Customer Reviews

Canon I-9900 Photo Printer

5 star:		(146)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I've had my i9900 since it first came out and I love it! Before this I had two Epson photo printers and was happy with them at the time but everything about this printer is better... The print speed is incredible, I haven't had a clogged head yet (Epson owners will appreciate this), the individual ink cartridges are economical, and the print quality is phenomenal. Although I print more 4x6's than anything, I've made several 13 x 19 prints and they look great. Genuine Canon ink cartridges can be bought for about $10.00 each if you shop around a bit. They last a reasonably long time and are a snap to change.

I only have two quibbles with this printer and neither is serious enough to affect its five-star rating... It doesn't print on CD's and you can't make a borderless 8 x 10" print (you can make a borderless 8˝ x 11" but my Epson handled both sizes).

I can't speak to print longevity yet but I don't expect it to be a problem. I never used Epson's archival inks & papers and have not noticed any fading of those prints, even after 3-4 years hanging on my wall. I expect that prints made with the i9900 will be equivalent, which is fine with me. I don't sell my prints so if in ten years a print has faded, I'll simply make a new one.

One last thing... Although I usually don't recommend using paper from anyone but the manufacturer of the printer, I've found that Epson's Premium Glossy Photo Paper works fine with this model. You get a very slight shift toward yellow when compared with Canon's best paper but can be easily adjusted out if desired. I mention this because I print a lot of 4x6's and Epson's 100 pack of their best glossy paper (S041727) is quite a bit cheaper than even Canon's mid-line paper. Also, although the glossy surface on the Epson and Canon papers are near identical, the back of the Epson paper is smoother than the Canon's, making the prints slide easier (and feel better) in your hand. This is a small thing but you may want to give it a try.

If you're looking for a wide-carriage photo printer, there's a lot to like with this one.

Update - 6/30/2005: After living with this printer for nine months I'm still impressed. I've not had any problems, not even a clogged head (something I constantly had with my Epsons). I did stop using the Epson 4x6 paper and now use Canon's mid-line "Photo Paper Plus" for my 4x6 snapshots. I make a lot of 4x6's and don't see any difference between this and Canon's much more expensive "Photo Paper Pro" (I still use "Pro" for my larger prints though). One small complaint is that a few other photo printers do a better job producing neutral black & white prints. Lastly, I didn't mention text printing in my first review because I have an HP for that. I have used the Canon for text documents on a few occasions and it does an Ok job but that's not why people buy this printer.

I've had this printer since it was first stocked at compusa. so far, its's been an amazing inkjet printer. I previously owned epsons (3000, 2200) which required lots of maintainance such as frequent head cleaning, tweaking with color profiles to get color matching, and having a designated computer as RIP print server. Canon is easy--direct connection to my computer via FireWire (or USB1/2). Straight out of the box, photo prints had relatively good color matching to what I see on my Apple Cinema display. Colors were a bit warmer and more saturated than what I would prefer. But they were still very good. It prints quietly and very fast (especially compared to Epson 2200 & 3000) . I wanted to get precise color matching to what I see on my screen. It took me about an hour to calibrate my monitor, set up color profiles, and adjusting only the color intensity on the Canon printer and printing with my custom color profile to get the colors nearly perfect.
I saw that some complained about the ink cost. Canon uses 8 inks and will run you about a hundred dollars to get all 8. BUT...it rarely uses Red and Green. Photo colors (PCyan, PMagenta) seems to run out pretty fast. If you have photoshop you can always adjust the color distribution in CMYK so that the printer uses more ink from black but and not from the four process colors. I looked at the prints under a loop and found that 2-picoliter droplets stay on the surface of the page. It seems like a lot of ink does not go on the page but they are tightly held together to produce excellent color and definition. Anyway, the cost of printing on this Canon is no more than Epson 2200.Text printing is so-so if you are printing direclty to the printer. It isn't as tight and defined like printing through RIP. BUT. you can emulate this effect and get near perfect text printing by saving your doc as a PDF and then printing the PDF file. The result is amazing! Anyway, it's an excellent printer. Get to know it well and it will treat you well.

All the good reviews of this printer are true. It's fast, quiet, and the prints are amazing. But I just wanted to mention something VERY important some people. This is a DYE INK based printer. Not a PIGMENT INK based printer. That means your prints will fade over time compared to a pigment ink printer.

I have a photo that I've printed from the i9900 with the Canon Pro paper that is hanging in my office (which has florescent lights). After 6 months, the print has faded quite noticeably. The deep blacks are turning brown and everything else is changing colors. Now this print is not under glass. It's just pinned up on my board. Glass will protect the prints longer.

If you are looking for archival prints that will last a long time (100-200 years by their estimates) get a pigment based printer. Epson's Stylus Photo R1800 and R2400 are their 13"x19" printers in this class. Now if you are a Canon fan... Canon just announced that they are releasing two new printers this Fall (2006). One is the PIXMA Pro9000 which will use a better dye ink. The other is the Canon PIXMA Pro9500 which is going to be 13"x19" printer that finally uses pigment based ink. For more details, goto [...] and these new printers will be listed there.

There is kind of a debate between dye and pigment inks. They both have their pro's and con's. Google "dye vs pigment" and you'll come across some articles that go into detail and will help you determine what ink system will be right for you.

I have prints under glass that still look great. But I don't know how they will last in the years to come. But walking into my office and seeing that faded print made me decide to sell my i9900 and either buy the Epson now or wait the the new Canon. Since I'm so impressed with every other aspect of the i9900, I'm probably going to wait till the Canon PIXMA Pro9500 is released and buy that system.

The bottom line is that a 13"x19" print can cost around $5 (ink and paper). Having it last is extremely important. I hope this helps. Don't forget to Google those articles!

Absolutely phenomenal print quality! That's what it all comes down to and this printer, by far, produces the best quality prints I've ever seen. The colors just jump right off the paper.
Usually the old axiom, "garbage in, garbage out" holds true the majority of the time, but I've printed out some relatively crappy pictures (not mine of course <g>) that have looked decidedly non-crappy once 'transmogrified' by this printer. Of course, this won't work miracles, but it will allow you to get the best possible results from whatever your photographic labors have been. So if you spend a great deal of time and effort in composing and exposing your photos, then play with them for hours in Photoshop to eek out just the right tonal balances and colors, it really is a shame to print it on some run of the mill bargain printer. I was so impressed by this printer that I've gone back and reprinted all of the photos that I had in my house. Photos that I had previously thought 'perfect'. After reprinting them on the Canon, they really are even 'more' perfect. :-)
I've been doing photography now for over thirty years. I've seen some relatively revolutionary changes in photography over that time, but until now I've lamented the fact that you couldn't get a proper color print outside of the darkroom. This printer changes that. Which is an entirely good thing because color printing in the darkroom is a major PITA (+/- 1 degree tolerance in your chemicals, CYMK filtering, etc..).
I've gone through quite a few inkjets over the past six or seven years and was, until recently, very pleased with the output from my HP 5550. I knew it wasn't top of the line, but for $99 a year ago, it was quite good. Then I got to thinking about all the time, effort and money I was spending on producing photographs, only to print them out on a so-so printer. I did extensive research and narrowed down my choices to the Canon i9900 and the 8450. Both use the _identical_ printhead and inks, but the 8450 only handles letter size paper and smaller. For an extra $150 I decided on the i9900 so that I could handle 13x19 and smaller. Well worth the extra money. The first huge 13x19 print you make of your favorite photo will convince you as well.
Okay, enough blathering, here are my impressions:

PROS:
- unreal color quality
- 8 ink cartridges. 8 separate colors are responsible for the outstanding color, but also allow you to replace only the color cart that runs out (not only environmentally sound, but also saves you some coin in the long run).
- FAST print speed
- Relatively straight paper path (can handle heavier weight papers and doesn't mangle the paper)
- Exceptionally quiet
- I've only used Kodak, Ilford and Canon papers, but the print quality was extremely similar on all of them. I've not had it long enough to comment on the fade-resistance, but Canon claims 25+ years.

CONS:
- BIG footprint. Once you have the input paper support and output tray folded out, it's like a satellite with its solar panels unfurled. Front to back is 34 inches. That's right, just two inches short of a yard. 23 inches wide sounds small in comparison. 14 inches deep with the solar panels folded up isn't bad, but you do need to unfold them when you print. This thing gives new meaning to desktop printing - you need an entire desk for it.
- Pricey. Perhaps I've just been spoiled by sub $200 printers, but it is a big leap to lay out $500 for an inkjet. Quality-wise, it seems exceptional. And of course, the end result of amazing prints is well worth it if you can afford it. And when you consider that I've spent over $2K on digital cameras and lenses, $4K on my Mac G5 and accessories, etc.., it seems silly to cheap out where the "rubber meets the road".
- I don't quite understand the need for a duplexing system on this type of printer. I would rather have that as an option and pay less for the main printer.
- Black and white prints just don't seem as good as darkroom results for the same picture. I believe this could be improved if Canon were to rewrite the drivers for this printer, but for now, I'm continuing my search for a good b&w inkjet.

So in conclusion, I really love this printer. Canon has really taken the lead in the photo-printing market and I can't see anyone else catching up anytime soon.

[...]

I just purchased the Canon i9900 inkjet, and I just can't restrain my enthusiasm- it's absolutely amazing! Literally within 15 minutes of getting it all set up I had several beautiful prints, including a gorgeous 13x19 incher. I had owned a very competent, but older, Epson photo printer (870), but I really wanted something that would show off the abilities of my digital SLR (Nikon D70-love it, by the way), and this printer certainly seems to do that. Unbelievable detail, perfect color, the ability to go big, and no flaws in image quality that I can see. I am certainly not a professional photographer (amateur hobbyist), but the only excuse I have now for poor pictures will be my own lack of ability.

The only concern I had about the Canon over the Epsons was its ability to print black and whites, but it seems to be doing a beautiful job with those as well. Admittedly, I have not tried it with all the papers, but I can vouch wholeheartedly for the Photo Paper Pro and the Plus Glossy papers. I haven't had it long enough to comment on lightfastness or longevity. And yes, it is amazingly fast- a thing you may not even appreciate until you live with it a while. It makes the printing process so much easier and enjoyable that I anticipate printing a lot more (I'm sure to Canon's delight!). If you own a higher-megapixel camera you just haven't lived until you've seen your pictures really sharp and really huge.

Pros:
-Image quality
-Speed
-Price (esp. compared to the Epson 2200)
-Image size
-It's a handsome devil

Cons:
-Clunky paper feeding (but actual printing is very quiet)
-Price (compared to regular-sized printers)
-Not really sure where I'll find a 13x19 frame (?)

Can't comment yet:
-Ink costs
-Satisfaction with other papers
-Longevity and lightfastness (but the way I figure it, if it fades in a couple of years, I'll print out another one!)
-Software (so far, so good)

Had this printer about 1 month now. Had several Epson models previously. Before I decided to make the Canon switch I took my laptop to the store and printed out some color and black and white calibration charts along with actual photographs on the i9900 and some Epson 13" wide models. WOW, I was really surprised to see how much better the Canon photos were. Not even close! So then I started worrying about pigment inks vs dye inks and longevity. To make a long story short: Man does Epson have everyone snowed. First of all, regular photos from the photolab even professionaly done ones don't last as long as prints from either of these 2 printers. Sure the Epson pigment inks probably do last a very long time, but does it matter if your prints look like they were printed on an Epson instead of this Canon i9900?! The Canon prints are rated at 35 years. Plenty long enough for me. I decided to test myself, so I printed out an image, poured water all over one quarter of it. The ink didn't smear, fade, or do anything. It was perfectly durable! And this was with Canon ink on Epson Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper. Repeated the test on other papers and NO PROBLEM WITH WATER AND CANON INKS! In the real world no one is going to pour water over their prints anyway.... So on to the fade issue. Made another test print and covered half of it up with card board and taped it to the glass of a window facing South in my house. Now I live in Denver with VERY intense sun light and UV light! So I thought this would be a torture test for it. Half the image was beaten by sunlight on bright sunny days for a week. The results: no visually apparent fade! So if you print out nice stuff, frame it, put it behind glass, hang it in a normal lit room... it probably is possible to get a good 35 years out your print. Who really knows anyway?
This Canon printer has more "guts" inside it than my previous Epsons. For example it will do the head alignment routine semi-autmatically by scanning what it just printed using a sensor on the print head (some HP inkjets do this also). There seems to be a lot more thought and detail in the paper feed pathway too. Ink cartridges are easier to change than on the Epsons (minor detail). The print head is easily changed (major detail). The thing IS MUCH QUIETER PRINTING THAN ANY EPSON I HAVE EVER HEARD! Not to mention FASTER.
The Color profiles supplied with the Canon factory driver are VERY accurate. I have always had custom profiles made, and probably still will, but these are the best I have ever seen to come with the printer out of the box.
Canon's photo paper pro isn't much better from an image quality perspective than the Photo Glossy Plus.
Your old collection of Epson papers will work for fooling around with this printer, but not for your important stuff. For example, the Canon black ink reacts with the Epson papers (several) to produce a brown/black tone. On Canon paper however, the black is very neutral.
And for a finale: The reason this printer does so well (even with B/W, yes B/W) is the dots are truely very small and the vertical resolution very high at 2400 dpi. The reason "some printers" use ink cartridges containing shades of gray, is not to compete with John Cohn and [...] for B/W printing, but because they don't have the fine droplets and high resolution required to make a single black color work well for grayscale. The Canon i9900 does a surprisingly fantastic job at black and white. When using composite black with all the colors, the overall tone is slightly warm but not much. No metermism, no blotchy areas of strange rainbow colors, etc, etc. Just smooth even tone. When printing B/W with only Black (option in driver), you get a very neutral tone... and on glossy paper anyway, you can't see the dots and it produces a very smooth gray scale. I printed out a continous gray scale before buying the printer. EXCELLENT job in both black only and composite black.! Well done Canon! For image quality this printer has no equal!
The only thing you loose when you buy this printer, is a life of print head clogs from using those darn pigment inks. I have no problems with the Canon i9900 dye based inks.

And the winner is... CANON! By Far!! Read on....

I shoot for Federal Law Enforcement and the Air National Guard; I have managed a large format service bureau. I have printed on many, many different output devices to include Durst Lambda, Encad IJ, Roland HiFi Jet, Laser printers, Fuji Pictrography, Dye-sublimation devices, plus many more. I say all of this to validate my comments that follow...

The bottom line is the i9900 blows all of them away! This includes an Epson 9600, 7600 and 4000 all of which I use for the Feds and military. The only downfall is the lack of "Archival" inks. I lamented between the Epson 2200, and the i9900. I DO NOT regret one minute the i9900 decision! It is absolutely gorgeous! Now Canon needs to get on the archival ink bandwagon, and they will not be beat. I shoot a Canon 10D for my personal work, that coupled with the i9900 makes unreal images/prints, these prints blow the minds of all of my peers! They cannot believe the quality. It works with Epson, Konica/Minolta, and Red River papers perfectly. The Konica QP Glossy Paper is very nice, with no "bronzing", like the Epson pigmented inks.

I cannot tell that the printer is actually working until I see the paper moving, it is that quiet!

Downfalls would be the paper path not being a straight feed path, and the inks not being archival. The paper path has not presented a problem as of yet, but I will try some art paper and I am sure it will choke. I hope to be proved wrong on that thought. Although with the archival aspect I think that in 8-10 years when these prints are expected to fade, I will have been through several printers and the technology will be untouchable and I will just reprint them as needed. As far as selling the prints, well it will give me an opportunity to resell prints in the future...maybe. I will see down the road if they actually fade.

I hope that this has helped you make the right decision...the i9900!

Contact me if you have any further questions.
BaysidePhotoImaging@yahoo.com

Dennis

I recently got this printer just after New Years. I had it ready to go out of the box in 45 mins approx. Everything went flawlessly, there were no surprises or error messages.

I printed out some landscapes (13x19) and portraits (8 1/2x11) borderless, and the speed is truly amazing. A 13x19 in 3.5 mins from the point you hit the print button.

The quality of the prints on Canon Photo Paper Pro is truly amazing. Infact, the prints looked better than enlargements I had of the same prints done in a lab! Canon's algorithms for vivid photo and noise removal are pretty good, they don't interfere with the quality of the original image much, other than doing what they are supposed to.

The high-point was when my wife shut up after complaining of the high cost, when she exclaimed that the pictures looked better than a calender. And that I should do a calendar, which I am not.

I still like the portaits I get on the Epson 785EPX using Epson Colorlife Paper, the same portrait on Canon was a little too saturated for my choice. So I will probably do portraits on the Epson.

Regarding ink usage, I was amazed to see that the ink level had hardly moved after three 13x19 and one 8 1/2 x 11 prints.

I think this printer is really worth it, especially for landscapes, or on prints where the size of the print really matters. I am glad I picked this one for size over the Canon Pixma 8500 that uses the same printhead.

The Canon i9900 printer was everything that I expected and more. The photographs printed are equal to, if not sharper, than commercially developed 35mm film. My main reason for this review is to praise Canon's technical support and commitment to customer satisfaction. I had a problem loading 13x19 photo mat paper. After contacting Canon via e-mail, I was promptly provided instructions to correct the problem. After these procedures were tried with no success, I again contacted Canon. I was advised that I had an option to taking my printer to a repair facility or utilizing the instant exchange program. I chose the later and a new printer arrived at my home within two days. The new printer has no problem with the 13x19 inch paper. I highly recommend this product and company for your photo printing needs

My last printer was a Canon 7000 which has worked wonderfully for many years now but it takes forever in comparison to print out a full page 300dpi image (almost 10 minutes!). Since I wanted something faster and had great luck with Canon I thought I would stick with them. I looked at each of their consumer printers and like what I saw with the i9900. When I got it I printed several pictures and was just awestruck by the quality of the images printed. After that I wanted to see exactly how detalied a picture it could print out. So I put the digital camera on the tripod and zoomed out as far as I could (optically). I took a series of overlapping photos and then put them together in Photoshop to make one huge photo. I printed it out at 600dpi and was even more amazed!! It was like looking at the same scene in reality. I have never seen such incredible clarity from a printer before. This was even printed out on the "Kirkland Signature™ Glossy Photo Paper 125 Sheets" from Costco (about $19).