CANON vs EPSON please advise

mikling

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,239
Reaction score
1,471
Points
313
Location
Toronto, Canada
Regardless of the number of nozzles and technical details of each printer, the proof of the pudding is the viewing. I am viewing three prints of the identical picture in front of me. This picture was taken on an older Canon Powershot G2, shot in RAW, processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1, and printed using Qimage to optimize the output to the native dpi of each respective printer. Each printer was custom profiled using 1000 color patches with Spyder3 Studio.
The papers were Dollar store variety for the Epson and Kirkland Professional Glossy. Inks used were by Precision Colors and each formulation as recommended by Image Specialists. Non OEM ink as most on this forum would use since it is principally a refilling forum.

This informal test intrinsically maximizes the capability of each printer so that none is hobbled with suboptimal color matching. The printers used were an Epson R220 (same engine as an R300), Epson R260 and an MP500 same engine as an iP4200.

The first thing I will tell you is that None of the prints are drastically different to 95% of the viewers. In other words I doubt that you'd be able to tell which one is which if you picked them up. Thus the output is basically the same to the general consumer AS we would and should expect it to be.

Using a loupe or magnifying glass when we look at the details, the differences then appear but only if we look for them or know where to look.

The color tone is slightly different for the sky between the Epson and Canon. (An area of compromise in Inkjets) Now this very interesting. Why? Because the inks that the R260 and R220 used are very different in shades yet they outputted the sky very very similarly. The Canon was different. this tells me that Epson intentionally chooses to sacrifice gamut here to output a certain shade that they think is a good compromise. Canon has chosen a different compromise. Both brands are not perfect, it's a matter of subjective taste here.

The next area I looked at carefully is the granularity of the gradients within the clouds and sky gradients. First off the R220/R200/R300 is an older printer and the oldest one amongst all three. Viewed with a loupe one can see some granularity in the sky and some dots in the shadow areas. However, to the naked eye, it cannot be seen. The R260 is grainfree. Even with a magnifying glass. The engine used is Epson's latest dye inkjet photoprinter. The Canon is interesting here as it is grainfree as well in solid shades and most colors BUT when the gradients are viewed carefully, one can perceive some splotchiness that is not there with both the older and newer model Epson. Could the use of only 4 colors be the cause of this? I'm not sure as I don't have an iP6600 for comparison. Suffice to say that both the old R200/220 with larger droplets and the newer R260 do not exhibit this. So droplet size is not causing this. It's likely due to a non linear profile because of the limited range of ink colors available on the iP4200.

Finally, in another series of images. I have noted that the Canon is weak on brown tones with limited range in that area. The oldest R220 is the best here. The Canon is superior in the green shades though, rendering lighter shades of green better but darker shades of green appear weak.

In conclusion, I think that if a decent photoprinter even one more than 5 years old is properly set up for printing photos, the output will be indistinguishable from the output from the newest models of today for the average consumer. The technical details of droplet size, number of nozzles etc. are not final determinants of the output quality. These specs are for marketing reasons in an attempt to sway a potential purchaser. The newest printers do possess greater speed and are quieter. The nozzles do play a large part in determining speed.

Ink formulations paper choices and proper color profiles are extremely important in determining output quality.

FINALLY If you see comparative output of the same image between two or more printers that are obviously very different to the eye, then you should be aware that either one is not set up properly or the color profile or ink formulation is way off or potentially BOTH or all are not set up properly. thus the comparison might be invalid. When they are all set up properly the differences are not and should not be dramatic especially with today's newer printers.

Have we plateaued in inkjet technology? I think we are getting there. More and more, it looks like the mfrs will be playing with different shades of ink to emphasize a certain color range and then compromising in another range. If anything, the R220 is superior to the R260 in brown tones yet is four to five years older. Are the multicolor printers like the Pro9000 better? Yes, provided the range of colors you want to output is outside that of your current printer. With an image with limited colors, the output may look no different at all. So it depends.
 

mikling

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,239
Reaction score
1,471
Points
313
Location
Toronto, Canada
2008-12-1900-47-21_0297.jpg

Epson R260 --- Epson R220 ----- Canon iP4200


Shot with a polarizing filter so we should expect deeply saturated skies and deep aquamarine.
The scanner is exaggerating the differences. In reality they are very very close except for the sky Where the Canon is clearly inferior and cannot pull off a sky with a polarizer whereas the Epson can. To me this is important in photography as the effect i get with a polarizer reminds me of what I was pulling out with Kodachrome 64 and a polarizer. The cloud detail and depth is also superior on the Epson.
 

IGExpandingPanda

Printing Ninja
Joined
Oct 2, 2008
Messages
112
Reaction score
0
Points
79
leo8088 said:
Epson R300 and Canon IP4000 were sold about 3 years ago at about the same price range. R300 has 6 cartridges of dye based photo ink. IP4000 has BK,C , M and Y only. But photos printed by IP4000 really kicks a$$ of Epson R300's. R300 has 90 nozzles for each color. That's a total of 540 nozzles. Well, IP4000 has 320 for black text. And it has a killer 1024 for C and M, 512 for BK and Y. That's almost 6 times of that of R300. Some later models of Epson has like 120 nozzles for each color. That's still far below a low end Canon IP4000. I have both printers. The quality difference of photos is huge. The only reason I still keep the R300 is for printing CD/DVDs.

I believe Canon has a reason to have smaller number of BK and Y nozzles. BK and Y do not need them because their gamut is narrower.
The ip4000 arrangement was 320 30pl text, (2) 512 C & M, 256 Y BK. I believe it's 256 2pl and 256 5pl on Cyan and magenta. Same sort of deal, HP archival papers, the swellable polymer type you really notice how the black and yellow is layed out. This doesn't happen as much on the Epson, at least my r200.


I did get a chance to compare the prints, and actually I preferred the Epson much of the time. My major application was labels, and with the Epson I could do white text at smaller fonts more clearly. Canon I could do black dye text at smaller fonts more easily. I obviously went canon as, for my experience, were a tad more trouble free and better general purpose printers. For blacks, I preferred the Epson. The dye is clearly more dense. On most papers the Canon took on a a slightly blue shift in my eyes.

One benefit of the epson dye on the r200 was the fact that I could print on non-printable CDs, and the ink would stick somewhat. The drytime could be measured in terms of months, but monochromatic text was ledgeable. Some of the things I first put onto DVD were on non-printable, and they are still labeled. Try the same trick on Canon, and the ink will pour right off.

For CDs, I found the Epson looked decent without tweeking on most discs with a few exceptions.

Obviously the 1520 was an entirely different beast. How many times have I heard someone complaining about turning it in mid printjob and the blasted thing spewing off cryptic output rather than an image. To be fair my 1280 does the same thing even on USB. If it wasn't for borderless printing, and well, the fact that the black head finally clogged, I'd still keep it in service. The 1520 is obviously in the pro class of printers.


"when the prints come out, they are great. most of the time--the printer has been possessed by a poltergeist. random computer characters come flying out and appear all over the expensive 17x22 paper. when its not speaking in tongues, its eating the paper and printing out strange black lines." One of my favorite reviews. I got in the habit of hitting the paper feed button before printing on it.
 

websnail

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2005
Messages
3,661
Reaction score
1,345
Points
337
Location
South Yorks, UK
Printer Model
Epson, Canon, HP... A "few"
websnail said:
Right... on this I'm a bit more familiar.. the 1390 is much the same as the 1400 in the UK and as luck would have it (and I do mean LUCK!) I was able to get a customer of mine to provide some detailed photos on how to modify the 1400 to use an external waste ink tank so I've a guide to write up today. Good timing! :)
Just to note that the guide for the Epson Stylus Photo 1400 (to give it it's full title) is now up...
http://www.octoink.co.uk/store/pages/Epson-1400.html

.. it should be the same as the 1390 but as anyone familiar with the R1800 or similar it's just the same case but with just one waste tube.

Useful to someone, no doubt :)
 

IGExpandingPanda

Printing Ninja
Joined
Oct 2, 2008
Messages
112
Reaction score
0
Points
79
mikling said:
The scanner is exaggerating the differences. In reality they are very very close except for the sky Where the Canon is clearly inferior and cannot pull off a sky with a polarizer whereas the Epson can.
I don't have an epson in the r200 class anymore so I can't pull that out for comparison. One of the reasons I upgraded to the ip5200/mp830 was rendering furigana, as in little characters on top of Japanese kanji. Before that it was a comparison between the ip4000 and r200, and for that specific application, as in if I wanted to label my discs with 18 titles in English and Japanese, I leaned toward the Canon.
 

dx333me

Getting Fingers Dirty
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Points
22
Thanks everybody for your informative inputs.

So eventually, I bought myself the Canon iP4500 yesterday. I think it will fit my usage for now (as well as fitting my budget at the moment). I am hoping to later buy an Epson Stylus Photo 1390 for my banner / extra length prints (when the need really arises).

After installing the printer, I realised how small the ink container of this CLI-8 has shrunk compared to my old CLI-3 container. I surely need to get myself a Canon Chip Resetter. Any current views on that ? please.... :D . As well as good seller willing to do international shipment.
 

Tin Ho

Print Addict
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
866
Reaction score
26
Points
163
CLI-3? Never heard of such an ink cartridge. CLI-8 is indeed a little smaller than BCI-6 by about 1-2 ml. The latest ink cartridges used in ip4600 is said to be 5-6 cc smaller.
 

dx333me

Getting Fingers Dirty
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Points
22
Oops sorry, my bad, BCI-3 is bigger when compared to CLI-8. :D
 
Top