inkjet, 12 Single Inks, LUCIA ink system with Chroma Optimizer. Minimum 4pl droplet size & FINE print head.
Photo Lab Quality Speed A3+: Approx. 2m 55s (Standard)¹
Ink Cartridge Configuration 12 separate ink tanks:
PGI-29PBK, PGI-29MBK, PGI-29DGY, PGI-29GY, PGI-29LGY, PGI-29C, PGI-29PC, PGI-29M, PGI-29PM, PGI-29Y, PGI-29R, PGI-29CO
Ink Tanks Life 10×15 photo¹
Photo Black: 1300 photos*
Matte Black: 1925 photos*
Dark Grey: 710 photos
Grey: 724 photos
Light Grey: 1320 photos
Cyan: 1940 photos*
Photo Cyan: 1445 photos
Magenta: 1850 photos*
Photo Magenta: 1010 photos
Yellow: 1420 photos
Red: 2370 photos*
Chroma Optimizer: 510 photos
A3+ photo²
Photo Black: 111 photos
Matte Black: 505 photos*
Dark Grey: 119 photos
Grey: 179 photos
Light Grey: 352 photos*
Cyan: 230 photos
Photo Cyan: 400 photos*
Magenta: 281 photos
Photo Magenta: 228 photos
Yellow: 290 photos
Red: 454 photos*
Chroma Optimizer: 90 photos
*Estimated Supplemental Yield
Media Type Plain Paper, Fine Art Paper “Museum Etching” (FA-ME1), Fine Art Paper “Photo Rag™” (FA-PR1), Photo Paper Pro Platinum (PT-101), Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (PP-201), Photo Paper Plus Semi-gloss (SG-201), Matte Photo Paper (MP-101), High Resolution Paper (HR-101N), Photo Stickers (PS-101), Other (Fine Art Paper, Fine Art Paper 2, Glossy Photo Paper)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, 10x15cm
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) and supported Canon special media up to approx. 300 g/m²
Manual Feeder: Canon special media up to approx. 350g/m² and 0.6mm
DVD / CD Printing Available as standard
Two Sided Printing Available by manual operation only
Borderless Printing Yes (A3+, A3, A4, Letter, 36 x 43cm, 25 x 30cm, 20 x 25cm, 13 x 18cm, & 10 x 15cm sizes)¹
INTERFACE AND SOFTWARE
Interface Type – PC Ethernet: 10/100Mbps (auto switchable)
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (B port)
Interface Type – Camera Direct Print Port: Camera direct photo printing from PictBridge compliant digital cameras & camcorders
Interface Type – Mobile Phone / PDA Photo printing via PictBridge
Supported Operating System Windows 7 (32 and 64bit), Windows Vista (32 and 64bit), Windows XP SP2, SP3
Mac OS X v10.4.11 – 10.7
Minimum System Requirements Windows 7: 1GHz or faster CPU, 1GB RAM (32bit) / 2GB RAM (64bit)
Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit): 1GHz or faster CPU, 512MB RAM
Windows XP SP2, 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 v10.6: Intel Processor, 1GB RAM
Mac OS X v10.5: Intel or PowerPC Processor (G4, G5, 867MHz or faster)
Mac OS X v10.4.11: Intel or PowerPC Processor (G5, G4, G3), 256MB RAM
Browser: Safari 3 or higher
CD-ROM Drive
Display: XGA 1024 x 768 or better
Driver Features Borderless printing, Greyscale printing, Vivid Photo, Clear Coating, Manual Colour Adjustment, Linear Tone, Photo Noise Reduction, Photo Optimizer PRO, Photo effects, Collate, Multiple page per sheet print, Booklet print, Poster print, Scaled print (20-400%), Fit-to-Page print, Quiet Mode, Auto Power Off¹
Software Included Easy-PhotoPrint EX with HD Movie Print¹, Easy-PhotoPrint Pro², Easy-WebPrint EX³, Solution Menu EX, Colour Management Tool Pro (download)
GENERAL FEATURES
Power Source AC 100-240V, 50 / 60Hz
Power Consumption Standby: Approx. 1.6W
Off: Approx. 0.4W
Printing: Approx. 24W¹
Temperature Range Operating environment: 5° – 35° C
Humidity Operating humidity: 10 – 90%RH (no condensation)
Acoustic Noise Levels Approx. 35.5 dB(A)¹
Dimensions (W x D x H) 695 x 462 x 239 mm
Weight Approx. 27.7 kg

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10 Comments
  • Keith | Mar 22, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    The Pro-1 is getting on a bit. I think the pro-100 is probably first up for replacement this year – we may see a pro-1000 replacement as well, perhaps with working roll paper support this time ;-) However for a business I wouldn’t go for anything smaller than a 24″ (now the pro-2100)

  • Albert | Mar 22, 2020 at 8:49 pm

    Thanks for the thorough review Keith. I’m starting in the FineArt print business, and this review was a good read and took some notes from it.

    Although the PRO-1 is probably not produced anymore, given that we have the PRO10,100 and 1000, this is a great way to dig further into this business. Will be looking into other artciles here.

    cheers!

  • BZ | Jan 16, 2017 at 8:16 am

    Thanks for the reply. Yes, I’m aware of the margin problem. I don’t like it, but the alternative I have in mind is the Epson P600, but there I don’t like the fact that you waste ink when chaching the blacks. Also the clogging is a bit of a risk. I have a R800 do have clogging now and then. It’s a matter of deciding which disadvantages are less important for me.

  • kacoooper | Jan 15, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    If they are both the same price, look at the total amount of ink you get in a set of PRO-1 ink carts with the printer.

    Both are OK printers, but the pro-1 is a distinctly more advanced design.

    Do take note of the margin limitations with some paper types, that I mention. This would be a problem for me, but very much depends on what sort of printing you do.

  • BZ | Jan 15, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    Thanks for the great review.
    I’m a hobbiest and like to print my prictures. I’m not printint a lot so in principle the Canon Pro-1 is overkill and the Pro-10 would be a more reasonable choice, but I can buy both printers (new) for the same price, that’s why I’m tempted to go for the Pro-1, but I’m not shure if this is a good idea printing low quantities only. I could use some avice.

  • Ahem | Dec 2, 2012 at 11:01 pm

    Thanks for the thorough review. The 35mm margins and panorama limitations are possibly enough for me to avoid this printer. I’ll have to wait for a 17″ version to see if that fixes those.

    The yellow dots you see are likely to identify the printer to the police. No, I’m not kidding:
    http://seeingyellow.com/

  • Keith | Nov 28, 2012 at 10:33 pm

    Nope, the 26″ limit work for Macs and Windows – see the printer specs.

    Qimage is Win only, so I’ve never actually tried it (we’re a Win PC free zone ;-)

    I’m sure there are ways to spoof the printer, but hardly something I’d want for serious printing…

  • Lynn Allan | Nov 28, 2012 at 10:00 pm

    Regarding the limitation of 26″ panorama width: would QImage improve that? Perhaps to 44″?

    I believe you mentioned QImage in another article. I have only tried the demo version of QImage for a very short time on a Canon Pro 9000-2, and didn’t attempt a extra-wide pano. Is there a version for Mac? (I use Windows 7).

    And as a way to avoid wasting a sheet of extra-wide paper: tape several sheets of plain copy paper together and “spoof” that it is wider than 26″ to see what happens.

  • Keith | Nov 27, 2012 at 9:37 am

    Sorry Roger, but industry awards mean nothing IMHO. I take them as no more than marketing aids and a sign that it was manufacturer X’s turn for an award that year ;-)

    For a desktop printer (for myself) the paper length and margin sizes of the PRO-1 would be fatal flaws – the curl performance is possibly related to the particular demo printer I was sent – that said, you should check this aspect out.

    Roll paper on 2″ cores is always susceptible to curl, but the R3000 I looked at had no problems printing on it.

    The 9400 should be virtually indistinguishable to the PRO-1 in almost all real world printing – it’s not for nothing that I largely ignore the xxxx by yyyy dpi figures for printers that I’m testing ;-)

  • Roger | Nov 27, 2012 at 12:14 am

    I have read your review, and had actually just placed an order for a PIXMA PRO-1 before I read it. :-)
    This is very interesting reading.
    I choose the PRO-1 based on its winning awards, high 4800 x 2400 dpi print resolution, 12 Colour Ink Palette, and for being brand new and supposed to be the new top model in its class.
    However, the print problems that you experienced with a very slight curl media is not promising. I will carefully look for this problem when I receive my printer, and let you know.
    Also, from your review I can now better understand the practical problem of not using paper rolls (that would not work for the PRO-1 anyway, if this is a more general problem, and not just a problem specifically to your printer).
    My alternative was the Epson R3000 (with its roll paper capability and 5760 x 1440 dpi but “only” 9 colour Ink Palette) and even the Epson Stylus 3880.
    Should I reconsider, before I even unpack my PRO-1?
    Will the Epson R3000 take very curled paper from a 2″ core roll, without any print problems?
    I should add that I have also ordered a Canon iPF-9400 (60″), so when I need to produce long prints, I can certainly use this – although probably not with the same brilliant printing results as the PRO-1 or R3000?
    Thanks for your great reviews. I am learning a lot.

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