Color Performance Summary   • Generally good color accuracy, but had some problems with blues • Color gamut is smaller than the Epson R1900 Print Speed Page 5 of 12 Detail Performance    Color Accuracy (5.91) The primary aim of any photo printer should be to print colors accurately, so that you get the same colors in your printout that you have in your photos, and we found that the Pro 9000 Mark II did a decent job here; when calibrated, it could produce mostly accurate color, although the default profile was a little inaccurate. We test this by printing out a color chart that contains 24 known colors that are often found in photos, including skin tones and greys and then measuring the colors in the print using a professional photospectrometer to determine the difference between the original color and the printed version, which gives us the color error. We repeat this test three times, using the default profile shipped with the printer printing onto the manufacturer's preferred photo paper, using a custom profile created using a printer calibration package on the same preferred paper and with another custom profile printing onto Ilford Galerie Semi Gloss paper. On the chart below, you see the results for all of these tests, plus comparison results from other printers. The number is the CIEDE 2000 Delta E color error; the larger the number, the larger the color error.   Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Color Accuracy Comparisons       Origional Color Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Default profile, Canon Photo paper pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Canon Photo Paper Pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Ilford Galerie Epson R1900, most accurate mode Dark Skin Light Skin Blue Sky Foliage Blue Flower Bluish Green   Origional Color Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Default profile, Canon Photo paper Pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Canon Photo Paper Pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Ilford Galerie Epson R1900, most accurate mode Orange Purplish Blue Moderate Red Purple Yellow Green Orange Yellow   Origional Color Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Default profile, Canon Photo paper pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Canon Photo Paper Pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Ilford Galerie Epson R1900, most accurate mode Blue Green Red Yellow Magenta Cyan   Origional Color Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Default profile, Canon Photo paper pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Canon Photo Paper Pro II Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, Custom profile, Ilford Galerie Epson R1900, most accurate mode White Light Grey Mid Grey 1 Mid Grey 2 Dark Grey Black Mean Color Error 7.4 5.1 8.9 4.8 NOTE: Because of the way computer monitors reproduce colors, the images above may not match the results used for evaluating color accuracy. The chart should be used to judge the relative color shift, not the exact printed colors. As you can see from the results above, the Canon did a decent job on most of the colors, but there were a few areas where it has problems.  Printing onto Canon's own Photo Paper Pro II with their default profile for this paper, the blues and the greens were significantly oversaturated, which could lead to overly blue skies and somewhat florescent looking plants. Some might argue that this is a good thing; if you are looking for the blue remembered hills or the green, green grass of home, you might find this to be an attractive look. But we look for accuracy in this test, and with the default profile an already blue sky could come out luridly blue. Our custom profile (which you can download here) dealt with this to some degree: the colors we saw from prints with this were much closer to the origionals, and this underlines the benefit of producing a custom color profile for a high-end printer like this; you can get much more accurate results after this calibration. We also test printing onto Ilford Galerie Smooth Glossy paper with another custom profile, but this didn't turn out that well; even with the custom profile, the colors were more inaccurate than the default profile on Canon's own paper. It is also worth remembering that the results you may get from this printer are very dependent on the paper that you print on; different papers will have very different results. Epson themselves sells 5 different types of glossy photo paper, and there are many other manufacturers out there. So, it makes sense to do your research and find a paper type that you like if you are serious about getting the best results. Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Color Accuracy Score Comparison Color Gamut (2.98) The color gamut of a printer is the range of colors it can display; the bigger this gamut, the more colors it can accurately represent. We found that the Pro 9000 Mark II had slightly dissapointing results here; it managed to cover just under 40% of the Adobe RGB gamut. The graph below shows the Adobe RGB color gamut (the grid pattern) and the gamut that the printer achieved (the solid body). We don't expect any printer to cover the entire gamut, but we do hope that they get close, as the closer the printer gets to the Adobe RGB color gamut, the wider the range of colors it can show and the better it performs. Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Color Gamut Comparison Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Epson R1900   As you can see from this, the Pro 9000 Mark II doesn't reach into some of the wider parts of the gamut range; the Adobe RGB space (the grid) is much wider than what the printer could accurately reproduce (the solid in the middle) particularly in the green and red extremes of the gamut. By comparison, the Epson R1900 covers a significantly wider portion of the gamut, managing just over 47%, which means it can reproduce a wider set of colors. We test color gamut by printing out a specially calibrated image containing a spectrum of colors in the most accurate color mode, scanning the print and using a program called GamutVision to analyze the range of colors in the print. For more on how we test, see this page.   Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Gamut Score Comparison

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