Canon Ink

[rpcrowe]

I have experienced some slight problems in having my Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II Inkjet Printer recognize some generic ink cartridges and decided from now on to use only OEM ink. Additionally, the OEM inks seem not to clog the inkjets even with only occasional use.

I ordered an 8-pack of CLI-8 inks from Canon at $110 U.S. Dollars. Then I saw the same inks for $82 USD from B&H in New York City. At first I was miffed but realized that Canon gave me about $75 USD worth of Canon paper
(100 sheets 4x6 inch glossy, 50 sheets 8.5 x 11 inch semi-gloss and the Canon Pro Paper and The Pro Paper Sampler of 20 sheets of Luster, Platinum Glossy, Semi-gloss and Premium Matte).

I don't really mind the extra cost from Canon since I am getting something extra from the expenditure.

[IzzieK]

This year when I came home from my Oz trip, through the recommendation of my nerdy son, I bought and now uses CISS on my Epson, UV and archival quality cost around $82/system and long lasting. OEM inks are very expensive in comparison. I am very happy with this because the printing is very good quality and if you are a frequent printer in both pictures and data, it is very useful...

[arith]

I've got a Canon Pixma 9000II Pro:

and use non original ink because of the cost. Sometimes it's a complete waste of money but I think I've found a good one now that even does red & green; Inksquid on Ebay.

£11:45 for a complete set inclusive of tax and postage compared with £120.

I don't use original paper either, I use Ilford, and the only way to get a good print is too use Ilford's printer profile and the printers own driver to print out test prints.

That means I print three for every good print and that probably doubles the ink used so £11:45 becomes £22:90 and doubles the cost of paper from £1 per print to £2 for A3+ size.

But I still haven't won because the prints fade in 12 months and so in the unlikely event I should give one away I would need to spray it with anti UV.

Getting your own printer is the only way to get a print the way you want it, but it is extraordinarily expensive.

[DanK]

But I still haven't won because the prints fade in 12 months

That's the problem. Wilhelm imaging does permanence tests with various combinations of inks and printers, and some of the non-OEM inks have fared very poorly. The cost per ink cartridge of OEM inks can be very high, but the costs per print seem reasonable to me (see these tests). Given all the time I put into a print, it doesn't seem worth it to me to use cheaper ink. For now, I am still using dye-based inks (Pixma Pro 9000 II, and now a Pro 100), but even so, I haven't yet had to replace any faded prints made with Canon inks. To each his or her own.

[royphot]

I would agree that a lot of the cheaper inks will fade quickly, but there are many people using good quality 3rd party inks without any problems whatsoever.

I have never had any real problems with fading prints, and I have been digital printing since 1999. As you can see, I use the Pixma Pro 9000, but to get my costs down to a reasonable level, I don't use Canon Ink. The Canon CLI 8 cartridges are ideal for refilling with 3rd party ink. I use Lyson Ink which is probably getting on for the most expensive of these, and I reckon it costs me about £3 for a full cartridge, and well under £2 worth of ink for an A3+ Print.

I use a Spyder to make ICC profiles, and once I have tweaked these by test printing, I get accurate prints 1st time, which also saves money.

[rpcrowe]

Here's a tip that probably everyone knows (but maybe someone doesn't).

I like a black border for my prints and my standard border looks something like this...



However. regarding the ink used when printing these images: black borders use more ink than white borders, which use no ink for the borders.

[loosecanon]

I use a canon pro 9000 II

Had a pro I but design fault meant the circuit under the printhead carriage got damaged.

I also use other inks, refill them, have a device to reset chips.

I too use a spyder studio to profile inks and paper - has the advantage you can print a single sheet let it dry properly and then create the profile without having in fine tune as some devices require.

Very happy being able to print what I see on the screen with cheap inks and reasonable cost paper.
Certainly I find significant colour shifts with different makers inks and paper.
The pro needs to be left on as it turns on every so often and flushes the head to stop blocking. The red and green inks are only used for gloss prints, but get used up head flushing.

Incidently a new head is easy to fit, cost £110

Have tried generic cartridges but found them more likely to give colour variances, get better results with refilling.