Reviewed: Canon Pixma Pro 9500 Photo Printer

The Canon Pixma Pro 9500 photo printer currently has a MRP of $900 USD. It was found online for $700 on February 18, 2009. The Canon USA site is offering it at $50 USD off through February 26, 2009. From user comments, Canon offers a rebate fairly regularly. It uses 10 different pigment inks to provide a high quality ability to match colors, and because its ink cartridges include photo black, matte black, and gray, it also produces high quality monochrome prints, with an excellent gray scale and has the capability to reproduce extremely minute graduation. One user compared the quality of the monochrome prints to be as good as anything he was able to get when he was developing his own black and white pictures in a darkroom. The inclusion of red and green pigment inks allows additional color reproduction, with which printers equipped with only four to eight inks can not compete. It can print envelopes and papers from 4 x 6 inches to 13 x 19 inches. There are two paper paths through the printer, because it has a front single sheet feeder which can handle art quality paper up to 1.2 mm thick.

The Pixma Pro 9500 comes with a USB port, but no cable. It also has PictBridge capability. It does not come with Ethernet connection, firewire connection or wireless capability. Especially frustrating, because it is a photo printer, is the lack of any sort of media reader.

It works with Windows XP / 2000 and Mac OS X 10 versions. It is certified to work with Windows Vista, although there have been a few frustrated comments about problems with the drivers and an inability to work with Adobe Elements - which does work perfectly using the printer with Windows XP.

It comes with a CD containing printer driver, setup and user guide, electronic photo application and electronic user guide, and other applications, including a plug in for PhotoShop designed for the printer series. Some software for the Mac is not on the disk, but can be downloaded from the Canon website.

I spoke with Canon's very helpful technical support, as mentioned further down in this article, and they particularly stressed that working in PhotoShop to create the picture you wanted, and then using Canon's included Easy Photo Print Pro software allowed the user a lot of control over the printer driver settings, and allowed additional adjustments to be made to the picture before printing, as well as giving you an extremely accurate view of the picture that would be printed.

The Canon Pixma Pro 9500 photo printer seems suitable for use by professionals with a relatively small business, or dedicated amateurs. Its 10 pigment ink tanks allow extremely good color reproduction and, because three of the colors are matte black, photo black and gray, it produces quality monochrome prints that users say are at least as good as photo lab prints. As well as allowing you a wide range of color, the ten individual tanks mean you need only replace the colors that you use up. It prints both black and color prints at 4800 x 2400 dpi. Users commented that the printer reproduces an extremely rich and solid black. The print head has 768 nozzles per tank, delivering 3 picoliter ink droplets per ink tank, for a total of 7,680 nozzles.

It is not a fast printer. While 4 x 6 inch prints take about 30 seconds each, an 8 x 10 inch borderless print will take over two minutes to print, and an 11 x 14 inch print on 13 x 19 inch paper takes over 4 minutes. An unusual feature is two different paths for paper handling, depending on what you are printing. It has a top loading feeder for multiple sheets, and a front single sheet feeder for special papers. It can handle fine art paper up to 1.2 mm thick in single sheets. Because it uses a separate paper path, the single sheets need a rear clearance of about 20 inches when printing on 13 x 19 inch paper. Since the printer is on wheels, it does not need to have this clearance unless you are using that feature.

The printer can handle envelopes, 4” x 6”, 4” x 8”, 5” x 7”, 8” x 10”, 13” x 19”, letter and legal sized sheets. You can print on matte, semi gloss and gloss paper as well as art papers. Canon says, not unexpectedly, that it performs best using Canon paper, but users have successfully printed on a number of other papers brands. Archival quality paper and pigment inks produce pictures that are expected to last for 100 years of exposure to light.

Considering the size paper it can print, it does not have an excessive footprint, taking up a 26” x 8” x 14” space, and weighing about 34 pounds. The printer comes with a 1 year warranty.