|
Manual/Quick Start Guide (6.50)
The quick start guide is a large, folding sheet with lots of explanatory graphics and text, sped the installation process along quickly and efficiently. The manual is a 94-page black-and-white booklet in only one language (English) that describes basic operation, software use, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Canon only provides manuals in the language of the host country (except for the Selphy compact printers, which come in three languages). Tasks are described in numbered steps, well explained, and easy to follow. Fortunately, the troubleshooting menu is also fairly detailed, since the Pro9000 has only a few controls on the unit itself.
Out Of The Box (8.00)
The Canon Pixma Pro9000 printer comes in a large box with a Pixma Pro9000 printer head and a whole army of ink tanks. The printer uses 8 different cartridges: photo black, cyan, magenta, yellow, photo cyan, photo magenta, red, and green. There is also a package that contains easy setup instructions, a user guide, a quick start guide, a registration card, a cross sell sheet, and a CD-ROM with setup software and the Easy-PhotoPrint Pro program. That last program is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2. The large printer also comes with the standard power cord.
Setup (5.75)
Preparing the Pro9000 for printing was an easy and standard process, despite the multiple inks and wider format. The process involved removing the tape holding all the doors in place for shipping, removing the plastic brace holding the ink head cradle, and installing the printer head and ink cartridges. The ink cradle is the same design as other Canon inkjets. The user raises a lever, sets the plastic printer head in the base of the cradle, then pushes the lever down to lock the head. The inks install into the print head, with each cartridge color coded to its specific spot in the cradle. The cartridges click into place, and the LEDs on the cartridges light up to indicate both that the cartridges are installed correctly and that they are full of ink. The next step is to open the paper trays and load paper. Total setup time was 22 minutes.
Drivers and Administration (8.00)
The printer interface for the Pro9000 is My Printer, the same utility that controls printer selections on all Canon printers, from small compact photo printers through all-in-ones up to this level of professional photo printers and beyond. There are four selections to choose from in the main window: Printer Settings, Paper Source Settings, Printer Status, and Troubleshooting. There is a lot of functionality in these settings, which works well for a printer like the Selphy compact photo printers, but for a higher-end unit like the Pro9000, most users will be performing image editing in a program like Adobe Photoshop.
Nonetheless, there are many options in the utility, including paper selection, paper size, quality, and color settings—both color management selections and color balance and saturation. The Effects tab provides the tools for printing color images as black-and-white or monochrome colors, with a wider selection of colors than most printers, including sepia, pink, blue, and green. It also gives the user the ability to apply sharpening and noise reduction tools.
The Profiles tab allows users to save any settings they’ve used for a particular print job. Most printers have this capability these days, and this is a helpful function if you often print similar types of documents or photos, and you prefer settings that are different from the printer’s default settings. Users simply select Add to Profiles in the Profiles tab, name their settings, and the setting is added to the list. (This is different than paper/printer profiles created by the manufacturer or by the user. These are more sophisticated color settings that are tailored to the printer and paper in use. More about this can be found in an upcoming feature article on printer profiling.)
Various maintenance functions can be performed in the Maintenance tabs, such as head alignment, head cleaning, deep cleaning, and bottom plate cleaning.
Software (8.00)
The Pro9000 comes with a suite of bundled software—326 megabytes of it, including the drivers and on-screen manual. During installation, users can choose to customize the options or they can accept the whole suite with Easy Install. The list of programs includes Canon Setup Utility, Easy Web-Print, My Printer, Photo Record, Easy-PhotoPrint, and Easy Photo-Print Pro. Users can also choose to install the Adobe RGB color space onto their system, which is recommended if it’s not already installed, especially with a printer of this caliber. Most users will be using RAW files to print with, so they’ll want to be working in a color space at least this large.
The Easy Photo-Print program provides a simple three-tabbed system for printing photos. We found this program to be much more intuitive than similar programs from other manufacturers, such as HP’s Photosmart Express. First-time users will find no problems getting their first prints out, and this program may function as a quick print solution for even professionals. However, the more serious prosumers that will purchase this Pro9000 will likely be printing from Photoshop or another similar high-end program.
The Easy-PhotoPrint software is appropriately named. It’s set up as a 3-step process, making it easy for first-time users to navigate and simply print pictures. Its simple graphic layout allows users to browse and select their photo in tab 1, choose paper size and type in tab 2, and choose layout in tab 3. There are some limited editing functions within this program.
For those who like more control over their editing, Canon provides and Easy-Photo Print Pro plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Most of the easy versions options are on the plug-ins main screen, with buttons to lead the user to slightly more sophisticated color editing options. One important difference is the ability to adjust color management settings in the Pro plug-in. Users can select a specific printer profile from the list of profiles stored in your computers spool folder or they can set stock settings Photo Color or Linear Tone. Setting the rendering intent is also possible. However, if you’re within Photoshop anyway, it’s unclear why users would not opt to use that program’s color and print settings.
Photo Record is a very handy photo album creation program, with a variety of settings for layout, album type, frames, etc. The frames selection is a bit too stock, flowery, and kitschy, with no selections for more interesting or adventurous designs.
|
