Detail Performance Summary   • Blacks are very strong and deep on glossy paper • Fine details are generally well reproduced, • Some minor problems with very fine details becoming slightly soft Color Performance Page 6 of 12 Inks & Media    Depth of Blacks (7.48) Good prints need deep blacks, and the R1900 had no problems there; we found that it produced strong, deep blacks when printing on glossy paper. Although the white in prints is down to the paper you use, the blacks are created by the printer, and the quality of these blacks depends on the type of ink, how much ink it uses and how well the paper absorbs this. This measure is often called dMax (for density maximum), and we measured the density of the darkest blacks on the R1900 at 2.33, which is very good. A professional photo printer might get a dMax of 2.5 or above, but the R1900 is pretty close, and the blacks are significantly deeper than the Canon Pro 9000 Mark II, which we measured at 2.18.  For more details on how we test the depth of blacks in prints, see here.   Canon Pro 9000 Mark II DMax comparison   Detail (11.25) When you shoot photos, you do your best to capture all of the fine details by making sure that the camera is in focus, etc. So, it makes sense to buy a printer can accurately represent this fine detail, and that's what we test here. The Epson R1900 did very well in this test; we found that it reproduced fine details well, both on black and color sections of our test prints. There was some loss of detail on some of the very fine details in photos, but overall the R1900 did a very good job of reproducing the details cleanly and sharply.   Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Detail Comparisons: Gradients         Original Image Epson R1900 Canon Pro 9000 MK II Cyan Gradient Magenta Gradient Yellow Gradient Black Gradient The color gradients that the R1900 produce look fine; we saw no evidence of banding or other problems that some cheaper printers show; the gradients are smooth and accurate. The  only minor thing that we saw was that the printer seemed to be adding some black on the Magenta gradient; about half way down you can see the color get darker where it seems to be adding some black to darken the color slightly. But this is a minor issue that is not likely to affect print quality.   Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Detail Comparisons: Photo Edges       Original Image Epson R1900 Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Alice Etching Tilted edge (highly magnified)  Dog Photo Rosie In these tests with real-world photos, you can see that the Epson R1900 did an excellent job of reproducing the images; the fine details are generally well represented. Look, for instance, at the etching marks on Alice's face, the white hairs on the dog's muzzle and the reflections on the action figure's face; all of these are well reproduced. The results are also noticeably sharper than the Canon Pro  9000, with more defined edges and overall sharper results. The scans above are done at 3200dpi  (except for the tilted edge, which is at 6400 dpi); click on any of the images to see the full-sized scan. Printing Modes The R1900 also offers a number of different printing modes that have a significant impact on print quality: when printing photos, there are Photo, Best Photo and Photo RPM modes. Scans from a print done in each mode are shown below. These samples are printed from a high-resolution photo of our camera test still life, which is available on our samples page. Epson R1900 Detail Comparisons: Print Modes Original Image Epson R1900, Photo Mode Epson R1900, Best Photo Mode Epson R1900, Photo RPM Mode As you can see from these samples, the Photo RPM mode does the best job of producing a smooth, detailed print; the Photo and Best Photo modes are somewhat grainy, but the Photo RPM mode gets closest to the original, especially when printing from a high-resolution photo like this (the original we work from was taken by a 26 megapixel camera). It is the slowest mode, but it undeniably produces the best results. The Best Photo mode is an acceptable compromise if you want to get your print a bit quicker, and prints of lower resolution photos looked nearly identical in Best Photo and Photo RPM modes. The Photo mode was much quicker than the others, but the quality was much reduced and there was some subtle banding on some of our test prints. We'd recommends that you stick with Best Photo for most print jobs, but use PhotoRPM for important or large prints. Canon Pro 9000 Mark II Detail Score Comparison

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