Is the Canon Pixma Pro 100 Good at Printing on Art Paper

Learn all almost the Canon PRO-100 with our Review Outset Wait Introduction and Getting Started

Introduction

The Canon PRO-100 was announced in September of 2012 and is the successor to the Catechism Pro9000 MkII. Information technology is a 13" broad, eight color, dye based photograph inkjet printer. Designed for assuming colour reproduction on any quality inkjet paper, the PRO-100 is a robust photo printer that should be considered by the photo enthusiast, graphic designer, business user, and anyone else needing 13" adequacy.

But the Facts

13" wide photograph quality inkjet printer

Print 4" x 6" upward to 13" ten 26" banners

Eight Dye Based Inks - Cyan, Xanthous, Magenta, Black, Photograph Cyan, Photo Magenta, Grey, Light Grey

Estimated Retail Cost $499

Ink Toll - About $16.99 per tank retail

Standard Ink Tanks - Belongings about 13mL of ink each

Opening the Box

The Catechism PRO-100 box arrived in adept status after its long journeying. The printer came well packed with all of the accompaniment pieces stored in dissever bags. The printer was in a heavy duty plastic bag with handles, which made getting it out of the box a breeze. After plugging in the printer, the quick start guide got us started in a few uncomplicated steps.

The Canon PRO-100 shipping box includes:

Canon PRO-100 printer
CD/DVD press tray
Inks
Impress Head
Manual
Ability Cord
Setup CD
USB Cable

Catechism Pixma Pro-100 Inks

The printer comes with a total fix of CLI-42 ink cartridges. A small amount of ink volition exist used in the printer setup, simply y'all volition notwithstanding have plenty left to make prints and become familiar with the machine.

Anatomy of a Canon ink tank

A - Bottom of ink tank and ink outlet. The orange cap will exist removed before ink is installed

B - Ink reservoir. Canon inks have ii chambers. The rear area is open, allowing you to visually inspect the ink level. The forwards expanse is packed with absorbent material and holds a portion of the ink volume above the outlet to the printer head.

C - Onboard flake. The onboard chip stores and reports ink level. Information technology does not really know how much ink is physically in the tank. Rather, information technology starts at 100%, then records nozzle firing data sent from the printer and subtracts volume. The organization is very authentic, and you will indeed see a dry out tank when it comes time to do a replacement.

Print Head

The PRO-100 print head / ink cartridge assembly comes in a separate sealed purse. A large orangish plastic embrace must be removed to reveal the head (run into at right). Installing the head, then inks into their railroad vehicle is simple and takes nearly a minute.

Existence able to inspect an inkjet print caput up close is very interesting. It gives you a skillful thought of the amazing applied science involved in inkjet press and the truly minor scale of a print head.

One time installed you will meet a lite on the front of the ink tank illuminate and glow steady red. The aforementioned light blinks slowly when you're depression on ink and quickly once the tank has been depleted.

Canon PRO-100 Ink Tanks Included

Black CLI-42
Cyan CLI-42
Magenta CLI-42
Xanthous CLI-42
Photo Cyan CLI-42
Photograph Magenta CLI-42
Gray CLI-42
Light Greyness CLI-42

Getting Ready to Print

Once all of the inks were installed, the printer charged up and was fix to begin press in less than five minutes.

The assembled printer is 27.2" broad, 15.2" deep, 8.five" loftier, and weighs 43 pounds.

You'll want at least ten" of clearance from the back of the printer to the wall for proper operation and use of the specialty newspaper tray.

When fully extended, the front paper tray extends 12.five" from the front of the printer.

Front end Control Panel

The forepart command panel of the PRO-10 consists of three controls:

Power push button with light
Resume / Cancel button with warning light. Errors will exist identified past different sequences of blinking. Consult your online manual for help with decoding the sequence should yous have a problem.
Wireless connectivity button with indicator lite

Connectivity

The PRO-100 can connect to your figurer via USB two.0, wireless network, or ethernet.

The PRO-ten has two media feed paths and a CD/DVD printing tray

Rear tray - for the majority of media you'll use
Manual feed - single canvass tray for heavy and specialty media

Canon notes that the recommended newspaper capacity for the rear tray is 20 pages for 4" x 6" and 5" x seven" photo media, 10 pages for letter of the alphabet and 8" 10 ten" photograph media and a single folio for larger sizes. A unmarried page is too recommended for Art papers.

Red River's experience thus far is that the rear tray tin can hold up to 50 sheets, depending on the thickness of your paper. Photo papers similar luster, satin, and glossy at 10.4mil are expertly handled past the PRO-100 with no misfeeds. If you're using matte paper or thick media, fewer sheets should exist fed in at in one case. Fine art stock, canvas, and specialty paper should exist fed into the manual single sheet path. For some driver media settings, the printer volition only allow the single sheet path to exist used.

CD Press Capability

Above you lot can see the CD holder that comes with the printer. The holder is placed into a front slot on the left side of the automobile. Delight note that you'll need specialty CD or DVD media coated for inkjet press.

Canon's My Prototype Garden software is provided to set up and print discs.

Print Speeds and Results

Print Quality

The Canon PRO-100 offers what nosotros can just draw as continuous tone photo press. That is to say when you're printing a typical photograph, the dots of ink that make up the photo are not visible at normal viewing distance or even fairly close inspection. This is peculiarly true when press on satin, luster, and glossy media. Solid blocks of color are uniform and smooth looking. Merely in some mid-tone areas will you lot occasionally run across a few dots. Again, one would need to be unnaturally close to the impress to see them! As far as inkjet printing goes, the PRO-100 produces outstanding photo quality.p>

Print Speed

An 8" ten ten" file at 240ppi (shown above) was printed and timed using the settings listed below:

Luster Paper Highest Quality (Level 1) = 2 minutes 21 seconds
Luster Paper High Quality (Level 2) = 1 minute 36 seconds
Luster Paper Standard Quality (Level iii) = 50 seconds

Matte Paper High Quality = 2 minutes xix seconds
Matte Paper Standard Quality = one minute 34 seconds

Quality Settings

Nosotros printed the target file on UltraPro Satin and 47lb. Premium Matte using the Photo Newspaper Pro Luster and Matte Photo Paper media settings, respectively. The prints were allowed to dry out 8 hours, and then evaluated under balanced 4700k Solux lights.

Our initial evaluation revealed niggling obvious difference between the prints. Saturation and colour balance were like. Even solid color patches and transitions were hard to distinguish upon coincidental viewing.

Closer inspection of the Standard quality impress revealed a slight reddish cast, especially in grayscale transition areas. The cast disappeared and grays shifted dorsum to neutral at the higher settings.

The biggest difference between Standard and higher quality settings was edge definition and clarity. You can see the difference in these macro shots below.

The difference between Standard quality level 3 and the college quality prints is apparent. Keep in mind that these are macro paradigm and the difference is not hit at viewing altitude. All the same, the smoother dot blueprint and cleaner edges of quality level 2 and 1 will effect is sharper looking prints.

Our conclusion is that Level 2 Loftier print quality is the best setting for well-nigh photo projects. The Level one setting does not result in appreciably better impress quality and takes 38% longer to consummate.

Black & White

For the commencement time, Canon has included greyness and calorie-free gray inks in a PRO level dye based printer. In combination with black, these ii new tanks greatly help the B&W output of the PRO-100. Another kickoff is detailed printer driver control of grayscale output. Our tests consisted of printing the 8x10 test print (shown to a higher place) using the commuter B&West characteristic. Photoshop was set to Printer Manages Colour and no adjustments were made to the target file. Nosotros printed the target using the default, Absurd Tone, and Warm Tone settings. After drying for eight hours the prints were evaluated nether balanced Solux light.

Neutral - neutral grays with little or no color cast
Cool Tone - a very slight shift to blue and a cooler await
Warm Tone - a light only noticeable warm shift with a slight yellow tone

Tone tin also exist controlled via Ten and Y variables, slider confined, or by placing your mouse within the Tone box.

Effulgence settings include normal, light and dark. Intensity and contrast are sliders allowing for finer adjustments.

All of these adjustments will be "previewed" using a standardized sample image. The drop down menu below the pencil photo at right allows you to choose different preview samples. What actually happens on your printed image may exist dissimilar. We suggest existence judicious with changes and brand modest test prints when getting started.

Overall nosotros were pleased with the results. You will benefit from well prepared files, which means proper exposure also as some additional mid-tone contrast. Both are helpful in adding the proper amount of intensity and life into a black & white print.

Canon Pro-100 Printer Commuter Tour

Quick Setup Tab

The Canon PRO-100 printer drivers are basically unchanged from previous PRO printer models. Nosotros're starting on the Quick Setup tab, which contains most of the controls y'all'll demand for printing.

From this menu you tin can choose the media type (paper type), newspaper size, print quality, and other important features.

Main Tab

We recommend using this screen as much equally possible as information technology gives y'all admission to the custom print quality and manual colour controls.

Media Type

When setting up a impress chore, yous must tell the printer the blazon of inkjet paper (media) that yous are using. Think of the media type as office color profile and part ink throttle. Unlike inkjet papers demand dissimilar amounts of ink to perform properly - and this is where the media setting becomes important.

If you are using ICC colour profiles, the media type is critical. Yous have to gear up the media according to your profile's instructions in guild to get the all-time results.

Note! You will not see culling paper brands, such as Red River Paper, in this listing. But manufacturer inkjet media are in this drop down.

Fine Art Margins - If you choose a art or non-Canon specialty media type, the printer driver forces a 30mm (1.18") margin to the top and bottom of your print. The left and right margins are set at 3.4mm (0.13"). The media settings as well limit the available paper size y'all tin can utilise to:

Letter
A4
A3
A3+ 13x19

The characteristic is well-nigh likely an try to minimize possible head strikes at the beginning and ending of a print when using "fine art" papers. As a event, Blood-red River Paper and other paper companies have chosen to make their fine art printer profiles with the Matte Photo Newspaper setting, which avoids the size and margin constraint.

Quality Options

Print quality can exist controlled from the Quick Setup and Main tabs.

Quality Choices

On either the Quick Setup or Main tab, quality settings of Standard and High are available when using photograph quality media.

To access the custom quality menu, go to the Main tab, click on the Custom radio button, and then click Set up. A slider controls the print quality setting. Level 2 corresponds to Loftier and Level 3 to Standard quality. Y'all volition also find a tertiary quality choice, the Level 1 setting. Canon has not given this setting a named label. We will call it "Highest" for the purposes of this review.

Only sleeky, semigloss, and luster media settings have Highest quality equally an option. Lower quality settings, such as Fast (Level four), are available when obviously newspaper or envelope media are selected. Y'all would choose this setting for text and light graphic printing.

Color / Intensity

The PRO-100 driver colour controls accept an Car and Manual mode. In Machine mode, the printer is completely in control of color management. You'll cull this setting if you are not using a printer colour profile, and if you have found the printer'southward default setting to offering adequate output quality.

If yous need to make slight adjustments to the printer's color output, y'all tin can click on the Manual radio button then the Set push for the Transmission Color Adjustment menu.

On the Color Adjustment tab y'all'll notice a number of sliders. These are "crude" controls for color saturation, effulgence, intensity, and contrast. Nosotros say crude because there is no colour managed preview of your image with the changes. The workflow pattern would normally be print, arrange, print, and adjust until you got the desired results.

One answer to the trouble is to always use a printer color profile for the PRO-100 and your paper. Profiles take the guesswork out of correction and faithfully reproduce your file to the best of your newspaper's power.

For those not swayed past the printer profile statement, Canon has a feature called Blueprint Print. Accessible from the printer backdrop (Windows) or the Print Studio Pro plug-in, Blueprint Impress volition setup and print a repeating serial of your image on a unmarried sheet of paper. The pattern represents and denotes various changes to color or brightness/contrast settings. Upon consulting the choices, you tin punch in the recommended changes into the printer'due south colour aligning controls. Brand sure you lot allow the test print dry at least an hour, preferably longer, earlier making whatsoever decisions.

Below is a screen shot from Print Studio Pro showing the pattern layout and recommended Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow settings to achieve the look of each variant.

If you are using a printer color contour (ICC profile), then you will select the Matching tab. Under the heading Color Correction you'll find:

Driver Matching - this is the default setting for printer color management

None - this setting completely turns off the printer'southward color controls. Utilise this setting when you accept a printer colour profile and are using it to impress via Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Qimage, and the like.

ICM - Rarely used, ICM allows yous to print using a printer colour contour from software that is not "ICC aware". This applies to bones photo software and layout tools where the developers did not know of or consider color direction important.

Page Setup

Controls for paper size, impress orientation, and layout options are on the Page Setup tab.

Borderless Options

Of particular interest are the Borderless print controls. When Borderless is selected, you volition notice the Amount of Extension slider appear. When printing without borders, the PRO-100 will automatically stretch out the edges of a file to insure ink covers the edges of the newspaper. You can increase or subtract this function. Motion the slider to the left for more extension. If you lot have a photo with of import details at the edges reduce the amount of extension to avoid those areas existence cut off.

Borderless is in option with the following media settings:

Photo Paper Pro Platinum
Photo Paper Plus Glossy Two
Photo Paper Pro Luster
Photo Paper Plus Semi-gloss
Matte Photo Paper

Borderless Sizes Choices

Above you'll see all of the possible Canon PRO-100 borderless size options. These are set by the factory and cannot exist modified.

Read our 11x14 Borderless Hack for the PRO-100.

Custom Paper Sizes

Similar other Canon printers, the PRO-100 allows you to ascertain custom newspaper sizes. The limits:

Newspaper Width: 12.95" - Afterward some experimentation, we found that a custom size ready to thirteen" causes a print error. Using 12.95" fixed that issue. Yous will notice 16.54 on the width scale. This seems to be a software coding error.

Paper Elevation: 26.61" - Nosotros establish the effective maximum print height is 26".

Maintenance Tab

The Nozzle Check, Head Cleaning, and Print Head Alignment are all disquisitional tools to have if you experience a drop in print quality. You can call up your printer status dialog from this screen.

Custom Settings

You volition notice a very important control in the custom settings menu, Prevent Paper Abrasion. E'er plow it on when you apply heavy or specialty media. Nosotros recommend using the characteristic with papers over 12mil thickness.

Ink Drying Wait Time controls the pause between print head passes. Because dye inks dry out rapidly the setting volition likely non need to exist changed.

If yous use custom sizes and see a commuter error relating to paper size and setting compatibility, try turning off the Notice Paper Width.

Included Software

Descriptions are taken from the Canon online manual.

My Prototype Garden

My Paradigm Garden is an application that allows you to employ photos taken with digital cameras and other images saved on your computer, in many ways for diverse purposes. You tin organize a vast number of images easily, or create collages, cards and other items from your favorite photos and print them. Moreover, you tin perform diverse scans with one click.

Print Studio Pro

Print Studio Pro is a plug-in that makes professional photograph printing easier and more than convenient.

In improver to press bordered photos and borderless photos, you tin can perform various printing tasks such as index press, grayscale printing and press using ICC profiles. You lot tin can also accommodate the margins or add text.

Quick Carte du jour

Quick Menu is software that allows y'all to hands start the applications and manuals supplied with the auto, or quickly access online product information. In addition, with simultaneously installed Image Display, y'all tin enjoy patterns of collages and other items created automatically past the item recommendation function of My Epitome Garden also as slide shows of images saved on a reckoner.

Easy-WebPrint EX

Easy-WebPrint EX is software that allows you to easily impress spider web pages displayed in Internet Explorer.

You can impress a web page by automatically reducing its size to fit the paper width to forbid the edges from being cropped or by selecting pages in preview.

My Printer

My Printer is an application that allows you to display the setting screen of the printer commuter or look up solutions to operational issues.

Ruby River Paper Compatibility

Our line of Premium Inkjet Papers includes over xxx that Work Well in the Canon PRO-100. You can See the All-time Compatible Photograph Paper for the PRO-100 and Order a Sample Kit to Test.

Impress Testing

We made a number of prints on all compatible Ruby River papers from 4x6 up to 13x19. In most cases we used Printer Color profiles for the PRO-100. Using profiles is always a good idea, and in the case of this new printer they really help increment the saturation and colour accuracy.

Glossy Papers

Polish glossy papers like Red River UltraPro Gloss 2.0 have advantage of the PRO-100's bold color gamut and tack sharp print particular.

Satin / Luster Papers

The light texture of satin and luster papers are another "must effort" for the PRO-100 owner. The satin surface minimizes fingerprints and ameliorate withstands handling. Crimson River's ever-pop UltraPro Satin and true professional person grade Arctic Polar Luster are sure to please when paired with the PRO-100.

Photo Metallic Paper

Polar Gloss Metallic 255 (formerly 66lb. Polar Pearl Metallic) allows you to capture the look of Kodak Endura Metallic™ on your home inkjet printer. Images virtually jump off the page and colors are vibrant and almost luminous.

Photograph Matte

Matte papers are smooth and accept no reflection. They are perfect for images and piece of work where fine item is important. A flat surface means more light gets directly back to your eyes. This ways you see more item and are not distracted by glare. Prints on 60lb. Premium Matte PLUS on the PRO-100 prove good detail, well balanced color and good saturation. You volition greatly do good from use of printer color profiles when printing on matte surfaces.

Fine Photographic, Art, and Canvass media.

The new, easier to use single sail tray makes using thick fine fine art and sheet media a joy. Make certain to set the "Forbid Newspaper Chafe" feature in the printer'due south utility when using these inkjet papers. Prints on Red River Palo Duro Baryta Cobweb 300 and Blanco Matte Canvas looked great and help highlight the versatility of the PRO-100.

First Impressions

After spending five days with this printer and printing about 100 images, we find the Catechism PRO-100 an excellent replacement for the Pro9000 MkII. The printer'southward speed and colour quality are on par if not slightly better than the older machine. The improver of a specialty media path for thick papers is prove that Catechism acknowledges the advanced press requirements of their photograph enthusiast customers.

Positives

Photograph quality from the PRO-100 is astonishing and is for all intents continuous tone. Dots become visible only on magnified inspection of a print.
Excellent color gamut made even better with printer contour use.
Expert blackness & white capability with the addition of grayness and light gray inks. Specific B&Due west software controls brand the task of grayscale printing easier and more than anticipated.
Rapid impress speed.
Robust newspaper handling from both the regular newspaper tray and the unmarried canvass specialty path.
Compatible with virtually whatsoever quality inkjet paper.
Meliorate fade resistance from ChromaLife 100+ inks.

The Ferrari of Inkjet Greeting Card Printers

If you're serious about printing photograph note cards, nosotros have to say that the PRO-100 is an splendid printer for the chore. Similar well-nigh Canon printers, the PRO-100 will feed bill of fare stock consistently through the standard newspaper tray. Beingness able to put a stack of Pecos River Gloss Note Cards into the tray, gear up the job and walk abroad is huge for card printers. Add together in the speed, photo quality, and robust build and yous have a professional quality desktop carte du jour press system.

Issues

There are a couple of items that nosotros hoped would be addressed with this new 13" wide dye ink printer. First, we missed 11x14 as an bachelor borderless size. Read our 11x14 borderless hack for the PRO-100

Have Questions? Want to Know More?

Please Contact united states of america via the Support Centre with your questions almost the PRO-100, or annihilation inkjet related. We're happy to share our knowledge from fifteen years in inkjet printing with you lot!

Best Inkjet Papers for the Canon PRO-100 Printer

Observe the Most Pop Compatible Papers for the Canon PRO-100.

Get a Sample Kit for the PRO-100.

kujawskianert1972.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.redrivercatalog.com/infocenter/canon-pro-100-review-introduction-first-look-getting-started.html