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Print Quality (7.00)
These options are controlled through the Canon My Printer software. The main menu options are Printer Settings, Paper Source Settings, Printer Status, and Troubleshooting.
There are five main tabs in Printer Settings. The Main tab includes drop-down menus for Media Type and Paper Source. The media types include the standard fare—plain paper, photo paper (Canon’s grades as well as basic glossy, matte, and other options), high resolution, hagaki, t-shirt transfers, and envelope. A sidebar on the left side of the Main display displays text and graphics showing the selections for Media Type and Paper Source as well as for page size and orientation, which are selected on the Page Setup tab. The graphics, an icon of the printer with arrows indicating the direction of the paper movement and an icon of a printed page with blue lines indicating text, change as some of the options are changed, so you don’t have to switch between tabs to see some of your settings. While helpful for first-time users, the graphics are a waste of space once the user is familiar with the utility. A list of other basic specs, like page layout, number of copies, and profile in use would be more useful to include in the sidebar. Also, an icon of what I assume is a sheet of paper appears in the tab. This doesn’t change when media type is changed, so it truly is a waste of space.
Also on the Main tab are three basic quality settings (high, standard, and fast) and a custom option (accessed through a "Set…" button) which enables a slider bar for quality (1-5) and 3 options for half-toning—Dither (dots in fixed pattern for text and graphics), Diffusion (dots in random pattern for photos), and Auto, the default. The quality slide bar might be an intriguing tool for those who like to tweak the settings themselves, but it hardly seems necessary for documents.
The Instructions button at the bottom of any driver tab opens up the very helpful MP600 Printer Driver Guide, which includes instructions for basic printing, printing methods, adjustments to print quality, maintenance, information about the printer driver, updates, etc. Instructions are well written, and they include screen shots, diagrams, and tips. The Help button displays specific information about the functions of whichever tab that you happen to be working in, which is a nice shortcut. For example, the Help menu for the Main tab describes the options for setting the paper source. The Paper Feed Switch might not be familiar to many people, so the menu describes it clearly.
The Page Setup tab includes typical page size and orientation selections. There is also an option to have the page size be different than the printer paper size. When normal-size printing is checked in the Page Layout section, no printer paper sizes are available. The other choices, such as Fit-to-Page printing and Scaled printing, allow the printed area to be reduced or enlarged according to the printer paper size. Page layout printing allows multiple prints on the same page. Poster Printing allows images to be printed across several pages, which can then be taped together for large posters.
Duplex printing, stapling margins, and number of copies are also options found within this tab. Stamps and backgrounds can be added from a dialogue button.
Image Editing (7.50)
The Main tab of the Printer settings dialogue box features a Color/Intensity button for auto or manual control, which opens the Manual Color Adjustment window seen below. Color Correction options include a limited selection of color management systems— Driver Matching, Windows Image Color Management (with a profile selection dropdown), and None. Adjustments for Intensity, Contrast, and Brightness are also possible. For some reason, Canon provides sliders for the first two options and a drop-down for the third. The only way to preview the effects of these tools is two tiny stock images of a child at the beach; one displays the original setting and the other the preview of the settings. A tiny color scale, text examples, and 3-D color objects also serve as aids. Coarse changes are assessable, but it would not be useful for finer changes. It would be more useful to have a preview of the image to be printed. Checkboxes for grayscale printing and print preview are also on the Main tab.
 Several image editing tools are available in the Effects tab. The Simulate Illustration checkbox appears to up the contrast and reduce the brightness of an image to make it pop and appear less photographic. A checkbox for Vivid Colors intensifies background colors while keeping skin tones more or less the same. On the preview, this seemed to flatten the image, reducing depth—again, an illustrative gimmick perhaps helpful when you’re working with a drab image. Three other checkboxes appear on this tab: Image Optimizer smooths out pixelated data, so it’s intended to be used for low-resolution images that need help; Photo Optimizer Pro is supposed to correct for color shifts, under- and overexposure; and Photo Noise Reduction, Normal or Strong, is intended to reduce noise from digital images.
Black and White Effects (8.00)
The MP600 allows the user to change color images to black and white or monochrome with the Monochrome Effects setting in the Effects tab of the printer driver administration software. Options include set selections (Sepia, Pink, Blue, and Green) as well as a custom color function with a slider to choose your own toning. This is anice feature not seen on many other all-in-one photo printers.
Media Types (8.00)
The Canon MP600 accepts a wide variety of paper types and sizes. Sizes include credit card (2.13 x 3.39 inches) 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, 8.5 x 11, and 4 x 7.1 inches when using a Canon PictBridge-enabled camera. All Canon papers are accepted, including photo stickers, as well as third party photo papers.
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