First prints

Generally I have not regarded printers with anything less than six inks as being photo quality. Manufacturers are also captious on how they describe their printers and will label them as "Photo Capable". However, when I reviewed the Canon i865 last year I was pleasantly surprised at the outstanding print quality that could be achieved with four inks (the fifth black is for text printing only). The i865 with its 2 pl ink drop actually produced better quality prints than my older generation 4 pl S900 six ink printer. The PIXMA iP5000 uses a 1 pl drop size, so by this standard it should be better than the i950 or i965 - lets take a look.

I am taking slightly different approach with this page which will be for this occasion only. I have recently upgraded my computer, motherboard, cpu etc., reinstalled Windows XP (Home edition with Service Pack 2) and I am also using a new NEC LCD 1960 NX monitor. I have not calibrated anything, I am using the entire system as it comes out of the box, i.e. there are no custom monitor profiles etc. The reason for doing this is because this working setup best represents an average consumers setup, so what I am getting is probably on par with what 90% of all users will get. The iP5000 is an all purpose printer and many users will use this for photo and document printing. I will calibrate my system and publish the differences later.

Original file	Auto settings on PR101	ICM settings on PR101

As per previous reviews the first print I produce is with everything set to Auto. The media is Canon Photo Paper Pro - PR-101 glossy. The auto print has bags of detail throughout, open shadows and detail is just retained in the highlights. For my own personal preference this print is probably too light. The second print was made using the following settings; Media Type - Photo Paper Pro, Print Quality - Standard, Colour Adjustment - Manual. On the next screen the Enable ICM box has been ticked. Click OK to print. The second print is spot on, with excellent skin tones on Sophie's face, the colour's are well saturated throughout the entire picture, without looking artificial. The A4 print took 1 minute 34 seconds to print. I also tried the same file but this time selected the High Quality setting, this increased the printing time to 3 minutes 43 seconds. This produced a print that was too light. I increased the intensity to +10 and the resulting print is as good if not better than any other test print I have printed. This printer is looking good.

Select Manual and press Set button	Tick the Enable ICM box
Vibrant and well saturated colour's.

Looking at the print dot size, things become more remarkable. I have included a number of top end printers for direct comparison and can say that the ip5000 holds its ground against them all, including one printer that costs over £2000. This 1 pl drop size makes a huge difference. Compared the detail in the eyelashes, the iP5000 easily matches the iP8500 and beats most of the competition at the same time.

Canon PIXMA iP5000	Epson R800
HP 8450	Canon i965
Canon PIXMA iP8500	Epson 4000

The above samples are extreme magnifications of the original prints, you would not normally look at any picture at this level. For all practical purposes the print dot can be forgotten about and the resolution would easily surpass most professional lab photographic prints. Now when you consider that this printer costs about £169 or less, it is a remarkable achievement.

Monochrome printing is well under control but not 100% neutral, there is a slight overall warmth to the image, rather like the Agfa Portraiture photographic paper. I do not find this objectionable, but the purist may prefer to print 100% neutral grey tones. I tried the Greyscale setting from the printer settings and this had little if any effect.

Printed using the Greyscale setting	Good solid colour's
Smooth gradations, print dot is only visible under high magnification

To the naked eye this printer does not show any signs of banding or micro banding, looking through a powerful Loupe I can just see signs of slight micro banding. What a sad man - having to resort to looking at prints with a magnifying glass, I know what you are thinking

The print dot is visible with my Horseman Loupe but not tired old eyes

I will cover plain paper printing and CD printing on the next page