» Canon Pixma Pro9500 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (0373B001AA)

Canon Pixma Pro9500 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (0373B001AA) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing results with 13 x 19 art paper & monochrome!
Comment: If your wanting to invest in your digital imaging addiction like me, then this is the printer! I bought this along with a new Quad-core Mac Pro & 30 inch cinema display, & I am completely blown away with the results I am getting! Digital photography can be an expensive pastime or a relatively cheap hobby, it depends on what kind of results your looking for.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: So far so good
Comment: I've had this printer for a few months now and it hasn't given me any real reasons to complain. It is large, make sure you've got the area for it. I use it as a back up printer if I need something NOW. I've used Illford Pearl paper and the images are crisp, sharp and colorful. Adjusting color was not a problem, I'm using it with CS3. I've printed about 45-50 8x10 prints and still have plenty of ink right out of the box, and four full color 10x13 prints on gloss. No problems, but if I need something for a client it won't come out of this printer. I'll use my service. It is still an inkjet printer. Printing pictures of little league teams and the such is okay, family portraits need professional printers.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fine But Finicky
Comment: I have owned this printer for four months. I came close to returning it the first week because I was spoiled by my Canon S9000 which is pretty much WYSIWYG. Here's my review:

This printer is a bit of an orphan. It is too complicated and costly for people expecting plug-n-print results, but it is too small (13 inch carriage) to enter the ranks of pro gear.

If you do not know how to use or obtain profiles, don't bother. The built-in profiles for Canon media are not very good, either.

If you don't have Photoshop or PhotoPaint, and just want to print JPGs of your kids, save your money and get a $200 printer at a big box store.

If you call Canon tech support, be sure to specify that it is the Pixma Pro. They only have a few techs that specialize in this printer.

Having said that, if you do meet all these conditions, are comfortable with color management, and understand the limitations of various media, you can get wonderful results. But be sure you have some other task to do once you hit print, because this printer is slooooww. I feel like the Pope in "The Agony and The Ecstasy" asking Michelangelo, "When will it be finished?"

My only real gripe is with the software and firmware. Canon has this silly notion that you can't print border-to-border on l3 x 19 media, so it tries to impose a 35 mm border. You can circumvent this by specify a non-art media type, and then twiddling the settings. Important: always check the block in the printer driver that says preview. That has saved me $$ in paper and ink as I've caught something that was not evident on-screen in my app.

The other firmware problem is that the printer loses track of the carts every so often. Then you waste 3 minutes after you raise the lid while the printer goes through a long song and dance before it brings the print head to the service position. Sometimes just doing this will clear the fault. Don't jump at the ink out mesages. You can still get a few prints out of a cart after that message pops up. All printer manufacturers are in the business of selling you ink and media; the hardware is secondary.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Terrible quality
Comment: I bought a Canon Pixma Pro9000 a couple years ago, and I didn't use it very often. Now the printer is broken. I've had a Canon i860. It also only lasted a couple of years before one of the printer heads stopped printing. I owned both Epson and HP printers and they all lasted more than a couple years. My HP Photosmart 7350 is still working. The only complain I have about that printer is that the ink doesn't last long. That's the reason I switched to Canon. I think the image quality of the Canon printer is OK, but the hardware quality of their printers is worthless.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Canon needs better R&D before releasing a product. (VERY restricting)
Comment: Several problems with this printer, please do your research to save you much aggravation. Well documented problem with glossy paper is the least of the its problems. I print predominantly on matte papers, and gloss is not a concern for me. However, printing on Canon Matte Photo Paper gives very mediocre results, the prints are low-contrast and dull. One would think that it's a character of a matte print, however, printing on Fine Art Matte Photo Paper gives excellent color and contrast that is extremely close to the original image. You would think, the problem is solved, right? Wrong. The fine Art paper, though practically the same thickness as regular matte photo paper cannot be auto fed, which means you have to reconfigure the printer (watch "Transformers" for reference) and move it very far away from any walls, front-feed the paper and just when you think you have everything squared away, you are forced to two options: either print 13X19 or Letter size (nothing else) AND get a 35mm (1 1/2") margin. Selecting custom size forces you to print on any paper BUT Fine Art. Getting custom color profiles does not correct the issue. Printing on Fine Art paper with any selection to allow auto-feed or lesser margin will ruin the color, CATCH 22 ALL THE WAY. Seems like many people in forums are having similar problems and no one has found a fix for it. Canon's tech support says "you are using the printer not in the way it was meant to be used." I thought the word "Art" included "Creativity" in the definition. Being forced to ONLY 2 SIZES and 35mm Margin if you want to get a decent print (and that's at $5 a sheet!) does not fit the "PRO" or the "Fine Art" definition in my opinion.

I really could go on about many other caveats I've discovered, but these MAJOR things should steer many a Photographer/Artist away from this restricting machine.

Do not blame Pigment Inks for poor contrast. HP and Epson manage to do fine on any paper, as well as Canon on $5/sheet paper (only when you print on 75% of it).

I'm returning the printer and going back to the drawing board (HP or Epson).

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