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78 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pro9500 using Canon Museum Etching Paper, September 1, 2007
This review is from: Canon Pixma Pro9500 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (0373B001AA) (Office Product)
I too, ordered this printer before it came out. When it finally arrived, I immediately started printing some landscape pictures that I was anxious to see in large format. I had purchased the Canon 13"x19" Variety Pack to get an idea of which paper worked best with this printer. I immediately settled on the Fine Art Museum Etching paper. The depth of the images when used with this pigment printer is just amazing. They come out looking like oil paintings. I have printed over 100 of these pictures using this paper and have never been disappointed with the results. The cost per print is not cheap, but I think the quality of the prints makes it well worthwhile.
The only problem I have encountered with the printer occured about 10 days after I received it when it completely died. A call to Canon Tech Support quickly determined that it needed to be replaced. I had the replacement two days later and returned the defective unit with no problems.
I just love this printer using this particular paper. I agree that printing to glossy paper did not produce terrific results, but I seldom print to glossy paper anyway.
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172 of 187 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gloss Differential Problem, June 28, 2007
This review is from: Canon Pixma Pro9500 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (0373B001AA) (Office Product)
When this printer was announced by Canon, I was excited and couldn't wait to buy it. The workflow and features are so apealing but it has gloss problem. Let me give a bit of a background.
When Epson 2200 came out, I rushed to store and bought it and found out that when printed on a premium glossy paper (simigloss and premium luster ok), the deep black parts of the photo are matted and when viewed in angle from the side the black parts appear almost negative. The paper itself is undoubtedly glossy but the gloss is gone once printed. (Yes, I selected the right type of paper in the print option.) Later, I bought a smaller Epson printer R800, the problem has been solved because the gloss-optimizer ink has been added.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because I think Canon is playing catch up with Epson. Canon PIXMA Pro9500 has exactly the same problem as Epson 2200. The glossy paper become dull once printed. The black parts are matted and you can see discontinuity. It's almost like somebody colors the black parts by hand with matted ink.
This is the most expensive printer on the PIXMA PRO PROFESSIONAL INKJET PRINTER product line. The reason I bought this printer is because I want to be able to print true B&W photos. Epson R800 has a problem mixing colors so a B&W photo comes out very unpredictably sometimes with warm tone, others with cool tone - never true B&W. PIXMA 9500 does a decent job because it has gray, matte black and photo black ink. B&W and gray come out beautifully, the problem with the black parts being matted is still there but less (than color photos).
ICC profile works well. It automatically detects embeded color profile. Easy Print Pro software (both stand-alone and plugin for photoshop) works great and very intuitively. I printed Canon RAW (cr2) with Adobe RGB color profile in Photoshop the color comes out very accurate.
I won't review other features because they are great. However, I can't get pass that the print quality is poor. For $850, this is a major rip off.
I don't recommend this printer to digital photographers.
Note:
I just did more research and found that only Epson R800 and R1800 and HP Z series have a gloss optimizer which eliminates this very gloss differential problem. Both Epson R800 and R1800 are not designed for B&W photos. Epson R2400 will do B&W but it has the same gloss differential problem. I guess we can't have it all. For $850, Canon PIXMA Pro 9500 should have included a gloss opitmizer in this model design. I should have researched thoroughly before I bought this printer.
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57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Poor print quality on Glossy paper, August 29, 2007
This review is from: Canon Pixma Pro9500 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (0373B001AA) (Office Product)
I purchased this printer when if first came out. Very few reviews were available then. I have been very disappointed in print quality on glossy paper, even Canon's own Photo Paper Plus Glossy.
I had some cheap paper from local office supply store laying around (Staples Photo Supreme Satin). The Pro9500 does print very well on this Satin paper which is kinda a smooth matte paper.
Another paper that I found printed well with the Pro9500 is Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl Paper. (Download the ICC profile from Ilford.com) Again this is a smooth matte type paper, not glossy.
Another thing you have to watch out for with the Pro9500, not all inkjet printer paper is compatible with pigmented inks.
Previously I would edit my photos in Photoshop and save to .jpg and take them down to my local photo lab for printing. I purchased this Pro9500 so I would have more control over my prints. I can't get any decent prints on glossy paper, which in my humble opinon gives the best color. Prints onto Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy paper and other brands of glossy paper look dull and the the black ink seems to print too heavy with no detail in the dark areas and shadows. Colors are muted on glossy paper.
The owners manual is on CD-rom and doesn't give any advice on how to print from Photoshop or other imaging programs. It only shows how to print from Canon's Easy Print plug in for Photoshop which is a joke.
I had lots of difficulting trying to get good prints from Photoshop. Finally found a video podcast from Russell Brown that explained how to set up Photoshop to print and what controls to turn off in the print driver. Also the Canon ICC profiles use very short names (SG1, SG3, SP1, SP3, MP1,,,etc) that make selecting the correct paper and print quality very difficult. Why couldn't they just name their ICC profiles "Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss High quaility" instead of SG1.
I do not recommend this printer to anyone that wants to print on glossy paper. If you like matte paper and want the so called longer print life of the pigmented inks then the Pro9500 is a fair printer. Considering the printer only prints well on one type of paper the price is very high.
I have been a Canon fan since the 1970's. I own the Canon Digital Rebel, Canon 20D and the new Canon Eos 1D Mark III which rocks. This is the first time Canon has disappointed me.
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