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Detail Performance Summary |
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 • Strong, deep blacks when printing on glossy paper
• Fine details are generally well reproduced,
• Some minor problems with very fine details becoming slightly soft
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Color Performance |
Page 6 of 12 |
Inks & Media |
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Depth of Blacks (6.21)
The deeper the blacks that a printer can produce, the more realistic prints from it will look. We found that the Pro 9000 Mark II had very good blacks; we measured the DMax (the maximum density of black that it can produce) at a very decent 2.18. The bigger this number, the denser and deeper the blacks are. Although that is a very respectable score, it is not quite as high as the Epson R1900, which had a DMax of 2.31. However, the DMax of the Pro 9000 is nothing to be ashamed of, and our test prints had very rich, deep blacks when printed on glossy paper.
| Canon Pro 9000 Mark II DMax comparison |
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Detail (9.75)
Having great color accuracy is no good if the printer can't reproduce fine details, but we found that this was not a big issue on the Pro 9000 Mark II; in our tests, we found that it was very capable of rendering small, fine details. To test this, we print out a number of test photos and analyze the results, looking at how well the printer reproduced the fine details of things like color gradients, subtle black lines and detail in a number of photos of real things.
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Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Detail Comparisons: Gradients |
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Origional Image |
Canon Pro
9000 Mark II
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Epson R1900 |
| Cyan Gradient |
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| Magenta Gradient |
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| Yellow Gradient |
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| Black Gradient |
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As you can see from the examples, the Canon Pro 9000 Mark II had no problems reproducing color gradients; there is no evidence of banding or stepping in them. There is, however, a slight dark patch in the middle of the magenta where the printer seems to be trying to darken the magenta slightly. But that's a very minor issue. The color gradeints we use in this test go from 0 to 100% in the cyan, magenta, yellow and black colors.
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Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Detail Comparisons: Photo Edges |
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Origional Image |
Canon Pro 9000 Mark II
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Epson R1900 |
Alice Etching
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Tilted edge
(highly magnified) |
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Dog Photo
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Rosie
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Our tests with a number of real photos show that the Pro 9000 Mark II did an excellent job of reproducing fine details, although there were some minor issues. On the etching of Alice (from the origional edition, with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel) you can see that the fine lines on Alice's hair and hands are slightly lost; the strands of hair blur together. Likewise, on the photo of the dog, the white hairs on his muzzle and the highlights in his eyes are a little lost. You can get a closer look at how the Pro 9000 Mark II creates edges with out tilted ege test, which shows a highly magnified scan of a slanted line. Here, you can see how the printer uses different sized ink dots to create a smooth edge, and how the blacks on the prints are not actually completely solid; some of the white paper still shows through between the dots. As the scans above also show, the Epson R1900 was slightly better when it came to detail; the fine details on the Alice scan are slightly more defined (such as the cross lines on her cheek), and the slanted edge is slightly sharper.
Canon Pro 9000 Mark II
Detail Score Comparison |
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