11X17 Laser Printers

The 11X17 Color Inkjet Printer is subjectively somewhat quieter than the Epson 4800. Curious to see how much quieter, I measured the SPL at a distance of 1 meter from each printer. Using a digital sound level meter the Epson measured with an average of 62 db, A weighted, while printing. The Canon measured 60 db during the first part of its print cycle, and then 56 db during the second part. The reason for this is that there is a fan running at the beginning of making each print, but this cuts out at about the half way point. The fan noise is created by the vacuum mechanism which holds the paper in place, but which then lets up as the paper moves through the feed mechanism. But in any event the 11X17 Color Inkjet Printer is quite a bit quieter than the Epson 4800, a not insignificant issue when used in a home or small studio environment.

Heads

The heads (two of them) on the iPF 5000 are user interchangeable. The ones on the Epson 4800 aren’t. This is a good news / bad news situation. Whereas the heads on the Epson are designed to last effectively for the life of the printer (however long that may be), the Canon heads are intended to eventually require replacement, at a cost of approximately $600 per head (there are two).

This is not as serious an issue as would first appear. According to available information, results from their W series printers, which were released last year, and which use the same head technology as the iPF 5000, show that average head life works out to be approximately 11,500 A3 sized prints (11X17″), with 20% ink coverage per color. How long it will take to make some 11,000 prints will obviously vary by individual. I make an average of 50 – 75 11X17″ and 13X19″ prints monthly. Assuming worst case, say 100 prints / month, that works out to 110 months – some 9 years. Since I expect the printer to essentially be obsolete in three years at most, and even assuming that the 11,000 odd print number is optimistic, it still means that for all but the heaviest commercial users head replacement cost will simply be a non-issue.

I was curious about whether or not Canon’s printer heads changed characteristics as they aged. I have been assured that this was not the case. Apparently the only part that is subject to wearing out is the heater associated with each nozzle. These eventually cease to function, but when they do it is a binary situation. They either work, or they don’t. Since the printer automatically bypasses problematic nozzles, it’s only when enough of them have failed that the head reports that it needs to be replaced, which, as we’ve seen, will likely not be for a long time.

Paper Handling

Since I am constantly changing back and forth between sheet fed and roll paper, the fact that the Canon allows the roll paper to remain loaded when printing from the cassette is a real plus. The physical location of my printer, with a low shelf above it, makes handling roll paper a bit of an annoyance, so only having to do this occasionally is appreciated. Even for someone with easy access to the roll paper holder this is bound to be seen as a plus. And, when combined with not having to switch between matte and photo black inks, both workflow and productivity are significantly enhanced. With the 11X17 Color Inkjet Printer switching from printing on a roll of matte paper to a sheet of glossy paper simply is a matter of making the appropriate on-screen settings. With the Epson 4800 it requires charging ink cartridges, and loading and unloading paper. Quite a time and money saver.

I also found that after making many dozens of prints on different types of papers via the cassette tray, there was never once a misfeed. This has not been my experience with the Epson 4800, where misfeeds are commonplace – at least with the two samples of this printer that I’ve owned, as well as the 4000 before it, and the 5500 before that.

The Big Issue

There is a spanner in the works, as the saying goes, and that’s the whole issue of printer settings, both from the unit’s front panel and its driver software. The essence of the problem is as follows. The iPF 5000 wants to know what size paper is loaded, in each possible feed, and what its characteristics are. For example, it needs to know if it’s a matte or glossy paper so that it can choose to use the photo black or matte black cartridge, as appropriate. It also needs to know where the paper is coming from; the roll holder, the top feed, the front feed, or the cassette.

For these reasons whenever you load new paper into the machine you need to tell it via front panel settings what size and type of paper it is. Then, when you go to print you need to similarly tell the driver the same information, and also which of the possible paper paths is going to be used.

In a likely attempt to makse this simpler Canon provides a piece of utility software called the Media Configuration Tool. As far as I can tell (again the HTML documentation is simply awful) this software is supposed to allow one to create or download a “characteristic profile” for a given type of media, the idea being that if you are going to be putting Somerset Velvet 13X19″ paper in the casette tray you should be able to create such an identifaction.

The problem is that it simply doesn’t do what it looks like it should, or at least what it would be nice if it did, if it did anything at all, which it doesn’t.

The first thing I tried to do is use the Add function, to define a new paper type. No luck. It just doesn’t work. Then I tried to find a way to edit one of the existing paper descriptions, but I couldn’t find a way to do this either.

When one is done doing all of these things, which the software doesn’t appear able to do, then one can (supposedly) upload this information to the printer and have a named description appear on the front panel. That’s the theory. For now it appears to be only theory because I can’t get it to work.

What does work is picking a paper type from Canon’s built in list, both on the printer’s LCD panel and in the driver software. This is fine, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. The reason being that Canon works on the assumption that you’ll be using their branded papers. But without the ability to either edit these configuration profiles or add new ones of ones own, there is really no way to know if the settings that are designated for a particular paper are similar to or useful with one of the better known papers that are in common use, such as those from Arches, Hahnemuhle, Moab, Crane or Epson.

None of this renders the printer unusable. Just incredibly annoying, particularly when one is changing paper type frequently. It also means that the printer is constantly flashing warning lights at the user, advising that the paper size is wrong, or the media is wrong, even when they don’t appear to be.

This is something that Canon needs to fix ASAP. Please!

Nag, Nag, Nag

The nagging from the front panel, telling you that the paper is the wrong size or the wrong type has two solutions. The first is to diligently set the front panel every time the paper is changed, telling it the paper type and the paper size. The second alternative is to simply press the buttons, and then ignore the flashing warnings, because it’s the settings in the printer driver that really control what the printer is going to do.

Clearly these have to be set properly, because if the wrong type of paper is set, the printer won’t know which black ink to use. So telling it matte vs glossy is important. Telling it the right size is also necessary, for the obvious reasons. The real issue is that you are expected to do it twice, from the control panel and from the driver, or else it flashes a warning light that something is wrong. But, unless the mismatch is serious, it won’t refuse to print, it’ll just nag. Nag, nag, nag.

Minor Annoyances

Like any new product, the 11X17 Color Inkjet Printer has its annoyances. All of these seem related to firmware and so are easily amenable to rapid fixes. Hopefully Canon will address them before too long.

– When the printer goes into sleep (power saving) mode, occasionally it will not wake up when a file is sent to it. The solution is to lightly touch the Power button on the printer. This is enough to rouse the printer from its slumber. This does not happen all the time though.

– When new paper is loaded into the cassette tray and a first print is made, the printers LCD panel occasionally complains that the paper is the wrong size, even when it isn’t. The next print generates no such complaint, so this appears to simply be a nag.

– Canon calls the place where stacks of printing paper are loaded a cassette. They call the place where single sheets are loaded at the top of the printer the tray. Sorry Canon, but the rest of the world doesn’t call a vertical slot designed for one sheet of paper a tray. I can live with cassette for what others call a tray, but please don’t call a slot a tray. OK?

– If you accidentally tell the printer to print from the tray, thinking that tray means cassette, when cassette actually means tray, and tray means single top feed, the printer seems to get stuck, and refuses to do anything until you actually make a print from the tray (err, slot).

There is a solution. Just press and hold Stop / Eject on the top panel for more than a second. Obvious, but I spent hours trying to figure out a solution. Better documentation anyone?

Pleasures

The first time I made a print with the iPF 5000 I was more than pleasantly pleased to see that the actual file name of the image being printed is displayed on the printers LCD. This is not a big deal, really, but simply a sign that Canon’s engineers have been paying attention to some input from users.

It should be noted that the print’s file name is what’s displayed on the printer’s LCD when the Export Module is used. When the regular printer driver is used it’s the computer or user name that’s displayed.

B&W Printing

There is a Monochrome print setting in both the standard driver as well as the 16 Bit Export Driver. I tried to find information about it in the HTML manual, but was unable to. Maybe it’s there. Maybe not. But since the HTML manual has no index, it’s hard to say.

It could be that Monochrome mode uses just one, or two, or three or more inks. But until Canon lifts the documentation kimono there’s no way of knowing. In any event, I made several prints in Monochrome mode and again in colour mode, and if anything saw better results when printing normally with all inks.

These prints were very neutral. Since I usually tone my B&W prints with a slightly warm or cool tone, absolutely neutrality is less important to me in my B&W prints than it is for some, so I’ll leave this topic for others who have a horse in that race, to debate the fine points.

General Print Quality Impressions

Some initial comments on the web about print quality suggested that prints from the iPF 5000 had something less than full continuous tone quality. I’m not sure where that came from but I can assure you that this is definitely not the case. I have looked at prints under both a high quality 3X Schneider loup as well as a 10X loupe. With the naked eye prints are definitely continuous tone, just as you’d expect them to be. Under a 3X loupe the dithering pattern is just visible. Under a 10X loupe it is clearly visible just as it is on every inkjet printer.

The screen patterns and dithering used by Canon are different, of course, from those seen on an Epson print. Not better. Not worse. Just different. But to the naked eye they simply aren’t there.

There is a bit of gloss differential on prints made using glossy and semi-matte papers. I see the same thing on such prints from an Epson 4800. The problem is that the pigment particles are encapsulated in a resin which has a glossy finish. On areas of the print that do not receive any or much ink, such as extreme highlights, the finish of the paper is allowed to show through. The only solution is the one that Epson has used in some of its consumer grade printers like the R1800 model, which uses a gloss optimizer cartridge.

In any event, whether from a Canon or Epson printer, I really don’t regard gloss differential as that big a deal, since when viewed normally this is not visible. It takes holding the print at an angle to the light before it is visible. For those that do find it to be a problem, a protective spray coating is all that’s needed to eliminate it. (or stick with printing on matter papers).

I have not tried many different glossy papers yet, but thus far have not seen any appreciable bronzing, though a few observers say that they can see a small amount on the most glossy papers when the light is just right.

Similarly metamerism is not something that I have noticed yet, but I reserve final opinion until I have done further testing and printing with a wider variety of papers.

Otherwise there isn’t much to add about general print quality from the Canon beyond what has been reported elsewhere here regarding dMax and gamut. Prints from the 11X17 Color Laser Printer are about as good as it gets with today’s technologies.