BIOS: Technology Means Business

All of the new PIXMA photo printers feature Canon’s exclusive FINE high-performance printheads. FINE technology (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) delivers sub-micron level precision during the manufacturing process. FINE print heads are also the only consumer-oriented print heads to achieve an actual 1200dpi nozzle pitch. The iP8500’s FINE printhead has 6144 micro nozzles, capable of ejecting a staggering 147 million 2-picolitre droplets per second. This gets more ink on the page in less time and with greater accuracy for grain-free prints of superb clarity, contrast, colour range and smoothness of tone.

Canon’s newest PIXMA branded products - iP4000 (£135), iP5000 (£149), iP6000D (£196) and iP8500 - offer a printer for every lifestyle. At an estimated selling price of £227, the silver-and-black PIXMA iP8500 A4 photo printer reviewed here features Canon’s 8-colour ChromaPLUS ink system for rich, true-to-life colour reproduction up to 4800x2400dpi to satisfy even the most demanding photographer.

Canon’s ChromaPLUS print technology utilises eight coloured inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Black, Red and Green. Canon’s dye inks produce vivid colours, reduced graininess and better contrast photo quality when compared to many pigment-based inks used in some other photo printers. The introduction of highly saturated red and green inks expands the colour gamut in the yellow to red and yellow to green areas. Colour saturation in the high chrome red area has been increased by up to 60 per cent (compared to the 6-ink photo system) to more closely match the colour characteristics of positive photographic film.

PIXMA printers are the only devices on the market to include both the traditional ‘J’ pass paper path and a ‘U’ turn path. This allows the printer to be stored and operated on a shelf or in other areas where space is at a premium. Dual paper trays, auto duplex printing and CD-R/DVD printing functions are now completely integrated without compromising the printer’s clean lines. Both of the trays can support up to 150 sheets of A4 plain paper (64gsm), as well as 4x6in. photo paper, 5x7in. photo paper, letter-size photo paper and 10 envelopes.

All four PIXMA models include a second front-feeding paper cassette that accommodates letter-sized media in addition to the standard auto sheet feeder located on top of the printer, which prints all sizes up to letter sized media. The dual-paper path allows the printers to be loaded with both plain paper and photo paper or different sized papers simultaneously, so both documents and photos can be printed without the need for stopping and changing paper. You can switch easily between the two sources by simply clicking the paper feed selector located on the front of the printer. And, of course, you can also change the sources using the printer driver.

Canon hasn’t forgotten about value-added software, either. The bundled Easy-PhotoPrint and Digital Photo Professional software allows images photographed using Canon digital SLR cameras and saved in Adobe RGB mode (or RAW) to be printed on the PIXMA iP8500 photo printer with accurate colour reproduction using the larger Adobe RGB colour space. To boot, a pop-up window on your computer warns you when a particular colour is running low and the printer will not start to print a page if there is insufficient ink to finish.

Easy-PhotoPrint also sports tools to decrease noise from digital images, sharpen out-of-focus faces, correct for less-than perfect lighting conditions, reduce red eye, and remove blemishes to help reduce the appearance of wrinkles and skin imperfections in addition. Auto Duplexing is also supported. Easy-WebPrint software provides an easy-to-use option that automatically resises Web pages to fit the standard printer page so they may be printed without losing important information from the right side of the screen. Finally, PhotoRecord (Windows only) helps print photo albums and photos with frames.

When it comes to printing, the PIXMA iP4000’s intuitive interface lets you make the usual alterations to print settings. For instance, you can select media type, paper source, print quality, alter colour and greyscale levels, as well as preview your page before committing. You can also change print data size to increase printing speed. More advanced print settings let you set printing type: normal-size (printed according to a document's original dimensions), fit-to-page (document is automatically resized and printed to fit a specific paper size), scaled (document is resized), page layout (pages are reduced and printed so that multiple documents can fit onto a single page), poster (enlarges and splits images across several sheets of paper to make one large image), as well as booklet (multiple-page document is printed so that two pages fit on each printed page).

From the driver software you can also apply print effects. These include the ability to print a colour image in a single colour (monochrome effects), increase the vibrancy of colours (especially blues and greens), improve the contours and smooth jaggedness that can occur when images are enlarged, reduce noise, as well optimise photos automatically (can be effective for images affected by colour imbalance and over- or under exposure).

The hassle of printing from a digital camera is made easier thanks to built-in PictBridge technology. PictBridge allows you to print pictures from any PictBridge-enabled digital camera or camcorder using the built-in USB 2.0 port. To print independently you simply connect your imaging device to the printer with the USB cable that came with your camera or camcorder. Amazingly, there’s no built-in memory card slots or an integrated LCD preview display - features we thought were a prerequisite for today’s photo printers. There's no built-in or optional Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity options for wireless printing, either.

Output from Canon’s Pixma iP8500 looked excellent in our tests, with a broad dynamic range and sharp detail rendering in bitmaps. It rendered excellent curves and sharp text on coated paper, making it a good candidate for proofing page layouts. It also offered surprisingly full range of tones in the reds and oranges, as well as lots of detail in both shadows and highlights in landscapes dominated by grass, trees, and other greenery. If anything, saturation for these tended to be a bit too brilliant. Skin tones were warm but acceptable and relatively accurate. On the downside, text and graphics quality were more than acceptable, but not impressive on regular paper. Print speed was moderate, outputting at a rate of around 3.5ppm for monochrome text and 0.6ppm for colour photographs. [8]