Comparing MP780, ip4300 and ip4700

[nche11]

There have been some discussions of color management in inkjet printing on this forum. They motivated me to do some testing to see if I actually will need it to improve my photo printing that I felt comfortable already. I have 3 printers that are right next to me, a MP780, an ip4300 and an ip4700. The MP780 is currently filled with Hobbicolors UW8 ink. The ip4300 has two sets of OEM cartridges. One set is filled with Hobbicolors UW8 ink and the other set is still OEM never been refilled yet. The ip4700 has just got a new set of PGI-220/CLI-221 cartridges.

I first started with the ip4700 comparing to ip4300 both with OEM inks. Right after printing two test images I was kind of shocked to see a significant differences between the prints printed by the two printers. The ip4700 is much more accurate in printing the colors I saw on the screen. The colors printed by the ip4300 are off by a significant margin. This is a huge surprise to me. I had the exact same setup for both printers. Printed on the same Canon OEM High Resolution Paper. And both are printed with Canon OEM ink. Well, I should add that when comparing side by side the most notable difference is in the skin tone. The ip4700 produces far better and closer match of colors to the screen. I actually liked the colors of my ip4300 when printing scenery photos. The colors are vibrant and accurate in general.

I have to say that ip4700 is a better printer for portraiture prints where skin tone accuracy is required. I will like ip4300's colors for wild life, nature, landscape and sceneries.

I then tested my MP780 which has Hobbicolors UW8 ink in its cartridges. It came out just about in between the ip4300 and ip4700. The skin tone it printed is not as accurate or close to the screen like ip4700 is. But it behaved reasonably well than the ip4300. It has a little more vibrancy than the colors of ip4700. by comparing among the 3 printers I will say the ip4300 is one that seem will benefit the most from a color management.

My conclusion of this test is I probably will not need color management for ip4700 with OEM ink. I probably will not need it for my MP780 with Hobbicolors UW8 ink either. But I really think the ip4300 needs to be profiled even with OEM ink. This is a big surprise to me. I may need to try it again on aother ip4300 somewhere else. My ip4300 has been a work horse and has been beat up for years.

 

[nche11]

I did some further comparison of the 3 sets of the prints printed by the thee 3 printers again. This time I compared them near a window with lots of light from outside. This is a much better light source for comparing prints I hope.

It turned out the ip4700 printed a near perfect gray scale. The MP780 (with Hobbicolors UW8 ink) and ip4300 (WIth OEM ink) both had slight color cast on the grey scale. But I also realized that the ip4700 print is darker than the other two. A white object actually shows a grey tone on it. The overall look in terms of vibrancy looks flatter than the other two printers. The ip4300 with OEM ink is the brightest. This is quite the opposite of the ip4700 with OEM ink too. My wife seems to like the MP780 print with Hobbicolors UW8 ink. It is somewhere in between the ip4300 and ip4700.

Now I have to say that the ip4700 is a little disappointing. Well, this can be easily adjusted to brighten the whole print without involving any color adjustment. THe opposite can be done to the ip4300 by darkening the print a little. I could not find any offensive colors from all three. All printed the skin tone correctly although differently.

In terms of the need of color management I will say no. The ip4700 will give you a near perfect grey scale. That's really not that important for color printing. With very minor (or no) tweaking they all will print photos beautifully. There are definitely slight differences all over everywhere but I can't say any of the colors is wrong but slightly different.

Since I did this test by printing on Canon OEM High Resolution Paper I can't predict what will happen if I print on non OEM paper. I did not scan the prints to pst them here. The scanning process will change the colors enough to void the truthfulness of the colors. I don't think it is meaningful to post the scans.