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Canon's PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II Printer Capturing the Big Picture with Ease by Alice B. Miller Article rating: 8.78

With all the printing options in the marketplace, selecting the right printer for your needs can be dizzying. The recently released Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II is a welcome solution for pros and advanced amateurs. Fast, quiet, easy to use, and versatile, this printer creates archival-quality over-sized prints with brilliant color and stunning clarity.

Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II

Getting started was a breeze. Thanks to the “Getting Started” manual, which is brief, clearly written, and simply illustrated, I was up and running in minutes. Loading the inks, aligning the ink heads, and uploading the software were easy and uneventful. By the way: The Easy-PhotoPrint Pro plug-in software is compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS, CS2, CS3, CS4 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.

The PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II’s 8-color dye-based ChromaLife 100 inks added punch to already colorful images, as advertised. Probably even more significant, the inks ensure that these prints will keep their color and clarity for 100 years, if they are stored in an archival-quality album. Techies may be impressed that Canon’s Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering (FINE) technology uses a high-precision, 6,144-nozzle print head to deliver thousands of 2-picoliter ink droplets per second in one pass, for a 4800x2400 maximum color dpi. If that’s the reason my images are so detailed and crisp—great.

The printer is built to accommodate a range of photo and fine art papers, as well as thick or textured alternative media. I tested primarily with 13x19 papers because I got a kick out of making super-sized prints from a few of my favorite recent and not-so-recent images. Using the front feeder, I printed on Canon Photo Paper Plus, a semi-gloss; Canon Fine Art Paper, photo rag and premium matte; as well as Moab by Legion lasal Photo Matte 235 and Photo Gloss 270 archival papers. I printed some images on 5x7- and 8.5x11-inch paper, using the auto sheet feed at the back. [The printer also handles 4x6, 8x10, legal, and 11x17-paper.] Both feeds are easy to use and error-free.

Time is money so I was absolutely delighted when my borderless 11x14 images on 13x19 paper emerged in 1 minute 23 seconds. And my 8x10s—in 47 seconds! And all so quietly. Canon’s specs were right on the mark.

While I printed primarily color images, I did a B&W print or two. In sharp contrast to the color prints, it took 9.5 minutes to output a single B&W print. Although that’s 3x faster than it was on the PIXMA Pro9000, clearly, color prints are this printer’s forte.

The printer is PictBridge enabled, which means if, for some reason, you don’t want to or can’t print from your computer, you can print directly from a PictBridge compatible digital camera, DV camcorder, or camera phone. I was connected to my Macbook Pro when I printed.

New in the Pro9000 Mark II: Ambient Light Correction, a program that optimizes color output to match the lighting conditions of the room you plan to show your photos. The program is only available for Windows VISTA now. We Mac users have to wait for the Canon elves to complete our version. Auto Photo Fix, also new in the Pro9000 Mark II, automatically categorizes images as Portrait, Scenery, Night Scenery, Snapshot with Scenery, or Snapshot with Night Scenery, then applies the optimal image correction. So, when faces are backlit and under-exposed, Auto Photo Fix automatically brightens them for more accurate skin tones. Can you spell magic . . .

The printer comes bundled with Photoshop Elements 6—the full version—a big plus for scrapbookers, who will love this printer because it’s ideal for printing 12x12 scrapbook pages. Note to scrapbookers: If you haven’t already discovered the artistry and brilliance of Erin Manning, professional photographer, teacher and TV personality, go to usa.canon.com/scrapbooking, and you’ll find a wealth of information and ideas on designs and layouts. I’m an infrequent scrapbooker, but I played around with a couple of design ideas and found them positively contagious.

Also available at usa.canon.com are banner links to Creative Park, a treasure trove of free project ideas, from pop-up cards to 3D sculptures, and Try My Photo (usa.canon.com/protmp), where you can order free sample prints of your images output on specific Canon printers.

One of my favorite things about the printer is that it’s part of Canon’s Generation Green environmental initiative. As such, the PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II lets you place multiple images on a single page, saving up to 75% on paper; has individual ink tanks, so you can replace individual color tanks rather than entire color cartridges; is ENERGY STAR qualified, so it’s 25% more efficient than conventional models; is RoHS Compliant, meeting a European Union directive restricting hazardous materials in electronic products.

The PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II, MSRP $499, includes a User’s Guide CD, toll-free technical phone support, and one-year limited warranty. And now through September 30, there’s a $100 mail-in rebate if you buy the printer at a select photo specialty store. Or buy the printer with a Canon EOS 50D DSLR and receive a $400 rebate.

So if you’re in the market for a printer that magnifies the color and clarity of your images, outputs gallery-quality over-sized prints, simplifies and expedites the printing process, and puts more control over the final results into your hands, the PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II may be calling your name.

Alice B. Miller is the owner of Plum Communications Inc. (www.plumcomm.com), a Long Island, NY-based editorial services and marketing communications company that supports the photo industry. Editor of Studio Photography magazine from 2000 to 2007, Alice has a growing clientele that includes photographers, manufacturers, publications, and associations. She is the director of public relations for the International Photographic Council and an advisory board member of NyghtFalcon photography studios.

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