Canon PRO-200 best printer settings for detail in prints
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- What difference to print quality and detail do the printer driver settings of the Canon PRO-200 give.
Should you use 300ppi as your image resolution for best results or does sending higher resolution to the printer help?
Keith looks at detailed test prints and discuses what this means in practice for choosing your print settings
For more detailed images and links to PRO-300 and Epson P700/900 tests see the article at:
www.northlight...
![Checking out a printer not used for six months [Canon PRO-300]](/img/n.gif)
Thank's Keith for this video. 6 month ago i bought a pro200 and haven't had time to fully understand the printing yet. Your videos are very helpful to create better print's. It takes some paper but the results speak for themselves. Greetings from the Netherlands
Thanks - glad it's been of interest!
A really helpful guide. Just what I have been looking before I get start with printing some photos.
Glad it was helpful!
Do see the main [written] articles for more detail
www.northlight-images.co.uk/best-canon-pro-300-driver-settings/
Thank you so much for your so detailed reviews and explanations. I have just gotten a used Pro-200 and your videos are helping me tremendously. I have been taking amateur pictures for about 15 years but never really printed them. It is a big difference to see it in hand, biggest issue I am having is getting them edited well for printing. I feel so down when it comes out too dark possibly because I had the brightness too high on my laptop (I do not have a calibrated screen). I have so far watch around 10 of your videos and read some of your articles. Looking very much forward to reading seeing more. As this is just a hobby I also need to focus on my actual work and the family😅.
Thanks - If you've not seen it, do have a look at the main [written] review for the pro-200
It links to all my pro-200 related articles/videos...
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
nice to see that you are caring of pro-200 also: I hope is the first of a serie as on P700
Thanks, but I do already have quite a few PRO-200 videos and articles from my review when it first came out...
See here for details and links
I will be adding to the list ;-)
In the days, at Fuji, we produced three paper types: Glossy, Matte and Lustre. The latter looked a bit as if a nylon panty was pressed into the surface.
Glossy was the highest quality in detail and sharpness. Without an SLR you never needed it. Matte was the dull type, on which most prints were made. Lustre was for the intermediates: the customers who preferred something shiny but not too critical in sharpness and not critical with greasy thumbs. Lustre looked like glossy with the distinction that no smudgy fingers would stick to it.
For high detail and close range work, lustre was not an option. So if you are printing an enhanced 50 MP image on lustre, don't go pixelpeeping.
Ah, depends a lot on the printing technology and who makes the paper/coating.
Fine detail is visible on some lustre surfaces, and certainly enough for this particular experiment - remember that this is a specific experiment to look at differences in driver settings.
Gloss may be fine for some small detailed prints, but all too often it fails big time for larger ones, where the surface reflection gets in the way... Paper choice for larger (inkjet) prints rarely comes down to such fine detail (other than for certain technical print purposes)
@@KeithCooper You do have a point with the reflections. Also, every maker used to have another 'lustre' surface. I think I'm going to try some Ilford sheets. Thanks for the inspiration.
Cool video, thank you, and again, very helpful. There are no videos about the other "general wisdom insights" as it comes to sharpening yet, are there? Looked on the website, found many articles mentioning "sharpening" but I think not what you were talking about here in the video. Maybe a topic for a future video, looking forward to.
Thanks
Yes, sharpening is awaiting a new detailed article which I can then produce some videos to accompany it.
For a topic like that, a written article with detailed images you can enlarge has to be the main element. An article can take weeks with multiple drafts and revisions - a video is done in 15 mins ;-)
It will follow on from and update this:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/why-i-sharpen-images/
Really Informative video, getting such great results from the Pro200 thanks to your knowledge and testing.
Will be sure to read the written article, thank you.
Glad it was helpful! I've still got it here if you've any specific questions...
Great channel Keith. I found it today, as I am getting ready to graduate towards a pro-amateur photo printer. Your description of detail quality of dye vs. pigment ink made me ask a following question. If you were to print two identical pictures on two identical paper sheets, one on Pro-200 and the other on Pro-300, would the net accumulated ink weight be the same? Since you said that standard vs high quality setting makes less perceptible difference in case of the Pro-300, I created a thought that the pigment ink is heavier "per blob" and as a result falls more precisely upon paper surface once jettisonned by the printer head. Something akin to throwing a rock vs a feather. I am considering the following second hand Canon models - Pro-1 for 200USD+S&H, Pro-100s for approx 220USD (local pickup) vs Pro-200 for 360USD+S&H vs Pro-10S for 260USD+S&H vs (still under warranty) Pro-300 for 320USD+S&H. All units appear to be quite young and fresh expept perhaps the Pro-1 due to its age. I expect to be a moderate user at the beginning and will discover how far will this take me. If you care to drop a comment I would be most gracious. Keep up the good work.
Thanks - do check the main [written] reviews as well - they cover all of the printers you mention and in far more detail than my videos [my printer reviews go back years, the videos only two].
For droplet placement - no appreciable difference at all. The pigment ink print will potentially weigh a tiny bit more, since after the solvent has evaporated, the mass of dye in a drop is likely less than the mass of pigment. Whilst an interesting thought experiment, it has no practical relevance whatsoever ;-)
My main concern for any used printer is it's usage history - or more particular, any lack of use... I find the 200 and 300 great improvements over the 100/10 for a variety of reasons, mainly usability
@@KeithCooper Thanks for your speedy reply. I will dig into the matter some more. Buying second hand reduces the consequences of making bad choices
But in printers, buying used ups the likelihood of them happening I might suggest.
At a3+ and above there are no bad printers any more in current models.
Buying second hand printers is like buying a cheap second hand car - they do exist but you need to take care... ;-)
@@KeithCooper Thank you Keith for your time and valuable input. I've decided to go for the Pro-300 at half of the new price. The previous owner bought it in Jan of this year and it was unsuitable for the sort of printing work that she was pursuing. There is still 15 months of warranty left on it so I feel as if I stole it. I will be following your videos and articles closely to accelerate my learning curve. Yesterday, I've decided to order your PC lens book, however on the ordering page, all of Eastern Europe is left out, so unless something changes I am unable to purchase it. All the best.
@@utube321piotr Sounds a good deal.
I don't know much about the sales side of the book - my involvement with it ended after I'd OK's the press proofs. It's a normal book, with the publisher doing all the production/sales/distribution.
Is it not on Amazon?
One note. From what I undestood the difference between standard and high quality is that high quality disable bi-directional printing so the placement of the dot is more precise. This explains also the increased printing time in high quality.
I'm led to believe that there is more to it than that - this is not however the sort of info Canon (or Epson) make public...
Hello Keith, thank you for another great video! I have a question about the Pro-200 and the Nik Output Sharpener. I have no idea how to set the "Printer resolution" option. The only thing I could find about it is the maximum resolution of the printer (4800 x 2400 dpi) in the specifications and also that the resolution probably changes with the selected print quality. But I can't find any specific numbers in the print settings or printer manual. And the Nik Sharpner manual again refers back to the printer manual. Is it necessary to try this by trial and error or can the resolution for a specific print be calculated somehow? Thanks!
Thanks - the print detail does indeed change with settings.
I've not used Nik when making test prints on the PRO-200, but at high quality I'd likely use 2400x2400
This aspect of Nik has been a bit vague ever since I first tested it many years ago
Have a look at these for some background
www.northlight-images.co.uk/best-canon-pro-200-driver-settings/
www.northlight-images.co.uk/review-sharpening-images-with-nik-sharpener-pro/
www.northlight-images.co.uk/nik-sharpener-pro-v2-review/
The 3rd [V2] one is from 2005, and even back then I was never entirely sure about those settings, but was at least able to see the difference. I note that with V3 they had simplified the interface, but the thing to note is that even if you are using the DxO version, much of it still works as it did when I first wrote about it...
Keith have you come across the manual printhead alignment not running after error code 2500 appeared, mine goes into a circular loop of auto alignment failing. The manual instructions don't seem to work for me when selected it runs auto first and does not follow with the manual procedure.
Not seen it - I'd suggest asking here for that
www.printerknowledge.com
Sorry, a question off topic. How do you store your prints? In archival boxes? How many prints in each box? Tracing paper between the prints? Thanks.
chart/map drawers from a used office eqpt supplier
The better prints are interleaved with archival tissue paper - the bulk of my prints are simply kept in piles in the drawers - I generate so many in testing that I have to have a regular clear-out ;-)
Hello Keith, My pro 200 arrived and I am loving it . How can I keep it on all the time ? I see it auto powers off after inactivity . I have read that each time you power a printer it does maintenance and wastes inks during the process ( is this correct?)
Let it power off - the 200 does not do lots of cleaning (the PRO-1000 is more thirsty in this respects).
All my printers power down after a while
@@KeithCooper thank you for this .👍
About to buy the pro 200, where can i find your paper profiles for testing different papers, thankyou
Nowhere - they are not available for public download for licensing reasons. You need to email me at Northlight Images
Which paper will hold the highest resolution on the canon PIXMA pro 200? 15 years ago there was a super high resolution Pictorico paper, but it does not seem to be available now.
The resolution on the 200 is limited by the ink dot size - see the linked article
There are some papers like the pictorico available - contact a specialist photo supplier where you are? Just make sure they work with modern inks...
I have just bought this particular printer, and the prints are all coming out too dark, but I can't find anywhere to reset the settings. Help!
See the linked articles/videos here:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
@@KeithCooper Thankyou for this Keith, but frankly it's all too techy. When I go to "print" for a photo there is no option to adjust any settings at all, just paper size and whether there should be a border. What am I missing? There's nop options to change anything else like pixels or anything.
Isn't there a Canon programme for this facility?
Yes - see the Canon print software mentioned in the review?
However, it will do nothing with editing the content of the image - for that you need some image editing software...
Sorry, but 'techy' is what I do... :-)
See some of my videos printing with the PRO-200
Hello, we have a canon pro 200 and Im having trouble printing blues and getting bright color. Everything we print is dull and the blues are too dark. I am not suing canon paper as they do not sale 11 x 17 which is what size we use for custom posters. My husband is an artist and we are so frustrated that we can't get the colors right. Right now I am using the driver matching and sometimes it work but lately the blues are super dark and sometimes purple. Is there any way I can find out the gamet of my colors so we don't use the ones that don't print right? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Open the image (RGB I assume, not CMYK) in photoshop and soft proof the image against your paper's icc profile. Turn on 'gamut warning' and areas outside that paper profile's gamut will show
Try printing with saturation rendering intent as well
@@KeithCooper thank you so much for getting back with me. I just thought about this...we are printing drawings that have been colored and drawn through clip studio. Does that make a difference in what we should print on and how? My husband is an artist and he draws and colors comics and custom posters. We are not printing photo graphs. We'd love to use a glossy cardstock but the one I have does not print correctly and I can't seem to find 11 x 17 glossy cardstock for an ink jet printer
'Clip studio ' is not software I know - most 'art' packages are pretty useless at colour management I'm afraid.
Glossy cardstock rarely prints well with ANY inkjet printer. I'd contact a specialist paper supplier like my local one, Paper Spectrum, here in Leicester
Not having printer profiles will potentially cause problems as well
This is an area I've quite a bit of experience in helping people with, but it's all to often the equivalent of me saying when asked for directions. that you shouldn't be starting from here ;-)
Does a printer use up more ink when you increase the ppi?
Do you mean the printer driver quality settings or the PPI of the image?
Sometimes on some printers a higher quality printer setting will use slightly more ink - it's uncommon though. A draft mode will use less
As to image resolution - no difference whatsoever at any meaningful level ;-)
@@KeithCooper thank you. I have been looking at printers for a few days and this one seems to be a great choice for me.
How do you properly workout the PPI based on your final edited file?
It's done in the resizing/resampling in photoshop.
The image is sized to 1200ppi and printed at whatever size this was. This image is re-sampled to produce 600/460/300 ppi versions - all at the same size
This gives me 4 prints at the same size but different ppi settings
See the written article and in particular the P700/900 written article, since it has a lot more explanation of the principles - the videos are kept simple to just cover the basic ideas.
tl;dr: send 600 dpi images. See 8:30 for more
Not quite - DPI is not the correct term ;-)
Send as much real resolution [in PPI] as you have
600 as such has no special relevance
A very recent video cover this in more detail...
Yes, ppi, not dpi