Canon Quality, 5 Colour 1pl VS 6 Colour 2pl

[Endmukbud]

I just want to know which want is better when printing a photo. is it 5 colour with the 1 pl and 9600dpi res or 6 colour with the 2 pl and 4800x2400dpi res just like 6320d. Coz i really need a new printers right now...and i consider to buy cannon printers. instead my previous choice which is C67 from epson.which is last about 2 years and now it's totally dead coz of my mistake....... coz i see many of you use these printers ( 5colour n 6 colour from cannn )
Thank's anyway

 

[Smile]

6 color will give better colors in the shadows and wider gamut, since 5 color printer is just 4 color with pigment black that only is used with plain paper you should use 6 color printer if you want better photo quality.

1pl or 2 pl that is just minimum specified all printers have larger nozzles so you will not see any difference.

 

[Tin Ho]

The main difference between 5 color and 6 color printers is a 5 color printer will be good for text and photos, but a 6 color printer is best for photo only but not for text. Besides performance in printing photos you need to consider if you print text much or not at all.

In terms of photo I really don't feel much difference between 1 and 2 pl. There is not a huge difference between 6 color and 4 color either. If you compare prints side by side you can find differences but they all look great stand alone. There may be more significant difference between 4 and 8 colors. These are of course subjective opinions of mine only. This is a subject that I am very interested in finding out opinions of others too.

 

[fotofreek]

Tin Ho - I think you are correct. I have an i960 six color 2 pl printer and my wife uses an ip5000 1 pl four color (plus black pigmented cart). Both print beautiful photos. I will keep the i960 running as long as possible. It does drink the photo cyan and photo magenta inks but with refilling it doesn't matter.

 

[mikling]

If you use an AdobeRGB color space in your workflow or something greater than sRGB, the differences are sometimes more pronounced between a 4 color and 6 color printer. Of course if the image did not contain the range of colors that the 4 color printer was not able to reproduce, then the wider space yields no benefits.

Do note that to use the wider color space, you need to capture it first within that color space and you must have a better quality camera where the choice of color space is an option or raw capture is an option. Normally prosumer or dSLR models will allow this. Now capturing in a wide color space, is the first step to color problems if you don't follow the workflow properly so be careful.

When the above points are considered, and the fact that most general consumers use normal point and shoot cameras that capture in sRGB only, the Canon 5 ( 4 really) color printer will suffice most times and is a good choice as an all round text and photo printer. However, for the photo enthusiast who wants to capture great images and reproduce them, text output is moot and at least a 6 color printer will be the minimum that they would desire.

This is somewhat related to another thread that asked about the functionality of the red and green ink on the i9900 that many people hardly consume when printing in sRGB but increases greatly when printing in AdobeRGB or others.

So choosing a printer can sometimes become complex once a little knowledge is obtained.

fotofreek, I think if you look at your drivers between the i960 and 5(4) color printer you will note that the i960 driver is a lot more involved (complex) when it comes to color management in the driver. This is the telling part between the two models and its' intended market.

And don't be caught up in the picoliter race. It's like the megapixel race in cameras. At this stage, the picoliter spec is near meaningless if you look carefully. Images that contain beautiful wide ranging colors printed with 4 pl are infinitely more beautiful than one printed with 1 pl drops that could not produce the range of colors.

As for megapixels it's sad that many of the newest cameras boast higher megapixels but poorer image quality than the models they replace. Why? because megapixels sell to the uninformed and there is a technical reason why they cannot capture images properly. This part is off topic.

 

[fotofreek]

Mikling - agreed on all counts.

 

[dparadowski]

I don't want to sound like I know this, because I don't I just want to ask this. Is the color gamut any different between a 4c and a 6c printer? They are both using CMYK inks, but eh 6c has a diluted version of the CM. I am just asking this because I had and iP6700D (6c) and just replaced it with a iP4500 (4c). I like the 4500 better and think that the prints look better on it as well. I do have a custom profile that I use to print my Nikon d300 prints using Lightroom and Photoshop. On the 6700 large areas of neutral colors (beige wall) would have line running the width of the sheet except in the best quality setting. Using the same inks (hobbicolors) the 4500 doesn't do this. I don't know, just my 2 cents.

 

[Grandad35]

This link (http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/745-0-0-39-121.html) contains HPs explanation of the benefits of Photo Magenta and Photo Cyan inks. This link (http://bermangraphics.com/press/wilhelm.htm) gives an unbiased opinion based on the state of inkjet technology in 2003 (search for 6-Ink without the quotes to find the starting point for the related discussion). A printer with a 1 pl drop size may overcome some of these objections, but Canon is still incorporating the Photo inks into their high quality photo printers with 2-3 pl drop sizes (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=182&modelid=12892) and (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=182&modelid=12414).

Canon obviously feels that the improved tonal smoothness achieved with these inks is still worth incorporating into their high end printers.

I havent seen any claims that the Photo inks increase the color gamut of a printer - they are not used in the saturated colors usually found at the edges of the color gamut, only in the mid-tones.

 

[Tin Ho]

Printers with smaller nozzles are able to print lighter colors by laying smaller drops of ink. I droplet of 4 pl of ink will be 4 times the density of one droplet of ink at 1 pl. So a printer with 1 pl droplet size theoretically can produce wider range of colors especially in lighter colors. This produces a wider gamut from the same ink. But saturated colors always get the attention from human eyes so the wider gamut from smaller ink droplet probably will not catch eyes to see a significant difference. This is probably why a same photo printer by an i960 will look as good as one printed by an ip5000. As far as I know no inkjet printers can print colors wider than sRGB. It's not even close. Most digital cameras by default capture images and output in sRGB color space. It's not because the camera can capture all the colors in sRGB space. It is just a trend that almost all digital cameras output in sRGB color space. If you shoot in RAW you don't have to output in sRGB of course. But if the camera does not capture that wide of range of colors it is useless to output in Adobe RGB for example. All x86 based PCs by default set monitor in sRGB color space. There is really no need to set up a color management in wider color spaces for your digital camera. If your images are from a drum scanner or high end CCD based film scanners then you may have a need to set up your color management in Adobe RGB color space for editing your images. But for inkjet printing you will not be able to print all the colors because the printer's gamut is unable to print all those colors in a wider color space.

 

[KnightCrawler]

I don't want to sound like I know this, because I don't I just want to ask this. Is the color gamut any different between a 4c and a 6c printer? They are both using CMYK inks, but eh 6c has a diluted version of the CM. I am just asking this because I had and iP6700D (6c) and just replaced it with a iP4500 (4c). I like the 4500 better and think that the prints look better on it as well. I do have a custom profile that I use to print my Nikon d300 prints using Lightroom and Photoshop. On the 6700 large areas of neutral colors (beige wall) would have line running the width of the sheet except in the best quality setting. Using the same inks (hobbicolors) the 4500 doesn't do this. I don't know, just my 2 cents.

Sounds like a defect with the 6700 then to say the 4500 is superior. Maybe you could send me the picture and I will print it using mine and send it to you so you could compare.