Looking at the new Canon PRO-300

[The Hat]

if you already have a Pro-10, then the most responsible thing to do, unless you REALLY need a feature is to stick with the 10,

Users will want to think twice before they purchase this all new Pro 300, yes you get the extra length for your Pano’s but what else, it still has the 15 ml carts, so you won’t get far on your Pano’s with that amount of ink, not to mention the waste ink problem..

What about the cart chips… You can’t refill useless you can reset, otherwise the waste ink will fill …? ? ?.. Stock up on the last remaining Pro 10’s…

 

[Artur5]

Wait a moment:
>... To combat this, the imagePROGRAF PRO-300 detects if any nozzle is not firing correctly and will switch to backup nozzles to ensure there is no banding in the image whilst it is being printed. <

How would they do that with the existing printhead ?

In dreams ?
Where did you find this text ... in Canon's website ?
Unless I miss something, there're no backup nozzles in a QY6-0085 printhead. AFAIK, several regular posters here, including you and me, have seen banding in nozzle checks or prints with a Pro10, although it's luckily a rare occurrence.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

it still has the 15 ml carts

I had a dream - an Epson P400 as an Ecotank model -ETP-400 similar like the L1800 with 8 ink channels and nozzle rows or this Pro-300 as a G-Pro300 with integrated ink tanks.......................

 

[palombian]

Users will want to think twice before they purchase this all new Pro 300, yes you get the extra length for your Pano’s but what else, it still has the 15 ml carts, so you won’t get far on your Pano’s with that amount of ink, not to mention the waste ink problem..

What about the cart chips… You can’t refill useless you can reset, otherwise the waste ink will fill …? ? ?.. Stock up on the last remaining Pro 10’s…

You refer to the PRO-1 doing much more cleaning cycles with ink monitoring disabled.
I doubt other printers are as smart (the Maxify doesn't care at all).
Although it is not a recommended way of refilling, probably people will do, after all the ink level is a very rough indication.
I know GY and CO are empty first, so it is feasible to weigh these carts, or change the whole set after a number of prints.
A pano would be about 3 A3+, that's maximum 10 ml of ink.

Not that I want to buy a PRO-300 for a few pano's.

PS: comparing to the PRO-10, the only sizable gain published is in the CO (97 against 31), seems unrealistic to me.

 

[pharmacist]

I had a dream - an Epson P400 as an Ecotank model -ETP-400 similar like the L1800 with 8 ink channels and nozzle rows or this Pro-300 as a G-Pro300 with integrated ink tanks.......................

I wish something similar, likewise an Epson P450 Ecotank (which I would call it): 8 nozzle rows with minimum 1.5 pl droplet size. Red and Orange substituted by Violet and Gray and Magenta replaced by Vivid Magenta and not to be forgotten: a user replaceable waste ink tank. But that would compete with the newer Epson P700 printer.

 

[mikling]

I wish something similar, likewise an Epson P450 Ecotank (which I would call it): 8 nozzle rows with minimum 1.5 pl droplet size. Red and Orange substituted by Violet and Gray and Magenta replaced by Vivid Magenta and not to be forgotten: a user replaceable waste ink tank. But that would compete with the newer Epson P700 printer.

First droplet size hardly matters anymore. Let's get over that please. Droplet size was used at a time when we did not know better. So let's know better now. Varying droplet size is used by Epson because Epson has a physical limitation as to the amount of nozzles they can use at a time. What is that limitation...printhead size as the Piezo elements cannot be made closer together. They already increased the density after the 2100/2200. Thereafter, their printhead lifetime warranty disappeared from print. The piezos are already stressed enough. Time will tell on the precisioncore. But their newer printheads need AMC for accuracy.

The Mfrs are stressed for bottom line results. They will only offer products that will result in profits. Not necessarily for refillers. With a shrinking market, they carefully assess what each market will likely produce for them and only offer so much. Giving away the store is not in their cards, Rather than a tank model, why did they continually change the firmware on the XP series and the Surecolor series?

According to Canon. "
With a Nozzle Recovery System, if a clog is detected in one nozzle, others will automatically compensate for it so you can keep printing. This prevents print waste due to banding and reduces frequency of head cleanings. Also enjoy accurate paper feeding with Skew Correction– built in sensors will automatically correct for paper skewing, ensuring your print will come out great each time.


Skew detection holy batman my iP4200 did that as well. How old is that? Even Epson has that as well and it is simply an opto sensor to make sure the paper is square to the bottom feed,

Nozzle recovery system. This is also a simple one as well. IF a clog is detected. How would we detect clogs?...A nozzle check. ( How many users will know to use that unless they are refilling and even then, you'd be surprised) . Epson had clog detection as well as GLOP ( CO) detection. How? For Epson they used an opto sensor. They also used an interleaved checker pattern to detect CO. Now there is a built in densitometer on the Pro-300. This is to allow autocalibration to factory specs using a specified paper. ( There are specs for Canon papers, you must use a specified Canon paper to do this) Now this calibration is NOT profiling. This is simply to make sure that the printer can reproduce a known set of colors to the correct density. The actual color of print is not necessarily correct but if the OEM ink is used the printer will produce a pretty much exact print from one machine to another provided they are all calibrated. So Canon can use the densitometer to check some printed pattern and then inspect it automatically and then know which nozzle is not working. Now how do they recover? Do they have to have an extra redundant set of print nozzles? No. They can interleave. Now prior to this, the processing power within the printer was limited. I mentioned this before. The major disctinctions in newer printers is NOZZLE CONTROL. by gaining individual granularity they are able to use more nozzles in discrete units or smaller gangs. I already mentioned before that prior printers lied to us in that they were unable to control the nozzles that we thought they could. Now the processing power to do this is gargantuan....but there have been gargantuan leaps in processing power for little money. Just look at that phone you're packing. Look at the DIGIC processors camera are using. Look at the lens correction embedded into cameras that can correct for physical lens error and they do24+ megapixels at 10 frames per second!
I have always been telling people that the Pro-100 and Pro-10 heralded a major jump in processing capability in the printer over their predecessors. This might well be another jump. This more discrete nozzle control might in fact produce better IQ over the Pro-10 as well as more SPEED as Canon claims as well as less ink consumption. From an engineering perspective, we don't know what is under the hood. However, I am trained as one and by living with each successive generation, and closely looking at the characteristics, I've been able to see between the lines. Reviewers are not into this kind of independent detail. I could be wrong but I don't think so. Nozzle control will yield all the benefits that Canon claims. However, the big question is whether or not the intended audience will be able to discern the incremental improvements in IQ and my guess is unlikely but from a product management standpoint improvement is necessary.

BTW, this autocalibration. Epson users are unaware that Epson service centers are unable to recalibrate the printers that need this. Epson printheads need a two step process to calibrate. First they must adjust the firing circuit to determine the sensitivity of the piezo elements. That is a code that is written on the printhead. Tech will enter this code into the firmware of the printer so that the printer knows what the firing voltage is. This gets the printhead into a ballpark range of accuracy. The service centers end there. This step is largely avoided by Canon because they use a thermal printhead that is manufactured much more accurately because of the film process they use and the key fact it is electronically done.

The next step is the accuracy aspect for the photo crowd who takes color seriously. In the past, Epson openly advertised that each Pro printers are individually adjusted in the factory to within 3%. This is the step that the tech centers miss. First they must own the correct paper, have the requisite spectrophotometer and the software and be TRAINED to do so. Similar to ICCs, it is meticulous because even the dry time is speced. Sadly the service centers are not equipped but the service manual indicates it is necessary. Does it matter? YES, over ten years ago, I ran into two 2880s that printed distinctly differently. One was a refubished unit.....at the time, I did know of this.

On the Pro-10, Canon actually allows the user to perform this step.
On the Pro-300, this will be done automatically just like the Pro-1000. Pop in a new printhead, run the automatic self calibration with the specified paper and you're back to factory spec, able to reproduce prints like day one. Canon's dedication to exceptional color to the professional is exhibited here since the Pro-10. It's been a slow iteration for the discerning user and educated user. We have to thank the Canon engineers to provide this level of technical precision to the users. This calibration is necessary because papers will drift in production, so will ink, and the printhead characteristics change with wear.

Now there is another way to detect clogs. Temperature rise. If a nozzle temp rises enough, then it is clogged. Perhaps the printer detects this and then shifts the printing inisde the firmware programming to compensate on the fly and then after the print is finished it will automatically perform a self cleaning. Epson higher end printers is listening to their nozzles using their piezo elements as a microphone that can determine if a nozzle is firing or not. Maybe this is way. Whatever method they use, a lot of processing is going on while it is printing.
That's the kind of technical complexity higher end printers have reached. Even in that lowly combustion engine, the engine computers can listen to the engine and change how it is controlled depending on what it hears inside the combustion chamber!

 

[pharmacist]

I never unstand why Epson did not to chose to include both blacks into their pigment photo printers. The 8 nozzle row print head has been used for years now and already I made comments many years ago about the possibility of rewrite the firmware or using a RIP software to make an MB, PB, Gr, C, VM, Y, R and GO system out from example the Epson R3000 or even the Epson Pro 3880. Because the variable droplet technology of Epson, the droplet size can even drop to as small as 1.5 pl, so virtual no visible difference in printing quality without the Light Colours (Cyan, Magenta and Gray/Light Black). This way Epson could deal with their dreadful MB/PB switching problem causing leaks and wasting alot of ink when changing from paper source but could still use this 8 nozzle row print head and also improve the overall gloss with a gloss optimizer. Actually the P800 uses the light light black (light gray) cartridge to increase gamut of black and also over other colours and lighter area's to minimise the gloss differential: doesn't this sounds like a gloss optimizer/chroma optimizer ?

Would Epson make an successor for their P400, likewise to be called the P500 with the same 10 nozzle row like the Epson P700 and P900: what would be used in the two extra nozzles besides MB/PB/M/Y/C/R/O/GO ? Most likely it would be Violet (Blue) and Gray....But in the past there was already an similar printer with Red and Blue (Violet): the R800 and the R1800 and why Orange in the R1900/R2000/P400: why choose a colour that is so close to Red that can be easily constituted by mixing Red and Yellow, that has been previously been Blue (Violet), the very same colour that seems to make a come-back in the P700 and the P900. Take into mind that the Canon Pro-1000 (12 nozzle row) also has a Red and Blue cartridge (like the older Epson R800/R1800).

The Epson Pro 4900 also had 10 nozzle row print head like the P700/P900 printer, but Epson still chosed to install only one nozzle row for black, forcing user to waste ink when switching between MB/PB and waste a lot of ink. The numerous accounts of people complaining of the valve switch broke down after a time, forcing them to be sent back to Epson service centers, doesn't make any sense to me. Epson instead chooses for two extra colours: Orange and Green, so MB or PB had to share one channel. Now both colours are gone and replaced by Violet making place for an extra channel for PB and MB both loaded simultaneously.

 

[mikling]

The PB and Red is there for different reason as to why the R1800 used those extended colors. It's not likely what you think actually. It has a lot to do with the BLACK that is now the holy grail. If you stop the use of on Black on Canon Pro-10 and print BLACK, you get nothing when using an OEM profile. When you create a custom profile. You get PB printed and you also get a better gamut in that area. So if Canon used a tightly tuned OEM profile, they now can get better blacks. So If I have a PB channel, I can gain more control in the deep blacks, provided I have the nozzle control. By having one channel provide PB, I have freed up the use of two other channels, PC and PM in creating that PB. This allows me more discrete control....again depending on how I can control the nozzles.

This is not theory, but it holds in theory. I've performed all these tests myself.

This was already explained to you prior to your purchase of the P800.

Only the newbies would fall for the more colors = more different color inks as the marketing text claims.

 

[mikling]

https://gqsystems.eu/blog/how-choose-the-right-color-tolerancing-method-for-your-process

This is a general idea of why fine art printers tend to focus their efforts towards. Notice the small tolerancing ellispsoids. Now we know why we are sensitive to the BLACKS.

 

[nertog]

https://gqsystems.eu/blog/how-choose-the-right-color-tolerancing-method-for-your-process

This is a general idea of why fine art printers tend to focus their efforts towards. Notice the small tolerancing ellispsoids. Now we know why we are sensitive to the BLACKS.

The LAB-slice used to illustrate the delta E CMC method should show a constant L* (see below). This means each hue angle varies in chroma from 0 in the center of the diagram to its maximum value at the edge, but the lightness of that hue is constant. In practice this means that the small ellipsoids near the center show that we are very sensitive to hue shifts in (near) grey tones, and less sensitive to hue shifts in saturated colours.

Black, by definition, has no hue.