Canon UK Press Release 03/02/04

Canon’s new Bubble Jet i990 The ultimate photo printer

Canon, leader in photographic and imaging technology is pleased to announce the world?s most advanced desktop photo printer - the 4800x2400 dpi, permanent 2pl droplet size Bubble Jet i990. The professional series 7-ink printer introduces new ChromaPLUS technology to expand further Canon’s already broad colour gamut, utilising the addition of a new red ink to deliver more vibrant, lifelike results. A4 photo prints are produced in just 37 seconds, more than twice as fast as the printer’s nearest rival. The new look Bubble Jet i990 supports the vendor- independent PictBridge standard as well as Canon?s Bubble Jet Direct, with a port at the front of the printer for direct USB connection and printing from any compatible digital camera or camcorder, without the need for a PC.

The Bubble Jet i990 has the longest and highest nozzle-density print head of any printer with 5376 nozzles, capable of ejecting more than 100 million 2pl droplets per second. This gets more ink on the page in less time and with greater accuracy for grain-free prints of unsurpassed clarity, contrast, colour range and smoothness of tone. Documents print at 16ppm (mono) and 12ppm (colour).

“Canon is committed to developing printers that deliver life-like photos at high speed,” explains Malcolm Hills, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging in the UK and Ireland. “The Bubble Jet i990 is the new printing partner for time pressured professionals who demand the ultimate in photographic quality, and who appreciate immediate results.”

The Bubble Jet i990 will be available from February 2004 for around ?299 inc VAT.

Ultimate photo quality
Canon’s new ChromaPLUS technology utilises seven colour inks: The new red ink, plus cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta and black. The new red ink expands the colour gamut in the area from yellow to red. Saturation has been increased by up to 60% to more closely match the colour characteristics of positive photographic film.

At 1/6 density, the light inks have the lightest density of any on the market, giving the Bubble Jet i990 extremely smooth tonal gradation. All inks are dye-based, resulting in vivid colours and high contrast output. While competitors use a mix of small and large droplet sizes to overcome speed limitations, the Bubble Jet i990 only uses 2 picolitre droplets. These droplets are produced by Micro-Nozzles measuring just 10 microns in diameter (about 1/5 the width of a human hair). They are fired at the paper with unrivalled force, precision, tolerance and consistency, which gives Canon the edge in reproduction of fine detail to eliminate even the subtlest traces of ?sandy? textures from prints.

Fastest photo prints
The key to Canon’s speed and quality advantage lies in its advanced MicroFine Droplet TechnologyTM advantage. Whereas other manufacturers assemble their print heads from multiple components, Canon employs a photolithographic technique similar to that used in semi-conductor manufacture. Benefits of this process include greater nozzle density and longer print heads. Droplets are ejected with unsurpassed frequency, which means more ink on the page in less time for record breaking print speeds.

ICC support
ICC profiles provided allow for the accurate translation of colour data from any other compliant device into the Bubble Jet i990’s native colour space. For professional users reliant on consistent colour reproduction across devices (such as scanners, monitors and printers), the ICC profile permits tremendous flexibility by ensuring the retention of colour accuracy during printing, irrespective of the image source.

Built for photo printing
The high-density print head lays more ink down at the edge of the page, making for ultra-fast borderless printing on A4, 5?x 7? and 4?x 6? media. Printing on Canon specialist media up to 270 gsm in weight is supported. To save time spent swapping media types, a dual paper tray allows both photo paper and document paper to be loaded simultaneously.

Single Ink technology
Each ink is stored in an individually replaceable tank. To eliminate waste, only the ink tank that is exhausted needs to be replaced. When a particular colour is running low, users are warned via a pop up window on their computer monitor and to further eliminate ink wastage, the printer will not start printing a page if there is insufficient ink to finish it.

Connectability and compatibility
A USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection is provided to accommodate fast data transfer of large high-resolution colour image files, ensuring data transfer to the printer never creates a bottleneck. The printer is compatible with all popular Windows and Mac operating systems.

Media to match
Canon?s competitive advantage in print head and ink technology is fully realised when genuine Canon photo grade media is used. Canon media is developed specifically to complement Bubble Jet technology. The 245 gsm PR-101 Photo Paper Pro offers Canon?s ultimate level of photo quality . Other supported media includes the new SG-101 Photo Paper Plus Semi Gloss paper which gives a similar textured satin finish to that offered by many photo labs, GP-401 Glossy Photo Paper for everyday glossy prints and MP-101 for high grade matte photo prints.

Quality software for quality prints
To keep the PC desktop tidy, all print applications have been brought together under the one easy to navigate Canon Easy-ToolBox tool bar. To help users get the most from their printer, Canon includes a suite of practical software:

PhotoRecord ? Auto scales images to different paper sizes, making it easy to print a photo album from images of any size onto A4, 5?x7? and 4? x 6? media.

ZoomBrowser EX ? Image management system that displays thumbnails to make it easy to edit and manage images stored on the computer, with features such as cropping, slide presentation and resizing for emailing.

Easy-PhotoPrint ? uses information collected at the time of image capture on Exif 2.2 compliant cameras to create better quality, more natural looking photos.

Easy-WebPrint ? simplifies printing of Internet pages by scaling down output so the entire page is printed even when extending over multiple screens.

Pricing, availability and reader enquiries
The Bubble Jet i990 will be available from February 2004 for around ?299 inc VAT.