Keith, I can't thank you enough for the work you do on your videos and your articles. We have these wonderful machines yet it is as a result of the work you do that we learn how to get the best out of them. I don't quite have the funds to upgrade from the Pro100 to a 200 or 300 or more but at least I know I'll be making a wise choice when I do.
Thank you very much Mr Cooper. I am struggeling a lot with my small (A4) Canon PIXMA printer to get neutral black and white prints and sah that the type / brand of paper makes the difference. I am considdering to buy the Canon pro 200 and your lessens learn me a lot! PS. I always use the canon ink and paper. And Brilliant for fine art.
Excellent - all PRO-200 related articles/videos are indexed in the main [written] review, if you've not seen it www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
I just bought the Canon pro 200 & made my 1st b/w print today. I'm impressed, watch a # of your videos about printing. That shot you showed/printed looks familiar to me, like it's in Northern Colorado near where I live. Yes, the sky here is impressive in this area. My county here in Weld Co has Pawnee Buttes which make for good "sky" images. Thanks. I will say my 1st b/w print (after your test print I downloaded) was of the Wee White Cottage just off of the A82!
Very helpful thanks. I’ve been looking at your vlogs on the Canon 200 and 300, hoping to buy one end of the year. I still undecided whether as an amateur to spend the extra for the 300, your excellent unbiased vlogs are very helpful in the decision making process. Ho hum 🤔
Hello Keith, first of all thank you for all the videos on the topic of printing with the Canon Pixma Pro-200. You have already helped me a lot!Because you brought up the subject of ink.Today I got the warning to change the ink. The warning with the red X. How long can I still use it or should I change it right away? Maybe you can help me there. Thank you very much, Stefan
Thanks It reaches a point where it insists you change the ink and won't proceed. The initial warnings are more a note that you need to have a spare cart ready. The Canon [thermal] print heads are very susceptible to damage if ink runs out, so there is a distinct point where the printer won't let you proceed. On both the 300 and 200, I've noticed that the final 'stop' often occurs after a print where the printer decides to do a bit of maintenance.
@@KeithCooper Hi Keith, thanks for the lightspeed quick response! Very insightful, saves me quite a bit of money! Already printed out an A3+ today despite the warning. Everything turned out perfect ;-)
I have a Pro-100 printer. It has transparent cartridges which is very convenient to control a real amount of the ink left. Usually, I can print quite a few A4 sheets even after the printer utility says that a cartridge is empty. As for bw tint, some papers can really depict bw images without any tint even without using the bw mode.
Yes, some papers and some profiles work - but the key thing to note is that it is SOME papers... That's why a printer like this really needs some experimenting to get good results for black and white
@@KeithCooper I don’t have experience with pigment printers but maybe dye-inks printers have not only drawbacks but also some pictorial benefits in comparison? I mean not only the gloss differential. As far as I understand, the reason of BW neutrality using pigment inks is because pigments form like a layer upon a paper surface while water-based inks tend to dissolve into the paper base. If it is so then doesn’t it mean that dye-ink prints may look more like traditional photos which the dye layer is also not on a surface of a paper but under the surface? Also, doesn’t it mean that dye-ink prints may have a better colour gamut? Water-based dyes may mix on a paper surface making all sorts of new colour tints while pigments don’t mix at all. Back to the papers. Recently I made a test on my Pro-100, printing the same images (2 colour and 1 BW) on about 25 various photo papers. Even without custom profiles and not using a BW mode, BW images on many papers were very good. However, I admit that some papers delivered absolute neutrality! Also, I taped one batch of prints on a window. After 3 weeks I compared that batch to another one, kept in the dark. The good was that the dye colours haven’t changed at all. The bad is that the base colour of some papers did change (4 out of 25). Unfortunately, one of them was one of my most preferable papers. The images printed on it that were kept in the dark look just gorgeous! The paper base is so pleasant to touch and to look at! I wanted to use that paper for my photo album. Now I don’t know what to do. Surely, the album will be kept in the dark, but who knows, maybe in a few decades, the photos will turn yellow anyway…
Some elements of the dye B&W neutrality are due to the spectral response of the dyes (see my written articles for this) However the difference in inks/paper is real - but there are a lot of different paper types, so experimentation is the only answer - one of the 'metallic' papers I test does look distinctly better with the dyes. I'd note too that the gloss/differential issue is one that has improved with pigments over the years That's a lot of testing - but then again, there are so many papers out there that I have to keep to a relatively limited range
Hey hope I can get a respone, How do you top feed heavy paper? The ICC profiles won't allow that and only let me manual feed. Also on canons site it says the top feed is limited to 11.8 mil paper, the rear goes up to 20mil. wont that cause damage? been learning a lot from your content thanks a bunch!
The profiles have nothing to do with paper feeding... It's about media settings. Have a read of the main [written] review - it links to all my info about the 300 www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-300-printer-review/
I’m looking to purchase a printer for my watercolor studio ( I am an illustrator) and I need to be able to print on 300 gsm watercolor paper ( cotton types like Arches and mixed media types like Canson XL cold pressed ) will this printer do the job for me? I mostly need it to transfer my sketches done digitally on iPad procreate onto the watercolor paper where I can then paint directly on it. I prefer to use this “coloring book” method because I can get higher resolution and sharper ink lines digitally sketching, without all the mistakes that come with traditional inking. Appreciate your help, thank you!
Possible, but custom profiles are essential - as is printing from a computer, not an ipad [tablets/phones are essentially useless if any elements of print quality matter ;-) ] See the actual pro-200 review www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
@@KeithCooper thank you, I ended up going with the canon prograf 300 printer, expensive piece of equipment but it feeds the 300gsm watercolor paper like a treat and I like that the pigmented ink is also waterproof so it won’t smear into my illustrations. Together with procreate it is working beautifully! Thank you for the awesome vids and response. :)
Thanks for this demo-very helpful. I just bought this printer and the one problem I have is centering the paper properly so that the borders are symmetrical on all sides. I’ve tried margin adjustments but I can’t seem to get it right. Do you have any suggestions? I generally only print Letter-size (8.5x11 or your A4? - we don’t use A-sizes in the US, lol!).
@@KeithCooper Thanks for replying! Yes, I do use that plugin. May have to do with error messages I get directly from the printer that say I’m not using the proper size paper (that’s another issue - I always choose to ignore message but it’s a pain having to march over to the other side of the room for every print). I may call Canon Support.
You talk alot about metamerism due to the nature of dye based ink in different lighting when printing black and white. But what about the base color of the paper it self? I would assume that the B&W mode is made for bright white types of paper. When i print (with my PRO-200) with the b&W mode on my favorite paper, the Hahnemühle Photo Rag which is more of a natural white color the prints are "warmer" than expected. Is this something one should take into consideration and prioritize printing B&W with an ICC profile to compensate for the papers collor if it is not bright white? I assume that would be baked in to the ICC when scanning the patches and how they are affected by the papers base color. Is this something you could reason and elaborate around, with your experience on different types of papers?
Yes, it's quite complex with the PRO-200 Did you see the article I specifically wrote about this? www.northlight-images.co.uk/black-and-white-printing-with-the-pro-200/ The B&W mode is made for the media type selected - it can be fine tuned.
@KeithCooper Great, thank you. I will have a read. But wouldn't the effect from paper base color affect pigment inks in the same way? Or do that ink sit "on" the paper as opposed to "bond" to the surface as dye inks do and the paper color comes through more?
@@connywickstrom9502 It's a very complex area - one reason I've not covered paper and ink-receptor chemistry and manufacturing. The paper base does affect the look of the printer in 'paper white' - add to that any OBAs or other brightening/whitening agents. When building profiles I can adjust the influence of the base colour, but it does not make that much difference. Add to that, profiling packages are not currently designed to offer optimal B&W performance in linearity or tone. This is why I do all the testing in that article - I try and base my choices on measured results, not what I think ought to be best - I've been wrong too many times ;-)
@KeithCooper Great! Thank you very much for the informative answer. That clarified many things for me, especially why there is not a clear rule for when B&W mode vs ICC is preferable between different papers or inks. So back to "it depends" and testing to find what I like best in my specific scenario. Thanks again for your videos and articles, much appreciated.
Look at what I've made - see the list in the main [written] review and email me at Northlight for which papers you have. www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
With my Xrite i1 studio I can produce both " B&W " and " Colour" custom profiles. I'm curious as to whether creating a B&W custom profile in this case but selecting to print in colour ( rather than Canons B&W mode ) would give better results than creating a colour profile and printing your B&W image in the colour mode as you did here. Would it even make any difference?
Well, it's always worth trying, but my personal belief is that the 'B&W' profiles are frequently of marginal utility. When I tested this, they all had distinct linearity issues (shadow crunching). The i1Studio/ccStudio 'B&W' profiles are simply ordinary profiles somewhat optimised for B&W - they have nothing to do with the specific B&W print mode (Canon or Epson) and are of no use with it.
![Checking out a printer not used for six months [Canon PRO-300]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/J3NrYxnlDXg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Checking out a printer not used for six months [Canon PRO-300]](/img/tr.png)
Keith, I can't thank you enough for the work you do on your videos and your articles. We have these wonderful machines yet it is as a result of the work you do that we learn how to get the best out of them. I don't quite have the funds to upgrade from the Pro100 to a 200 or 300 or more but at least I know I'll be making a wise choice when I do.
Thanks - I've another (pro-300) one on Sunday
Thank you very much Mr Cooper. I am struggeling a lot with my small (A4) Canon PIXMA printer to get neutral black and white prints and sah that the type / brand of paper makes the difference.
I am considdering to buy the Canon pro 200 and your lessens learn me a lot!
PS. I always use the canon ink and paper. And Brilliant for fine art.
Thanks - if you've not seen it, see the info about B&W in the main review
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
I'm watching all your videos, great job, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Glad you like them!
There is a proper index at:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/keith-cooper-photography-videos-index/
If you've not seen it
Thank you Keith. Your videos have indeed helped us decide to purchase a PRO 200 for printing artwork.
Excellent - all PRO-200 related articles/videos are indexed in the main [written] review, if you've not seen it
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
I just bought the Canon pro 200 & made my 1st b/w print today. I'm impressed, watch a # of your videos about printing. That shot you showed/printed looks familiar to me, like it's in Northern Colorado near where I live. Yes, the sky here is impressive in this area. My county here in Weld Co has Pawnee Buttes which make for good "sky" images. Thanks. I will say my 1st b/w print (after your test print I downloaded) was of the Wee White Cottage just off of the A82!
Thanks - it's an excellent printer. Glad it's working for you!
That shot was taken on Hwy 131 near Toponas, Colorado. Looking southwest
Very helpful thanks. I’ve been looking at your vlogs on the Canon 200 and 300, hoping to buy one end of the year. I still undecided whether as an amateur to spend the extra for the 300, your excellent unbiased vlogs are very helpful in the decision making process. Ho hum 🤔
Thanks - I'd suggest reading the actual [written] reviews as well - the videos are often there to supplement the main, more detailed' articles
@@KeithCooper thanks, I will do that
Thanks for the guidance.
Glad it was of interest
Hello Keith, first of all thank you for all the videos on the topic of printing with the Canon Pixma Pro-200. You have already helped me a lot!Because you brought up the subject of ink.Today I got the warning to change the ink. The warning with the red X. How long can I still use it or should I change it right away? Maybe you can help me there. Thank you very much, Stefan
Thanks
It reaches a point where it insists you change the ink and won't proceed. The initial warnings are more a note that you need to have a spare cart ready.
The Canon [thermal] print heads are very susceptible to damage if ink runs out, so there is a distinct point where the printer won't let you proceed.
On both the 300 and 200, I've noticed that the final 'stop' often occurs after a print where the printer decides to do a bit of maintenance.
@@KeithCooper Hi Keith, thanks for the lightspeed quick response! Very insightful, saves me quite a bit of money! Already printed out an A3+ today despite the warning. Everything turned out perfect ;-)
I have a Pro-100 printer. It has transparent cartridges which is very convenient to control a real amount of the ink left. Usually, I can print quite a few A4 sheets even after the printer utility says that a cartridge is empty.
As for bw tint, some papers can really depict bw images without any tint even without using the bw mode.
Yes, some papers and some profiles work - but the key thing to note is that it is SOME papers...
That's why a printer like this really needs some experimenting to get good results for black and white
@@KeithCooper I don’t have experience with pigment printers but maybe dye-inks printers have not only drawbacks but also some pictorial benefits in comparison? I mean not only the gloss differential.
As far as I understand, the reason of BW neutrality using pigment inks is because pigments form like a layer upon a paper surface while water-based inks tend to dissolve into the paper base. If it is so then doesn’t it mean that dye-ink prints may look more like traditional photos which the dye layer is also not on a surface of a paper but under the surface?
Also, doesn’t it mean that dye-ink prints may have a better colour gamut? Water-based dyes may mix on a paper surface making all sorts of new colour tints while pigments don’t mix at all.
Back to the papers. Recently I made a test on my Pro-100, printing the same images (2 colour and 1 BW) on about 25 various photo papers. Even without custom profiles and not using a BW mode, BW images on many papers were very good. However, I admit that some papers delivered absolute neutrality!
Also, I taped one batch of prints on a window. After 3 weeks I compared that batch to another one, kept in the dark. The good was that the dye colours haven’t changed at all. The bad is that the base colour of some papers did change (4 out of 25). Unfortunately, one of them was one of my most preferable papers. The images printed on it that were kept in the dark look just gorgeous! The paper base is so pleasant to touch and to look at! I wanted to use that paper for my photo album. Now I don’t know what to do. Surely, the album will be kept in the dark, but who knows, maybe in a few decades, the photos will turn yellow anyway…
Some elements of the dye B&W neutrality are due to the spectral response of the dyes (see my written articles for this)
However the difference in inks/paper is real - but there are a lot of different paper types, so experimentation is the only answer - one of the 'metallic' papers I test does look distinctly better with the dyes. I'd note too that the gloss/differential issue is one that has improved with pigments over the years
That's a lot of testing - but then again, there are so many papers out there that I have to keep to a relatively limited range
Very helpful, thank you.
Thanks!
Hey hope I can get a respone, How do you top feed heavy paper? The ICC profiles won't allow that and only let me manual feed. Also on canons site it says the top feed is limited to 11.8 mil paper, the rear goes up to 20mil. wont that cause damage? been learning a lot from your content thanks a bunch!
The profiles have nothing to do with paper feeding...
It's about media settings.
Have a read of the main [written] review - it links to all my info about the 300
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-300-printer-review/
I’m looking to purchase a printer for my watercolor studio ( I am an illustrator) and I need to be able to print on 300 gsm watercolor paper ( cotton types like Arches and mixed media types like Canson XL cold pressed ) will this printer do the job for me? I mostly need it to transfer my sketches done digitally on iPad procreate onto the watercolor paper where I can then paint directly on it. I prefer to use this “coloring book” method because I can get higher resolution and sharper ink lines digitally sketching, without all the mistakes that come with traditional inking. Appreciate your help, thank you!
Possible, but custom profiles are essential - as is printing from a computer, not an ipad [tablets/phones are essentially useless if any elements of print quality matter ;-) ]
See the actual pro-200 review
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
@@KeithCooper thank you, I ended up going with the canon prograf 300 printer, expensive piece of equipment but it feeds the 300gsm watercolor paper like a treat and I like that the pigmented ink is also waterproof so it won’t smear into my illustrations. Together with procreate it is working beautifully! Thank you for the awesome vids and response. :)
Excellent - glad to have helped@@HollyKatsura
Thanks for this demo-very helpful. I just bought this printer and the one problem I have is centering the paper properly so that the borders are symmetrical on all sides. I’ve tried margin adjustments but I can’t seem to get it right. Do you have any suggestions? I generally only print Letter-size (8.5x11 or your A4? - we don’t use A-sizes in the US, lol!).
Have you tried printing via the Canon PPL software - it handles margins well.
@@KeithCooper Thanks for replying! Yes, I do use that plugin. May have to do with error messages I get directly from the printer that say I’m not using the proper size paper (that’s another issue - I always choose to ignore message but it’s a pain having to march over to the other side of the room for every print). I may call Canon Support.
You talk alot about metamerism due to the nature of dye based ink in different lighting when printing black and white. But what about the base color of the paper it self? I would assume that the B&W mode is made for bright white types of paper.
When i print (with my PRO-200) with the b&W mode on my favorite paper, the Hahnemühle Photo Rag which is more of a natural white color the prints are "warmer" than expected. Is this something one should take into consideration and prioritize printing B&W with an ICC profile to compensate for the papers collor if it is not bright white? I assume that would be baked in to the ICC when scanning the patches and how they are affected by the papers base color.
Is this something you could reason and elaborate around, with your experience on different types of papers?
Yes, it's quite complex with the PRO-200
Did you see the article I specifically wrote about this?
www.northlight-images.co.uk/black-and-white-printing-with-the-pro-200/
The B&W mode is made for the media type selected - it can be fine tuned.
@KeithCooper Great, thank you. I will have a read. But wouldn't the effect from paper base color affect pigment inks in the same way? Or do that ink sit "on" the paper as opposed to "bond" to the surface as dye inks do and the paper color comes through more?
@@connywickstrom9502 It's a very complex area - one reason I've not covered paper and ink-receptor chemistry and manufacturing.
The paper base does affect the look of the printer in 'paper white' - add to that any OBAs or other brightening/whitening agents.
When building profiles I can adjust the influence of the base colour, but it does not make that much difference.
Add to that, profiling packages are not currently designed to offer optimal B&W performance in linearity or tone.
This is why I do all the testing in that article - I try and base my choices on measured results, not what I think ought to be best - I've been wrong too many times ;-)
@KeithCooper Great! Thank you very much for the informative answer. That clarified many things for me, especially why there is not a clear rule for when B&W mode vs ICC is preferable between different papers or inks. So back to "it depends" and testing to find what I like best in my specific scenario.
Thanks again for your videos and articles, much appreciated.
Hello Keith it's a Photo paper that you can reccomend for this printer specifically for B&W?
Not really - I can only test a few UK papers - But, see the other video about B&W and especially the written article for more info
Hi Keith thanks for the videos…. I Have my pro 200 on order! Sorry if you have already answered this but what paper did you use for this print?
I can't remember - it's in the video!
Probably a bright cotton rag,
Keith I have the Canon Pro200 printer and am a pure amateur ,I would like your ICC profiles please.
Look at what I've made - see the list in the main [written] review and email me at Northlight for which papers you have.
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-200-printer-review/
With my Xrite i1 studio I can produce both " B&W " and " Colour" custom profiles. I'm curious as to whether creating a B&W custom profile in this case but selecting to print in colour ( rather than Canons B&W mode ) would give better results than creating a colour profile and printing your B&W image in the colour mode as you did here. Would it even make any difference?
Well, it's always worth trying, but my personal belief is that the 'B&W' profiles are frequently of marginal utility. When I tested this, they all had distinct linearity issues (shadow crunching).
The i1Studio/ccStudio 'B&W' profiles are simply ordinary profiles somewhat optimised for B&W - they have nothing to do with the specific B&W print mode (Canon or Epson) and are of no use with it.
Can we print canvas on that
ua-cam.com/video/VfvsRH5Wgno/v-deo.html
- yes