Canon PIXMA PRO-100 Review

April 26, 2013 | Jon Canfield | Printer Reviews | Rating star Rating star Rating star Rating star Half rating star

Ease of Use

Once setup, the printer was very straight forward to use. Printing in Photoshop through the Print Studio Pro software was the easiest method as all the papers are listed in the correct names, making it easy to get the expected results. Printing with Photoshop managed color is a little more challenging because Canon doesn’t always use the same name for their profiles as the paper uses. For printing to my normal papers, Moab Entrada and Moab Lasal Exhibition Luster, I used the profiles available on the Moab website, printing directly in Photoshop.

Canon PIXMA PRO-100

Canon PIXMA PRO-100

Canon PIXMA PRO-100

In all cases, prints on luster and gloss papers looked beautiful. Colors just pop off the paper, with cleaner color in saturated areas than I was able to get from the Pro-1. Compared to the Pro-1 print, color saturation was higher, but the prints themselves looked a little muddy. If you’re going to print to fine art paper with the Pro-100, you’ll want to reduce saturation about 10%. Particularly on images with skin tones, this color saturation is obvious and too strong.

For black and white printing, the extra gray and light gray inks make a very noticeable difference over the Pro9000 Mark II, but they still aren’t in line with a good pigment printer. Blacks don’t have the density as, for example, the Epson 3880 or R3000. They’re nice, but lack contrast and deep black. What it did have though was smoother tonal gradation than the Epson equivalent, particularly noticeable in sky images.

For the US version, Canon now supports printing to printable CD/DVD media. This has been available for international users for quite a while, but only recently have those of us in the US been able to do this on anything other than Epson. Printing to CD/DVD is straight forward using the included tray (for which Canon provides a storage slot under the paper output tray.

There are separate paper paths depending on the media you’re using. Each has it’s own cover, and the printer will not print from either path if the other cover is open (something that threw me off more than once when changing papers).

Conclusion

So, which is the better printer - the pigment Pro-10 which was introduced at the same time, replacing the Pro9500 Mark II, or the Pro-100? It’s a very tough decision. If you do most of your printing on photo papers, particularly luster and gloss, and you shoot a lot of landscape/flower type photos, the Pro-100 is a clear winner. For fine art media, and especially fine art black and white, the choice isn’t as clear. The Pro-10 has a matte black, but lacks the second gray. Still, I would go with the Pro-10 for a fine art printer. At $499, the Pro-10 is a solid value for the money. You’ll get gorgeous prints with rich color, and it will do it faster than any other printer in its class.

4.5 stars

Ratings (out of 5)
Design 4.5
Features 4.5
Ease-of-use 4
Image quality 4
Value for money 4.5

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