Canon Pro 10 vs Epson ET8550

[marco565]

Hi All,

Since I recently revived my very cheaply acquired canon pro 10, I will like to start a comparison of the 2 printers. In this thread, I will only talk about VISUAL image quality. I will not talk about Inks (pigment vs dye) nor any printer specifications.

Just to put things clear, I am running both printers on OEM ink. Profiles that I will make myself are created using a spyder print with the 255 patches (I haven't seen much difference with the 729 patches option on the ET8550).

PS: method of scanning patches with spyderprint is patch by patch press button (otherwise profiles are wrong!).


First comparison on canon premium matte paper (PM-101):
- ICC: the wired space is the one from the ET8550, the colored one from the Canon pro 10, both profiles are made with spyder print. The gamut of the ET8550 is clearly much bigger
- Image comparison (full size) was shot using an a7rIII 20f1.8 @f4 calibrated using the xrite color chart, using daylight (not bulb light). First on the left is canon pro 10 with driver profile, then Canon pro 10 customer profile on top and bottom ET8550. use the full size image to see more details.

My personal observation:
- The 8550 looks more saturated and darker darks.
- Strawberries look much more eatable on the 8550.
- Lava looks more accurate on the pro 10 and we can see much finer details.
- Autumn forest is more saturated on the 8550 and looks better.
- Colored stones (top middle image) look too saturated on the 8550 sky gradation look good on both.
- sunset beach does not look good on the Pro 10, probably a profile issue since with driver color it looks more natural.
- B&W look more neutral on the pro 10 (obviously)
- Gradation look good on both images.
- Color patches look better on the pro 10, they seem to be a bit closer to what I get on my calibrated screen.

Conclusion:
Personally, I prefer the colored images on the ET8550, however, the pro 10 looks more natural. The Pro10 has more sharpness (that might be because of the software resizing the images, I used Epson Print layout and Canon Professional Studio).


Tell me what do you think about this test, does it makes sense? If so I will continue when I will have time on those papers:
- Canon Glossy plus II
- Canon pro luster
- Fotospeed NST Bright White
- Fotospeed Platinium Etching (when I will receive it)
- Hahnemuele photo rag 188 (same as the 308 but thinner)

 

[palombian]

As far as an RGB jpg can show, the test prints all look OK.
I wonder why you started with matte paper, the gamut is much lower.
IMO luster paper will reduce the difference between dye and pigment inks at the maximum (diminishing the reflections of dye on glossy and the eventual gloss differences of pigment - although CO does a very good job).
Curious about the gamut on luster and glossy.

PS: not all prints need the maximum gamut, most should come out equal on both printers.

 

[marco565]

I started with mate paper because I really like the rendition on fine art paper and the canon pro premium mate has very good contrast and saturation and it’s quite cheap to do some testing plus the fact it is in the driver.

I also printed on canon glossy II the croma optimiser work very well. Compared with octoink where it’s quite bad to be honest. I have yet to profile this paper for the pro 10. And run all my tests again.

 

[palombian]

Agree about CO.
I still have 150-200ml stock of Precision Colors SE (IMO almost same as OEM even when Jose Rodriguez disagrees strange enough on this one ) but when empty I will buy an OEM PRO-1000 cart too.

 

[Artur5]

@marco565: It seems to me that for performing reliable gamut comparisons, first you should eliminate unknown factors which might alter the results. For instance, the accuracy of Spyder devices are "under suspicion", according to many tests and the experience of a good number of users. Myself, I used a Spyderprint in the past and never ever could get a really good profile with it, only barely usable.
One easy way to check roughly the accuracy of your Spyder is to compare the original Canon profile for the Pro-10 and PM-101 paper with your custom profile made using OEM ink and this paper. Same thing for other Canon papers.
Custom and original profiles should be a very close match. If they differ noticeably, then your Spyderprint is not to be trusted much.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I only can support @Artur5 's comments about the (un)reliability of Spyder profiles.

I did an evaluation about 2 years ago being faced with several issues - totally screwed up profiles and unreported incompatibilities of Spyder profiles with Lightroom and softproofing, black point compensation does not work as you would expect and the use of the perceptual rendering intent is not supported as you are used to it with other software.
The posting is quite lengthy as the story evolved over time and with more testing and searching the internet

Just have a look to this Spyder profile - and that's not the only one like that

https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...r-print-profile-comparisons.13275/post-122562

 

[marco565]

Hi guys, thanks a lot for your comments, with the pro 10 is much easier to see that the Spyderprint does not do good profiles, for the ET8550 they were better than the Embedded profiles but definitely not with the pro 10.

(I did a profile for the paper canon glossy II, it's not good on the test image with the sunset image, like disgusting! probably 729 patches will make it a bit better but it will use too much paper and probably Driver profiles will still be better)

So I will be returning my Spyderprint since it is still possible. I saw that I can buy an XRite eye-one pro for around 200 euros. Do you think it's worth it to invest in such an old device (I plan to use it with argyllcms)? I saw a colormuki for a bit more than this price, will it a better option?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It's all a question how much you are interested in profiling, not just for a few profiles with a new printer but on a more active base.
I would not recommend a i1Pro anymore, that's a very old piece of hardware, the successor was the I1Pro 2 which is as well phased out since a while and replaced by a i1Pro3. The same applies to the ColorMunki, that is replaced by the i1Studio package. user reports indicate that the i1Studio spectro is not much different to the ColorMunki, so it may still be a choice.

Ther is plenty of information available in this forum about the use of the ArgyllCMS software, you may start here
at a recent thread, and use the search function of the forum with 'argyllCMS' to find more links.

https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...d-efi-es-1000-for-a-newbie.15072/#post-131824

The number of patches will not solve your profile problem, start with a lower count, that'll be o.k. in most cases.

 

[marco565]

thanks for your reply, the main idea was to be able to do profiles my self (actually I bought the spyderprint because there were no profiles available for the canon g550 which I don’t have anymore) sine the pro 10 has profiles made by big paper companies doing profiles myself makes much less sense.

So if you say the the i1 is not worth getting then I will probably make custom profiles when I will really need them by a online service.

Thanks again.

 

[Artur5]

If you're gonna use only OEM ink on the Pro10, then I agree that isn't worth investing money on a ColorMunki/I1Studio or similar. Stick to paper brands that offer dedicated profiles for the Pro10 and no problem.
If you are tempted in the future to refill with third party inks, that's a different story.