Canon IP3000: Why are the photos so muttled?

[Geoexplorer]

I heard all the rave about this printer and just bought it two days ago. I printed about 200 4x6 photos, some borderless and some with the borders. Why borders? Because I hate that this printer's software crops off a good chunk of the surrounding area which ruins the focal point and perspective. I like its speed, though my last photo printer was HP932c (yeah its been a while!). So it turns out that 30% of these pics not that great quality. These 30% photos have a lot of dark, rich texture and tone in common, meaning rocky mountains and thick foliage, etc. The green trees on top of the mountain all seem smeared with a dark flat green. Skin tones are too dark and looked smeared against the blue water or skies. All of the bright pictures with details in high contrast came out phenomenal, thus I still have hope in this printer. So the ultimate question is: Any suggestions to fix this? I am using canon paper and ink catridges that came with the printer. Thanks

 

[drc023]

Which software did you use to print the photos? Even though some consider it low end beginner stuff, the Easy Photo Print software bundled with Canon printers is excellent. The cropping and image correction tools are especially good. If you don't need the power of PhotoShop, etc... you may want to try it. You can get good pictures with this little printer. Don't give up the ship.

 

[kenban]

About the borderless problem the easiest way to make sure there is no white space around the print is to have the printer go beyond the edges of the print and this amount is called overspray thats where the cropping is coming from. In Easy Photo Print on the layout page if you double click the picture a window pops up that shows what the output should look like the outer white edge is what the printer is going to print while the inner red box is what should show up on the paper the space between the two should be what is lost to overspray.

Also if your using Easy Photo Print just go into the file menu pick Preferences and the last option is "Amount of extension of borderless printing:" I leave it set to small and I think it has only produced one print that it was off far enough to leave a very small white strip on. If you do not want to have any of the picture cut off just pick none but if the printer does not get the paper just right you will end up with a white border on one side. You can also change these settings in the drivers if your using another program but I think Easy Photo Print overrides any driver settings. Also most pictures (that I print at least) do not have a ratio of 2:3 so you almost always have something being cut off on a 4x6 print.

The iP3000 is a 3 color CMY printer it does have a black tank but that is not used in photo's. I am not sure if you can produce the color variety that you are looking for using just Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. You might be able to fix some of the problems using an ICC profile but I do not know if it would be enough. If you NEED better color reproduction you might want to look at higher end printers such as the Pixma iP8500 which is an 8 color printer. Although a 6 color such as the iP6000 might also be a better fit as well.

 

[Geoexplorer]

Thanks for replying to my post. As for the software, I am using the software that came with the printer, yes, the easy photo print. The software is good, I agree, as I played around with the trimming settings, as you suggested, and rules of three, and was able to get got layouts for my photos. I also printed in 8.5 x 11 paper that did not crop off any of the print while using the Kodak software I have. I like the Kodak software because it allows you to change colors, brightness and contrast unlike the Canon software. I have a Kodak camera.
Honestly, overall I like this printer so far. I mean for 50 bucks this printer has surpassed my expectations. And if refilling the ink is really as easy as I have been reading in other parts of this forum then I am loving this printer. I am no photographer but I take hundreds of pictures a week with my digital cam. I think this printer fits my needs as far as printing hundreds of 4x6 to 8x10s daily. My next investment will be in a large format printer. Any suggestions?

By the way I love this forum. I have been spreading the word to all my friends and family. Thanks for your time, and sharing your expertise.

 

[Endmukbud]

Calibration i think thats the right word !
Try to calibrate each device that connect to your pc, from Digicam, Scanner, MOnitor, Printer, and other....i use the Adobe Calibration tool which available when i install adobe
I scan a colour proofing picture then print it again, then calibrate the Gamma, brightness, contrast, C, M, Y, K, R, G, B, value from my PC.
and before i print on a special paper ( like glossy, mate, high resolution paper, etc. ) i give it a trial printing so i spent about 3 to 4 piece paper before i goes to the last result. Cause i think each paper have it's own absorbtion level