Canon's new models print to CD?

[esp]

I went to Canon's website and have seen the new Printers. Do they still Print to CD if converted? Also has the quality of print increased since the Ip4500? Which model took over the ip4500 and the iP5300/ MP810/ iP4500/ MP610/MX850? Well I know they used the same print head.

 

[qwertydude]

Print quality in my opinion has declined. It's almost imperceptible but with the IP4600 I remember picking the matte photo paper setting would slow the printer down a lot but it would produce less grainy pictures under a 10x loupe and gradients were smoother. When I upgraded to the IP4700 matte paper didn't slow the print speed as much and the print quality had the same grain pattern as the glossy paper setting. I don't have direct experience with later product lines like the IP4820 series with the new blacked out carts.

Enabling print to CD requires installing new drivers and I'm not sure you can do that yet as the previous editions needed a firmware hack. This means someone has to come up with a firmware program for the current crop of printers. If you're in the US and want to print to CD you should just get the Epson.

Canon is releasing "new models" so often it's impossible to keep up with them to the point where even oem ink is hard to find on the shelves of the big box stores. Just look at the space dedicated to cli-221 carts anywhere and compare it to all the older generation carts which dominate the shelf space and includes generics, yet the older printers make up an increasingly smaller proportion of the printer population as Canon's printer quality goes down, planned obsolescence life must invariably be shorter. I tried to find the newer cli-226 carts on Walmart and Costco shelves and I'd only see a tiny stock of them even compared to the small stock of cli-221. I think pretty much Canon figures you buy this printer and by the time you run out of ink they'll have a new model in.

I've sworn off Canon for these horribly greedy practices and now have an Epson Artisan 50 with CISS which I'm perfectly happy with.

 

[esp]

I think the only reason why I bought the Canon was because of this thread http://club.myce.com/f123/printer-comparison-epson-vs-canon-230213/ The Canon's colors looked more vibrant.

I'm sure the lack of Vibrant colors could be changed with setting up a profile for a particular paper. The other main concern was how long the ink took to dry after printing a CD.

 

[qwertydude]

I wouldn't trust that comparison because he was mostly just comparing printed CD's and comparisons were made using the canned printer settings. He should have used no photo enhancements for each one. Instead he was tweaking the brightness and saturation. That's not a good way to stay impartial. Plus I can tell you that after making a profile specifically for each printer so that they'll print as colors close to each other as possible the Epson with its 6 color system handily beats canon's 5 color. It prints smoother gradients and maintains dark shades of color better before going pure black. Canon tended to go black pretty quickly, to the point where things that were dark brown just ended up being black, like my hair in a photo of me. Also with canon the transition from light colors to black were obviously grainy because photo black only sprays larger 5 picoliter drops. The Epson has uniform drop sizes for each color.

The only disadvantages with Epson is that it prints slower at its highest quality setting, takes 8 minutes for a full size 8.5x11 photo, My IP4600 on matte took about 3 minutes. Also that darker shades have a slight grain orientation that line up in the direction of print head travel, probably due to it's lower vertical resolution of 1440 dpi. This is only viewable under magnification or under bright lights if you're really looking for it up close.

 

[esp]

I know its been a long time but which Epson should I buy? I would like to be able to refill carts or maybe install a Ciss system.