Note: This is the UK/European version of the i9900 printer that was reported yesterday.

Canon UK Press Release 09/02/04

Canon’s Bubble Jet i9950
8-colour A3 photo printing arrives

Canon, leader in photographic and imaging technology, is pleased to announce the world’s first 8-colour A3 photo printer - the Bubble Jet i9950. With 4800x2400 dpi and permanent 2pl droplet size, Canon’s new flagship A3 Bubble Jet introduces new ChromaPLUS technology to expand further Canon’s already broad colour gamut. New red and green inks have been added to deliver more vibrant, lifelike results. A full borderless A3 photo prints in just 65 seconds, making this the fastest printer in its class. The new look i9950 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 with any compatible digital camera or camcorder, without the need for a PC.

The world’s longest and highest nozzle-density print head has 6,144 nozzles, capable of ejecting a staggering 122 million 2pl droplets per second. This gets more ink on the page in less time and with greater accuracy for grain-free prints with unsurpassed clarity, contrast, colour range and smoothness of tone.

?Canon is committed to delivering printers that deliver life-like photos at high speed,” explains Malcolm Hills, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging in the UK and Ireland. “In a field where Canon already has significant advantage, the i9950 takes yet another leap forward to provide peerless A3 photographic quality at unrivalled speed.”

The Bubble Jet i9950 will be available from May 2004 for around ?549 inc VAT.

Ultimate photo quality
Canon’s new ChromaPLUS technology utilises 8 colour inks: the new Red and Green inks, plus Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta and Black. Canon’s dye inks produce higher levels of glossiness, more vivid colours, reduced graininess and better contrast photo quality when compared with the flat and lack-lustre pigment-based inks used in conventional printers. Canon’s introduction of highly saturated red and green inks expands the colour gamut in the yellow to red and yellow to green areas. Saturation and density in the high chrome area 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 lowest density of any on the market, giving the i9950 better control over colour depth for extremely smooth gradation. While competitors rely on a mix of small and large droplet sizes to overcome speed limitations, the i9950 only uses 2 picolitre droplets ? smaller than the size of film grain. These are fired from 10-micron diameter Micro-Nozzles (just 1/5 the width of a human hair) with unrivalled force, precision, tolerance and consistency. This precise level of control gives Canon the edge in resolution of fine detail, eliminating even the most subtle traces of ?sandy? textures from prints.

The fastest photo prints
The key to Canon’s speed and quality advantage lies in its MicroFine Droplet Technology. While 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 down 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 i9950’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 a range of media sizes from 4?x 6? up to A3+. Printing onto Canon specialist media up to 270gsm in weight is supported and printing directly onto compatible CD-R/DVDs is now possible with the inclusion of a detachable CD printing unit. 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
Conveniently, each colour ink is stored in an individually replaceable, transparent ink tank. To eliminate waste, only the ink that is exhausted needs to be replaced. In addition to seeing the ink being depleted through the transparent ink tanks, users are warned with a pop up window on their computer when a particular colour is running low and the printer will not start to print a page if there is insufficient ink to finish.

Connectability and compatibility
A USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection is provided to accommodate fast data transfer of large, high-resolution colour image files, reducing the risk of data transfer ?bottlenecks? occurring. The printer is compatible with all popular Windows & Macintosh operating systems, with a FireWire port included for Mac users.

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 245gsm 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:
CD-LabelPrint ? guides users through printing to CD-R/DVD disks
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.