Canon announced the imagePROGRAF Pro-1100 printer this week, the long-awaited replacement for the imagePROGRAF Pro-1000, which was first released in 2016. The Pro-1100, which, like its predecessor, can print up to 17 inches wide.

Priced at $1300, the new printer shares the same chassis and printhead as the Pro-1000, but includes a slightly updated vacuum-feed mechanism that Canon says helps prevent skewing and increases the accuracy of the dot placement. The feed mechanism in the previous model was the best in the industry at the desktop level, and I expect that the Pro-1100 will be the same. (It’s worth noting that Canon still doesn’t support roll-feed with their top-tier 17″ printers.)

The Pro-1100 has a new ink set (Lucia Pro II) that Canon says improves print longevity and black density, especially on fine-art (matte) papers. It has 11 inks (10 printing), plus a Chroma Optimizer designed to minimize bronzing on glossy paper types. The ink cartridges have a hefty 80ml capacity, similar to Epson’s SureColor P900.

The printer has started shipping in small quantities, and should be available more widely this fall. It will go head to head with the P900, which is currently at the same price point. Epson’s model boasts an excellent ink set and decent paper handling, and, while it’s only four years old, it is solidly entrenched in the desktop photo printer space. The Pro-1000, while a bit long in the tooth for some, was an excellent printer, and it will be interesting to test this new printer to see how the print quality matches up (to both the Pro-1000 and the P700/P900). If it does, the Pro-1100 might actually pull a bit more market share from Epson.

Canon’s press release follows:

MELVILLE, N.Y., August 29, 2024 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced the launch of the imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 Professional Inkjet Printer, a 17-inch, large format solution with 11-colors plus a “Chroma Optimizer,” the newest product in Canon’s “imagePROGRAF series” large format printers for photographers and fine art.

By adopting the newly developed pigment ink, “LUCIA PRO II”1, the new printer is designed to meet the needs of professional photographers who want to print high-quality photos, while preserving the appeal of their work for the future. The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 is designed to provide superior light resistance for long-term preservation of high-quality printed works.

“The PRO-1100 builds on off the success of the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 and makes it even better. This new printer offers photography professionals an incredible solution designed to deliver top-quality and long-lasting photos, to fit in almost any home or studio,” said Shuji “Steve” Suda, vice president of Canon U.S.A., Inc. “The imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 highlights Canon’s commitment to empowering the imaging community with innovative solutions that are designed to consistently deliver exceptional results.”

Designed to Expand Color Reproduction

The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 adopts a newly developed LUCIA PRO II pigment ink system designed to help improve the image quality from previous models while also enhancing resistance to light. Improved black density on art paper was achieved by changing the formulation and material of matte black ink. The reformulated Chroma Optimizer is designed to give the surface a clear coat of transparent ink that helps suppress bronze phenomena and helps reduce uneven glossiness.

Designed for Light and Scratch Resistance

The new pigment ink designed to provide improved light resistance and scratch resistance provides excellent image robustness, and allows for long-term appreciation and preservation. In addition, the glossy/semi-glossy printing surface is designed to be slippery and more resistant to scratches, making it easier to handle in framing, packaging, transportation, display, and other work where the print could be easily damaged.

Canon is proud to announce the imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 has earned an EPEAT Gold designation as a product that has met EPEAT’s most demanding set of criteria for sustainability leadership in electronics2. The new model contributes to Canon’s commitment to sustainability by eliminating the use of polystyrene foam in product packing.

Availability and Pricing

The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 is scheduled to be available September 2024 for a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of $1,299.99.

Segal also speaks to the “which printer should I buy” question—P5370 or P900.

So first things first – if I’m in the market for a 17” professional printer from Epson, which of these two should I buy, or put otherwise, is it worthwhile spending the extra USD 750 for the P5370 versus the P900? It depends on (i) how much you print and (ii) whether you make many photos requiring the use of roll paper. If the answer to (i) were “not much” and to (ii) “no or hardly”, then you want a P900. Conversely, you would want a P5370.

The 5370s are finally starting to arrive here in the US. I’m still waiting for a unit, but I hope to have one in hand by the time our spring workshop series ends in early May. Based on Keith’s work, the 5370 looks like it will be a workhorse for print studios and pro photographers.

I was intrigued when Epson announced the EcoTank Photo ET-8500 and ET-8550 in mid-2021. These were the latest iteration of their “supertank,” high-capacity inkjet printers, but aimed at photographers and graphic artists. These were the first EcoTank printers to offer a six-color print engine tuned for printing photos, while also offering high-quality document printing and scan/copy support. Reading through Epson’s lofty marketing language, which talked about “lab-quality color photos and graphics at an incredible value,” it was clear that, if the company followed through on its promise, the ET-8500/ET-8550 could very well usher in a new era of high-quality photo prints, at significantly lower costs than classic, cartridge-based, photo printers.

After working in-depth with the letter-size model, the ET-8500, for the past few months, I will say that these printers truly are the most exciting photo printers I have come across in a long time. They have excellent photo quality, flexible paper handling options and superb usability, with print costs that are a fraction of those found in specialized photo printers. The EcoTank Photo printers are not for everyone—you wouldn’t use one of these for gallery-ready prints, for example—but they are perfect if you want to get into printing your photos, and want great output with minimal hassle.

ET-8500/ET-8550 Review

1. What is a supertank printer, anyway?
2. Specifications
3. Basics and setup
4. EcoTank inks
5. Paper handling
6. Print quality
7. Ink usage
8. Other items of note
9. Conclusions

What is a supertank printer, anyway?

The supertank class of high-capacity inkjets is designed to go head-to-head with laser printers, with low-cost black-and-white or color output, high-speed print engines, and good overall print quality. With large, refillable ink reservoirs, supertank printers dispense with the small-capacity—and ecologically wasteful—plastic cartridges found in most consumer inkjets, while dropping the costs of document printing to a price point comparable with lasers. Epson’s first supertank printers shipped more than a decade ago, and since then Canon and HP have also entered the supertank space, with their MegaTank and Smart Tank printer lines, respectively.

While most four-color supertank printers that I looked at in the past were capable of printing photos, I rarely saw prints that were anywhere near the quality level that we have come to expect from specialized photo printers,¹ which is one reason why the EcoTank Photo line is so intriguing.²

EcoTank Photo specifications

The ET-8500 and the ET-8550 are essentially two versions of the same printer. They share the same inkset, ink capacity, print engine, connectivity options, interface and paper handling. The ET-8500 has a maximum paper width of 11 inches (and a smaller footprint), while the ET-8550 can print up to 13 inches wide. Full specs for each printer are listed in the table below.

For this review, I tested the EcoTank Photo ET-8500, but most of my comments regarding print speed, paper handling, usability, and print quality will also be applicable to the ET-8550. I will note any differences in the text.

Basics and setup

As has been the case with other recent Epson inkjets, setting up the ET-8500 is relatively simple, and Epson provides clear documentation to get you up and running with minimal trouble. The printer can be connected via USB, Ethernet or WiFi, and can be set up from either a Mac or Windows computer or an iOS/Android device.

Epson includes six 70ml ink bottles with the printer. While it initially seems a bit freaky to be holding an open bottle of ink and inserting it into the appropriate tank opening, it really is a clean operation. The bottles are keyed to their specific color and have some sort of valve in the stem to prevent spills, and the tanks are labelled clearly. And, when you insert an ink bottle into the printer, it will automatically stop filling when the ink reaches the top line of the tank. With care, you shouldn’t get ink anywhere other than its tank (Epson’s primary caution is that you don’t squeeze the bottles during the filling process). When I filled my printer’s tanks for the first time, there was a small amount of ink left in each bottle, and I ended up topping off the tanks with the remainder after approximately 400 prints.

Unlike the ink cartridges found in most classic inkjets, the EcoTank printers’ ink levels are visible from the front of the printer. Each tank is marked in 25-percent increments, which makes it easy to get a sense of your ink usage, and when you might need to add more ink. If you’ve ever been frustrated at trying to figure out how much ink there really is in that ink cartridge, you’ll love the EcoTank setup.

As they did with the SureColor P700 and P900 printers, Epson put a large, 4.3-inch touchscreen display on the front of the ET-8500, and it’s a joy to use. The display can be tilted up for a better viewing angle, and is quite bright. Some controls (like setting paper thickness) can only be accessed through the touchscreen, but the menu system is clean and uncluttered.

EcoTank Photo Inks

The Claria ET Premium inks used in the ET-8500 and the ET-8550 are a hybrid dye/pigment inkset, of which only five inks print at any one time. There are five dye inks—Photo Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Gray—and a single pigmented Black ink. The print driver determines which black ink will get used, based on the paper type. The pigmented Black is used when plain paper, matte-finish/art papers or card stock is selected; Photo Black is used when printing on any photo paper type.

Paper handling

The ET-8500 has four options for loading paper:

• A full-size front tray that can hold up to 100 sheets of plain paper (or approximately 10-20 sheets of photo paper), and supports automatic duplexing of plain paper documents.
• A smaller front tray for up to 20 sheets of 4×6 or 5×7 photo paper.
• A rear-feed slot that can hold up to 50 sheets of plain paper or 5 sheets of standard-thickness photo paper.
• An additional rear-feed mechanism with a straight printing path for handling media up to 1.3mm thick.

Overall, the paper handling options are quite good. I love being able to have one tray with 5×7 semigloss paper while loading the main tray with plain paper, and the top rear-feed slot works very well for printing on beefier papers. Epson made a point when announcing the EcoTank Photo printers that they would support many of the company’s Signature Worthy line of papers, including Premium Luster and Velvet Fine Art, and the top rear slot is perfect for both those papers.

When testing the printer, I successfully printed on most of Epson’s recommended photo papers, including Premium Glossy, Premium Luster, Semigloss Photo Paper, Premium Matte and Velvet Fine Art. I also profiled a number of Epson higher-end papers, including Exhibition Fiber and Legacy Fibre, as well as quite a few third-party papers from Red River, Canson, and others. Most papers printed fine from the top rear-feed slot, although some of the heavier papers had faint roller indentations on them, which necessitated my using the straight path feed (and which printed those papers without any indentations).

Setting up the rear-feed mechanism with the straight paper path was initially quite confusing. You have to pull the paper feed unit from the back of the printer, and then remove a small plastic guide and snap that piece inside the printer. It sounds simple, but the first time I tried to set up the straight path, I couldn’t tell at all what I was supposed to do. There was a set of very small graphics indicating what you need to do to set up the straight path, but my poor eyesight really couldn’t discern what I was supposed to do, now that I had the paper feed unit removed. The online manual and the help screens on the touchscreen display weren’t much help either, but I noticed a small QR code to the left of the row of graphics, which led me to a languid YouTube video³ from Epson Japan, where I was able to tell how exactly to set the mechanism so that it would accept paper, which turns out to be quite simple.

When you’re using the straight path, you can only use that option for printing; with the paper feed unit removed, any attempts to print from another source will toss the paper out the back of the printer. Also, the straight path only supports paper sizes of 8×10 and up.

For the most part, I found the paper handling of the ET-8500 to be excellent. If I had one complaint, it would be that you can’t set the option for thick papers from the print driver, only from the touchscreen, and when you change that setting, it is reset once you power down the printer.

Print quality

When you consider that the ET-8500 is essentially a five-ink photo printer (one of the blacks plus CMY/Gray), the prints that come from this printer are pretty amazing. I think that most of this comes from Epson’s deep, decades-long expertise with screening algorithms and ink technology; in the case of the ET-8500/ET-8550, Epson’s engineers have been able—quite remarkably—to maximize quality while using a seemingly limited inkset.

The key appears to be due to the inclusion of Gray in the inkset in the EcoTank Photo models. Much like older Epson Pro printers⁴, which used “Light” inks to help with subtle gradations of tones throughout the color spectrum, the Gray ink in the EcoTank Photo printers seems to handle most of this work with regards to improving print quality. Gray helps with full color images, as well as with grayscale photo prints (more on this below), and when printing on plain paper.⁵

One of the strengths of dye-based photo printers is their quality on glossy and semigloss paper types, and the ET-8500 more than held its own with dedicated dye-based photo printers like Epson’s six-ink Expression XP-15000 and Canon’s eight-ink Pixma Pro-200. Prints on glossy paper looked great, with that continuous tone look that only glossy papers can provide, displaying bright, vibrant colors and true-to-life skin tones. On my calibrated system, prints looked as they appeared on-screen, even when using Epson’s built-in paper profiles.

While the ET-8500 excels when printing on glossy and luster papers, my results with matte or fine art papers were quite good as well. Epson’s Velvet Fine Art, for example, produced lovely prints with fine detail, as did Epson’s Premium Matte paper. I also got great prints with Red River’s Aurora Art White and Palo Duro Smooth Rag art papers.

Other than for Velvet Fine Art and Premium Luster, Epson doesn’t include profiles for other papers in their Signature Worthy line of media. I did profile their Exhibition Fiber paper, a soft gloss fiber-based paper that I use quite frequently, as well as their Legacy Fibre, an ultra-high-end cotton fiber paper with a matte finish. Despite these papers being designed for pigment prints, I was delighted with the few prints I made on them. Given the price per sheet of these papers, it’s not something most people will go to, but I do think that there are many third-party paper manufacturers with excellent paper types—matte or photo—that will work with the EcoTank Photo printers.⁶

Regarding black-and-white prints: in the print driver, Epson has a dedicated Black and White photo mode that lets you print with Neutral, Warm, Cool, and Sepia toning. For the most part, the Neutral option does a very good job of producing neutral prints. When comparing ET-8500 black-and-white prints with those from Canon’s Pro-200, some reviewers felt that there were some images where Canon produced a more truly neutral print, noting that the ET-8500’s print had a very slight cool tint to it, but it depended upon the photo, the lighting, and the media used⁷.

How good are the prints, really?

How close is the print quality of the ET-8500 to pricier dye-based inkjets, like the Canon Pro-200 or pigment printers like Epson’s own SureColor P700 or Canon’s imagePROGRAF Pro-300? To my eye, the wider gamut of the eight- to 10-ink printers is an advantage, but it’s slight, and I honestly don’t think most amateur photographers would notice the difference in prints from one printer to another.

When I displayed glossy and luster comparison prints made on the ET-8500, the XP-15000, and the Pro-200, most viewers said that there wasn’t a bad print in the group, and no one could reliably pick out one model’s prints as better than others. When comparing the ET-8500 output with glossy and luster pigment prints from the P900 and the Pro-300, many viewers sensed a difference, but generally picked the ET-8500 as their favorite; there was just something about the vibrancy of the photos from the ET-8500, especially on glossy media.

Pigment printers do have a slight advantage with fine art and matte media types, and viewers were a bit more discerning, picking the pigment printers as generally better than those on the ET-8500. There, the wider gamut of printers like the P900 and the Pro-300 will produce more nuanced prints on uncoated media. But, as is the case with the glossy output, unless you’re a fine-art photographer, you’re not going to feel that the ET-8500 is holding you back, at least with respect to the quality of the prints.

Ink use

In addition to quality, the other primary reason to consider the EcoTank Photo twins is the ludicrously low ink costs, and the expansive tank capacities for the six inks. At 70ml per bottle of ink, and with a cost per ml of 25 cents (28 cents for the pigmented Black ink), these printers are built to keep you from constantly buying replacement inks. Just compare the costs of the ET-8500/ET-8850 inks to that of its peers in the dedicated photo printer market:

• Epson Photo ET-8500/ET-8550: 70ml ink bottles, priced at $0.25 per ml (dyes); $0.28 per ml (Black)
• Epson SureColor P700: 25ml cartridges, $1.52 per ml
• Epson SureColor P900: 50ml cartridges, $0.84 per ml
• Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-300: 14.4 ml cartridges, $0.90 per ml⁸
• Canon Pixma Pro-200: 12.6ml cartridges, $1.11 per ml

When you break down the ink costs into comparable numbers (cost per ml), they are quite startling. It’s not completely comparable; you’ll spend more on ink with a 10-ink printer than a six- or eight-color one, but it gives you a good idea about roughly how much you’ll spend to print.

Epson’s materials boast that ET-8500’s Claria inks give you “enough ink to print 6,200 color pages,” but that is for basic ISO ratings in the default printing mode, not for photos.⁹ It is a decent indicator of how little ink you’ll use for document printing, however.

Printing photos will use more ink, and Epson claims that it is the per-print cost that is more important with the EcoTank Photo printers. Their literature states that you can print “4×6 photos for about 4 cents vs. 40 cents with traditional ink cartridges,” which feels like a more helpful calculation when thinking about the ET-8500/ET-8550 as photo printers. When you look at these models’ lower costs per ml of replacement ink, it is clear that you’ll be spending far less than you would with a dedicated photo printer, at least one in the sub-$1,000 range.¹⁰

With cartridge-based photo printers, most users will be lucky to get 100 to 200 prints before they start having to replace inks.¹¹ During the review process, I produced more than 600 prints on the ET-8500—of various sizes from 4×6 to 8.5×11—and had yet to run out of any ink at all. I wasn’t even close, to be honest. At 500 prints, I checked the ink levels, and this is where my printer’s ink levels were (roughly):

• Black (pigment) 90%
• Photo Black 75%
• Cyan 55%
• Yellow 65%
• Magenta 55%
• Gray 25%

As noted in the print quality section, Epson is clearly using gray to carry a lot of the heavy lifting in the print engine, but the fact that I was barely to the halfway level for the other inks was startling. To think that I could get to between 650 and 700 prints before having to replace a single ink color¹², and over 1,000 prints before I would have to replace any of the CMY inks is a game changer.

Of course, your mileage will vary, depending upon how many photos you print, and their size. ET-8550 users who will print more at 11″x14″ or 13″x19″ will obviously need to replace inks earlier than users of the ET-8500. Even with those approximate calculations, however, the lower ink costs will save considerable money (and waste) in the long run.

Other items of note

While most of our focus in this review is on the photo-specific aspects of the ET-8500, here are a few other things worthy of mention.

Print speeds (photos)

Print speed is far down my list of reasons for choosing one photo printer over another, but in the interest of completeness, I’ll note that the ET-8500 is quite speedy, both when printing photos and documents.

Photo printing offers three print modes, Draft, Quality and High Quality.¹³

Draft mode is oddly named; the label makes me think of old dot-matrix output, but it’s blazingly fast, spitting out a 5×7 bordered print in 16 seconds—and the prints look quite good. Quality is slightly slower, and High Quality the slowest. Most of the time, I printed photos at the default Quality setting, and was more than happy with them; it was quite hard to tell the difference between the top two tiers at all. My advice would be to play around with all three modes, and see if you can tell any appreciable difference in your prints. Average print speeds for various print sizes are listed in the table below:

Print speeds (documents)

For plain paper printing, the ET-8500 has four printing modes, Economy, Normal, Fine, and Best Quality, which essentially moves from super fast to super slow as the quality increases. The text in Economy prints is jagged, but readable, and graphics are ok, especially if you’re looking at printed webpages (like those from Google Maps). Normal is quite speedy, and the text and graphics are smoother, and with finer detail than Economy; for most of the time, this setting provides the best balance of quality and speed. To my eye, there wasn’t a lot of difference between Fine and Best Quality, especially with regard to black-and-white documents—Best Quality often took four times longer than Fine to print. Graphics-heavy color documents (think presentations) did look slightly better in Best Quality mode, especially on high-quality inkjet paper, but it’s hard for me to justify the print time of the Best mode.

Duplex printing

The ET-8500 has a built-in duplexing capability when you’re printing on plain paper. The option only works when the printer is connected via a USB connection, and you have to jump through a few hoops in the driver to turn it on, although you can save the settings as a preset. (Oddly, you can print duplex from a phone or tablet when connecting to the printer via WiFi.)

Scanner/Copier

The flatbed document scanner/copier is quite useful, albeit without a feed mechanism for copying or scanning a stack of pages. (We wouldn’t expect that, given the target audience for the printer.) The maximum page size for scanning/copying is letter size for the ET-8500, and legal (8.5 x 14 inches) for the ET-8550. The copy resolution is 600 x 600 dpi, while the maximum scanning resolution is 1200 x 4800 dpi.

Phone/Tablet support

If you’re using a phone or a tablet, Epson gives you nearly all of the functionality of the desktop with the Epson Smart Panel app for iOS and Android. This well-designed app lets you print photos from your camera roll, as well as edit photos for print and apply creative effects to your prints. You can also scan, copy, and print documents, access the printer help system, and much more.

Conclusions

In 30-plus years of reviewing photo printers, I have seen many breakthroughs, but there has been one constant throughout: the high costs of the inks used by these printers. It’s one of the primary reasons that many people shy away from buying a photo printer—or inkjets in general. When you start to look at the cost of an ink cartridge, and multiply that by the number of inks a printer has, the costs look enormous. The promise of the supertank printers has largely been relegated to standard document printing, but with the EcoTank Photo ET-8500 and ET-8550, the ink-cost equation has been changed for the better.

Will the ET-8500 and ET-8550 provide you with the best photo quality for any printer in its range? No, discerning viewers who study prints will notice the wider gamut of printers like the SureColor P700/P900 and Canon’s Pro-200/300. If you look closely, you’ll see that those printers—with their larger inksets—print with finer tonal gradations, especially in complex images. And, when compared to pigment-based printers, you won’t get 100+ years of print longevity¹⁴ with the ET-8500.

All that said, the ET-8500 will give you excellent prints, that, when preserved with simple storage techniques, can last decades. And those prints will cost significantly less than those of the dedicated photo printers I’ve been reviewing for the past 30 years. Whether you’re printing snapshots of family life, travel photos, or artwork that you’d like to put on your wall (or a friend’s wall), the prints from the ET-8500 and ET-8550 are rich, vibrant and full of life.

In the end, it is important to understand that these are not printers designed for fine art photographers or pros; they’re for amateurs and enthusiasts who want to print, but have been scared off by the complexity, singular function, and high costs of traditional, cartridge-based photo printers. For that, the EcoTank Photo printers are ideal. And it makes me hopeful for a future day when we’ll have true “supertank” photo printers with wide-gamut, 8- to 12-color inksets that have much lower ink costs (and waste) than the ones we have today.

Scorecard: Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8500 and ET-8550

EcoTank ET-8500, $600 [Epson’s product page | Amazon]
EcoTank ET-8550, $700 [Epson’s product page | Amazon]

These two “supertank” printers offer excellent, speedy photo output at a fraction of the cost per print found in dedicated, cartridge-based photo printers. While they’re not designed to be fine-art printers, they will be darn close for most casual and serious amateur photographers who want to get into printing. The smaller ET-8500 is delightfully compact and prints anything up to letter size, while the slightly larger ET-8550 can print up to 13″ x 19″, making it perfect for photographers who want to print a bit bigger without breaking the bank.

Pros: Excellent print quality, especially on glossy and semigloss paper types; high-capacity ink tanks with ink costs that dwarf those of dedicated photo printers; flexible paper handling options, including a straight print path for papers up to 1.2mil thick; strong support for printing from phones and tablets (in addition to Mac and Windows computers); scan and copy support, as well as economical printing of standard documents.

Cons: None significant for its target audience; some small interface issues; setting up straight paper path is confusing at first.

Other links:

• Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 review (Printerville)
• Epson SureColor P900 review (Printerville)
• Thoughts on choosing a photo printer (Printerville)
• Red River’s True Cost of Inkjet Printing

Disclosure: We only review and recommend products that we use ourselves. The Amazon links above are affiliate links, and we may earn a small commission when you buy something, at no cost to you.  

The P5370 uses the same UltraChrome PRO10 inkset found in the SureColor P900 and P700 models (see review): 10 inks (9 printing), with separate channels for Matte and Photo Black inks. The ink cartridges are a whopping 200ml in size.

The printer has a 100-sheet front-feed paper cassette; a built-in roll feeder (for 2- and 3-inch roll cores) with an automatic cutter; a top-loading, single-sheet manual feed path; and a front-loading, straight-through paper path for media up to 1.5mm thick. It has a 4.3-inch touchscreen LCD, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi.

Yes, the P5370 shares the excellent, long-lasting P700/P900 inkset, and offers similar — but slightly better — connectivity options and a (bigger) touchscreen LCD, but make no mistake: this is a tool for professionals looking to create finished gallery work, portfolios, and short-run photo projects. For those groups, the P5370 should be a revelatory workhorse.

To say that this printer has been overdue is an understatement. The P5000 was a fantastic high-volume printer, serving both the photo community and publishers in the print industry (with slightly different inksets for each group), but it suffered slightly as a photographer’s tool, with the single black ink channel that necessitated switching when you wished to change between Matte and Photo Black inks. We’ve also been waiting for the release of the PRO10 inkset at this level in the market. As good as the SureColor P900 is as a fine-art photo printer, it lacks the durability and sturdiness of the SureColor 4800/4900/5000 line, and the we expect that the P5370 will be similarly constructed.

Epson expects to ship the SureColor P5370 in January, 2024. The printer will be $2,095; pricing for the ink cartridges wasn’t available at press time. I, for one, can’t wait to get my hands on one.

Press release reproduced below. Epson also has a very handy Sales Reference Guide (PDF) to the SureColor P5370, which includes more detail and comparison with the P5000 and the P900.

Epson Introduces SureColor P5370 17-Inch Professional Photographic Printer

Replacing SureColor P5000, New Printer Delivers Creativity Without Compromise

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — Empowering photographers to produce the finest exhibition quality prints, Epson has introduced the new 17-inch SureColor P5370 professional printer designed to meet the demanding needs of professional and production photographic markets. Incorporating technological breakthroughs and enhanced reliability to produce prints as the artist intended, the new printer has an improved printhead, new ink set with an extended color gamut in dark blue hues, plus an advanced print engine for productivity, including sheet and roll capability. The SureColor P5370 is being debuted and shown at the Palm Springs Photo Festival.

Vincent Versace, a recognized pioneer in the art and science of digital photography noted, “When I have a large volume of prints to make and time and reliability is of the essence, the SureColor P5370 is my go-to printer for meeting deadlines while maintaining the highest photographic print quality.”

Touting a refined design, the SureColor P5370 combines an improved advanced MicroPiezo AMC printhead with Epson Precision Dot Screening Technology to consistently produce prints with smooth tonal renditions and capability to reproduce the details captured with today’s high-resolution cameras. Featuring a new 10-color UltraChrome PRO10 ink set in high-capacity 200 mL cartridges, including Violet Ink, the printer delivers an extended range of blue hues and a wider color gamut. With dedicated channels for Photo and Matte Black inks, there’s no ink switching, helping to save time and reduce ink waste. The printer’s built-in Carbon Black Mode increases Dmax, allowing for rich blacks and exceptional contrast on glossy paper.

Offering flexibility and increased productivity, the printer includes a built-in roll feeder, auto cutter and a high-capacity cassette that accommodates up to 100 cut sheets from 8.5″ x 11″ to 17″ x 22.” In addition, to further support today’s workflows that leverage both Epson and third-party media, the SureColor P5370 includes Epson Media Installer, a software application designed to help control parameters for successful printing with a variety of media, including thick fine art papers.

“Listening to market needs and incorporating customer feedback, we integrated the latest printhead and ink technologies that are optimized for photography into this new printer so professional photographers can maximize productivity, reliability and consistently produce the finest exhibition-quality prints,” said Marc Aguilera, product manager, Epson America, Inc. “Designed to meet demanding needs, the SureColor P5370 is an evolution to the beloved SureColor P5000, adding improved reliability, deeper black density and wider color gamut in blue hues.

Additional SureColor P5370 features include:

• Intuitive operation — a new large 4.3-inch color LCD touchscreen and interface allows for easy setup, control and maintenance
• Expanded connectivity — Ethernet, USB and, now included, WiFi connectivity
• Advanced software support for enhanced productivity — includes Epson Cloud Solution PORT2 for fleet management and Epson Print Layout software for simple print production

Availability

The SureColor P5370 will be available in Q1 2024 through Epson Authorized Professional Imaging Resellers for an estimated MSRP of $2,095. For additional information, visit http://www.epson.com/p5370.

After months of printing hundreds of photos, ranging from 4×6 to 16×20–and through two recent printing workshops where the three printers were in constant use–it is clear that appears to have fixed the paper feed issues, and I have updated my review of the P900 and P700 to account for the fixes. Epson won’t go on the record to say that something in the feed assembly has been fixed, but they have told us in the past that they are “always looking at ways to improve” their products.

With the updates, it is clear that the P900 (17-inch) and the P700 (13-inch) printers provide the best combination of print quality, paper handling and usability found in the dedicated photo printer market today. Canon’s imagePROGRAF PRO-300 (13-inch) and PRO-1000 (17-inch) are each quite good printers, but they feel like last-generation machines compared with the P700/P900 series.

I’m finishing up a more detailed overview of the current photo printer market, but if you’re looking for the best combination of photo print quality and cost today, the P900 is it. Yes, you’ll pay more for it than the P700, but the more-efficient ink costs will pay for the upgrade in a couple of years. The review has all the gory details, of course.

“In our first video, we sit down together to discuss where making prints is as far as today’s photographers.  We are is a digital age and while it great we can share our images on many types of devices, we all feel that in the end you really don’t have a photograph until you have a print.  We may be a little old school, but there is something to be said about having a tangible and tactile print in your hands.  You can enjoy detail, a feel, and enjoy exploring the image itself.”

The initial three videos are quite good; for me, the most interesting video so far to is a 23-minute video discussion about printing with Dan Steinhardt, Epson’s Pro Marketing Manager (famously known as “Dano”). Joined by our old friend Jeff Schewe, Dan answers a slew of questions on topics that are not necessarily specific to Epson printers, including:

• What is the difference between ppi vs. dpi?
• Do you need to print at the printer’s native resolution to get the best prints?
• Should I shake my ink cartridges before installing them?
• Diagnosing the “prints are too dark” issue.
• Is metameric failure still an issue with today’s pigment printers? What about bronzing and gloss differential?
• What is the advantage of variable droplet sizes when printing?

There’s another Print It video where Dan talks about inkjet paper surfaces and how paper is made. While it is focused largely on Epson’s Legacy papers, it is still worth watching if you’re interested in getting basic information on the different types of fine-art media sold today (including the use of optical brighteners in paper making). As a bonus, there’s also a download link to Dan’s own Glossary of Fine Art Related Terms.

For all of PhotoPXL’s printer coverage, use this link.

I hate printing, and it’s high time I admitted that.

David goes on to talk at length about his dissatisfaction with the process of printing by himself, despite the fact that he (like many of us) loves the look and feel of a finished print. His solution: utilize the services and talents of a friend who is a fine-art printer, which I think is a great idea.

The piece overall is a good overview of options for getting your work printed without having to do it yourself. I echo his suggestions for online printing services mentioned in the post. I would add Bay Photo Lab to the list of providers, however; I, along with a number of photographer friends, have had great success with them over the years.

I took around 10 files, some of them actual printer color test files, and sent them through EPL to the ET-8550 and the Epson P700. I marked the back of each print with the printer used. I then started sharing them with friends who would come to the studio and see the printed images on the table.

First, there was little difference, if any, visible between the prints (Note: they were all made on Epson Premium Lustre paper). Also, when push came to shove, more people choose the ET-8550 prints than the P700 prints, which was quite astounding. Keep in mind finding any differences was very difficult.

I’ve been hard at work finishing up our latest book by Ben Long, The Practicing Photographer, and haven’t been able to get to the stack of printers for review in my office (and on order), but the dye-based EcoTank printers are near the top of my list. I think that these new printers could be ideal for a lot of amateur photographers looking to create decent prints at lower costs, and it was good to see Kevin’s early take on them.

Canon’s imagePROGRAF PRO-300 is a $900, 13-inch desktop photo printer with nine pigment inks. Introduced in mid-2020, not long after Epson’s announcement of the 13-inch SureColor P700 (and the 17-inch P900), the PRO-300 replaces the Pixma PRO-10 at the top of the Canon’s 13-inch photo printer lineup. It boasts a comparable feature set to Epson’s P700, including flexible paper handling, black-and-white and borderless printing, extensive connectivity options and more. After a few months of testing, I can say that it’s a solid printer with excellent print quality for its class. Like most photo printers at this level, there are a few rough edges in places, but overall it’s a good value, and quite competitive with Epson’s offerings.

Basics and Setup

Like most photo printers today, getting the PRO-300 up and running is relatively simple. Canon includes a quick start sheet to get the printer set up, and an installation CD with the driver and additional software, although the CD is oddly Windows-only. If you’re a Mac user—or if you don’t have an optical drive—you can download the installation utility directly from the Canon website (via their Getting Started webpage). 

After removing the packing tape and inserts, you lock the user-replaceable print head into place inside the printer, and snap the individual ink cartridges into the head. Once you’ve got the printer full of ink and powered up, the Canon Setup utility app will install the print driver and walk you through the process of connecting to the printer. Configuring the printer for WiFi, Ethernet or a direct USB connection is easy, and you can be up and running within an hour. You can also enable either network type directly via the printer, although adjusting advanced network settings (like entering a WiFi password) is a pain on the small, 3-inch display.

Canon includes a link to an online manual at the end of the setup process, which is good, since there isn’t anything in the box. The “manual” is a sprawling, hierarchical mini-website with plenty of videos and information, but you’ll have to wander (or search quite a bit) through the categories and subcategories to find the important stuff. And even then, there isn’t any real, “How do I get the best prints?” type of content there. What I’d really like from Canon is a searchable, PDF-based version (which Epson does offer, in addition to its online manual) that could be used for reference, along with some good overviews of the basic printing process once you’re set up.¹

Lucia Pro inks

The PRO-300’s ink set is a slightly reformulated version of the Lucia Pro inks used in previous models.² Canon says that the new Lucia Pro inks in the PRO-300 offer an “expanded color gamut”—without mentioning how much more—and a new matte black ink that produces “deeper blacks and better tonal range.” I didn’t have the previous model around to test, but color rendition was largely quite good, and most viewers looking at matte-finish prints felt that the blacks were rich and deep, at least as good as other photo printers in this category. (Matte papers, because of they way that the ink is absorbed into the media, have much lower Dmax³ than coated glossy and luster papers.)

The printer uses eight inks when printing, choosing either the Matte or Photo Black ink depending upon the paper type chosen. When printing on glossy or coated media, the printer will also use the Chroma Optimizer—the tenth ink—as an overlay to reduce gloss differential⁴ in final prints.

At 90 cents per ml, the PRO-300’s ink costs are reasonable, sitting much closer to the P900’s 84 cents per ml than the P700’s pricey $1.52 per ml. The cartridges, which reside directly in the printhead, which in turn rides along the print carriage, are by necessity much smaller than the ones used in Epson’s P700/P900 and Canon’s 17-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-1000. Those cartridges are installed into the body of the printer and connect to the printhead via individual feeder lines. In practical terms, the smaller size cartridges aren’t a terribly bad thing, but, if you print a lot, you’ll want to make sure you have plenty of backup cartridges on-hand. With the PRO-300, I got about 80 prints, mostly 4×6 to letter-size, before I had to replace a cartridge (Photo Black), but once I did, things cascaded from there, due to the smaller cartridge sizes. By the time I had printed nearly 200 photos, I had replaced most of the cartridges.

All that said, ink usage will depend upon what you print, print sizes, and how you print, and your mileage will vary. One useful guide for me is Red River Paper’s Cartridge Equivalent Usage metric, which helps standardize ink costs across printers; their preliminary ink costs for the PRO-300 range from 24 cents per 4×6-inch print to $1.68 per 11×14-inch print. Those numbers are less than the ones for the (17-inch) SureColor P900, but much better than those of the PRO-300’s direct competitor, the 13-inch P700.

It’s hard to get a handle on the archival nature of the PRO-300’s prints. Canon doesn’t mention anything in any of their materials about print longevity and the PRO-300’s inks, and Wilhelm-Research hasn’t posted any print life testing data for this printer or the previous model’s ink set. More recent tests of the 12-ink PRO-1000 (tested with Canson Infinity papers) show print life of 20 to 50 years unframed, and 80 to 160 years framed under UV-protected glass or acrylic. I would expect the PRO-300 to generally be in a similar range, given those numbers, and tests run on Lucia pigment inks from 2012. However, if I were interested in producing gallery-quality work for sale, I would more likely go with a large-format printer from HP or Epson than either of Canon’s desktop printers.

Paper handling

After my struggles with the P900, it was refreshing to deal with the simple—and reliable—paper handling of the PRO-300. The printer has two slots for loading paper: the primary top feed for loading multiple sheets of paper, and, behind that, a manual feed option for printing on thicker, fine art papers. Unlike Epson, there isn’t a feed option that has a straight path, but we really didn’t miss that: the PRO-300 can handle papers up to 80 lb weight (or up to 0.3mm thick) via the the primary top feed, and up to 93 lb weight (0.6mm thick) via the manual feed option, which more than covers the range of papers on which most people would want to print.⁵

I had one substantive complaint about the manual feed option: the smallest paper size you can feed manually is 8×10, which feels like an arbitrary restriction. Many third-party paper vendors now produce 5×7-inch versions of their specialty papers, and it seems reasonable to me that we should be able to use those with the PRO-300. I often create small postcard-size print runs on baryta or rag art papers, which aren’t light enough to be fed through the PRO-300’s top tray reliably.⁶ 

It was also disappointing that the extension supports for manual feed don’t extend to cover a 13×19 sheet of paper, something the top feed supports do. The supports extend only about 10 inches, slightly more than half the length of the larger sheet, which causes some papers to bend over the top of the support. It’s a small issue, but being able to let the larger paper size lie flat in the tray helps ensure that the feed is clean and straight.

One last paper-handling issue: every time you use the manual feed option, you have to press a button on the front of the printer for it to start printing. You can preload the paper, but it doesn’t matter; once you start the print process, the printer will ask you to confirm that you really want to print via manual feed. If the printer is right next to you, this is a small thing, but if the printer is in another room, and you had already put the sheet into the tray (something I almost always do with my workflow), it can require a second trip to the printer. Granted, this is a small, personal annoyance, but if there was a way to either disable the warning in the printer, or to start the process from my computer, I’d much prefer it.⁷

Printing with the PRO-300

Canon prefers the “less is more” approach in its approach to the print driver, which is fine by me. The primary place you’ll adjust print settings will be in the Quality & Media section, when you choose the print quality, the paper you’re printing on, and, if desired, a black and white print. There are two quality settings when printing photos, Standard and Highest (a Fast option is also available when printing on plain paper). While Canon doesn’t provide any details about the different settings, we found that there was little difference between the Standard and High option for most images we printed (for either glossy- or matte-finish papers), even with photos that had large amounts of great detail. This isn’t surprising; at this level, the current group of printers produce excellent prints from most digital photos, and we almost never suggest using the highest quality settings unless you notice something in your prints.

The Black and White Photo Print option will convert your color images to grayscale and print them that way, but I much prefer to use my editing software to tone a black-and-white print in the way that works best for me, but Canon doesn’t do a bad job here if you’re after a quick and dirty black-and-white photo that is neutrally toned.

The other section of the Print window that you might need occasionally is Advanced Paper Settings, which lets you adjust the drying time, printhead height, the Chroma Optimizer (clear coating) setting, and margin notifications. Of these options, the only one that I change regularly is the Print Head Height, turning it to Avoid Paper Abrasion when printing on thick papers via the manual feed. I also turn on the Cancel Margin Regulation, which lets me select some paper sizes that I might not be able to choose with the setting off. The Clear Coating Area option is best left to Auto, which means that it is used only in places where the driver thinks gloss differential could be an issue, but you can set it to Overall, which applies the Chroma Optimizer to the entire photo when printing.

In general, printing from most mainstream photo editing apps on either Windows or macOS is straightforward: choose the printer and page size in Page Setup, select the media type and quality setting in the Print window, and click Print.⁸

Print quality

With eight inks, one would expect the print quality on the PRO-300 to be excellent, and in almost all of my tests, on a wide array of media types, the PRO-300 shone. The gamut of the Lucia Pro inks is wide enough to handle most photos you can throw at it, and when I displayed comparison prints between the PRO-300 and the nine-ink P900, most viewers couldn’t regularly pick which printer produced which output. Some pro photographers saw increased density in the shadows on PRO-300 matte-finish prints over the P900, while others felt that they were roughly comparable. There was a slight, but clear, advantage with Epson’s Carbon Black option when printing on glossy papers, but again, there is not a huge difference, especially for most use cases (it does take more time to print using Carbon Black, and it more ink than the standard quality options.).

There were instances where the P900 produced demonstrably better output than the PRO-300. Photos shot at blue hour, with exquisite gradients of blues, purples and yellows, often printed much better on the P900 than the PRO-300. And some shots with difficult out-of-focus details printed with noticeable artifacts in the transition areas on the PRO-300, while the P900 reproduced them much more naturally.

To be fair, these are photos that would be considered difficult to print on many older printers in this desktop-based class, but Epson’s addition of the extra (Violet) ink in the UltraChrome PRO10 inkset of the P700/P900 printers—along with their slightly better Dmax with glossy and other coated media—gives them a slight leg up in print quality. Whether most people interested in this level of printer will notice it is a different story. For most people looking to print photos for their walls and scrapbooks, the PRO-300 print quality is excellent.

Print speeds

As I noted in the P900 review, print speed will always take a back seat to print quality. I didn’t perform rigid benchmarking tests with the PRO-300, but I did enough testing to give you a sense of the performance you’ll see when printing at various print sizes.

With the PRO-300, the two print quality levels make things simpler than the five levels of options found in the P700/P900. The following chart shows the average print times (in minutes:seconds) for glossy media in four print sizes, at each of the quality levels.

PRO-300 print performance — glossy media (Photo Black inks)

PRO-300 print performance — fine art media (Matte Black inks)

In both the glossy and matte media categories, there isn’t a huge difference in the performance between the Standard and High Quality modes when printing at smaller sizes, although the differences do get magnified as you print at larger sizes. Printing with the Photo Black inks is a bit quicker than the Matte Black inks because there is less ink being used when printing; the ink is applied on top of the coated paper, as opposed to into the paper, which is what happens when you print with the Matte Black inks.

Overall, my advice would be to print at the Standard Quality level, unless you’re seeing specific things in a proof that you think might be improved at the higher setting.

Other notes of interest

Here are a few things that I felt were worth mentioning, but aren’t of huge import to the overall performance of the printer:

• As was the case with Epson’s recent printers, Canon took a stab at employing some sort of media management tool that would let you add custom paper types to the print driver. Unfortunately, Canon’s attempt, the Media Configuration Tool, is plagued by a confusing interface that requires multiple steps (and a second app, Media Configuration Tool Add Paper) to get a paper installed. It’s also quite slow, and there’s no clear way to add a set of papers easily. I spent some time trying to work through it to add custom papers from Moab and Red River, but in the end, it was quicker and simpler to use the old-fashioned way of printing: use application-based color and pick the closest analog to the custom paper type found in the Print dialog.⁹
• Canon has a number of other apps that you can download and use with the PRO-300, including two specific apps for printing, Professional Print & Layout, and Easy-PhotoPrint Editor, as well as a network utility. The Professional Print app, while capable and full-featured, is not essential, in my view, for most users’ needs; I prefer to print photos via my standard Lightroom and Photoshop workflow, and the PRO-300 prints without any issues from other photo editing and organizational apps, including Capture One, ON1 Photo RAW, Affinity Photo and Corel PaintShop Pro. The Easy-PhotoPrint app is a bit simple, but if you want to print disc labels (via the disc printing insert included with the printer) or templated projects (like calendars or cards), it does a decent job.
• There is also a version of Easy-PhotoPrint for iOS and Android. It looks a lot like its Windows and Mac namesake, offering project-based printing, but it’s clunky and slow, and requires that you keep the app open during the entire printing process. It’s nowhere near as slick and full-featured as Epson’s Print Layout app for iOS, but it does work for basic photo printing. You will have more options—and can use a color-managed workflow—when printing from your editing apps in Windows or MacOS, however.
• While you can use either WiFi or Ethernet networking when you set up your printer, you can’t have both. While it’s not a huge thing, it is worth mentioning, especially if you wish to use an iOS or Android device for directly printing via WiFi.
• Why Canon didn’t invest in a larger, touchscreen display is a bit of a mystery; I’ve become a big fan of the usability—and readability—of the big touchscreens on the newer Epson printers, and the one in the PRO-300 feels old. The menu interface is also hard to follow on the smaller display.
• Some potential buyers might complain about the lack of roll-paper support, this doesn’t feel like a huge omission to me. You can print on sheets of 13- by 39-inch panorama paper, which is a standard item for companies like Red River, and that seems to my mind a much easier thing to deal with than a roll adapter.
• Canon made a point when they announced the PRO-300 that it was significantly smaller than the PRO-10, which it clearly is if you look at the older model’s specs. It is more notable to me, however, that the PRO-300 is roughly the same size (and a bit lighter) than Epson’s 17-inch P900.

Conclusions

For years, Canon has played second fiddle to Epson in the photo printer market. Canon’s prominence in the camera market has helped give visibility to the company’s printer line, which has grown and matured to the point where their desktop-based offerings are comparable to Epson’s in many ways. The 17-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-1000, while nearly six years old, is an excellent large-format printer with a wide gamut and efficient ink usage that prints gorgeous photos on all types of papers. The PRO-300, while having fewer inks than the larger model, still produces excellent prints, with a much smaller footprint (and lower cost) than its larger sibling. And, it’s built like a tank, which, after my experiences dealing with the fragile paper handling issues on my Epson P900, was quite welcome.

Overall, there’s a lot to like about the PRO-300: the print quality on all but the most complex of photos is comparable to Epson’s, it handles thick papers with ease, and it’s quite speedy. I wish the ink tanks were a bit bigger, and that I could feed 4×6 and 5×7 sheets in the rear feed, but overall, it’s a great printer, especially for photography enthusiasts who want to print at home (and who aren’t worried about producing work with more assured print permanence). Given the paper-handling issues we had with the P700/P900, if you’re in the market for a 13-inch pigment photo printer, the PRO-300 is a better buy, in my opinion, than the P700, even when you factor in the PRO-300’s higher ($100) price. The stronger paper handling and the lower ink costs outweigh most of the P700’s advantages (wider gamut, print permanence provenance, smaller footprint, cheaper price).

Scorecard: Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300

imagePROGRAF PRO-300, $900 [Product page | Amazon]

Pros: Well-built 13-inch photo printer with very good paper-handling features; excellent print quality on all but the most demanding of images; ink costs significantly lower than the competing 13-inch printer (P700) from Epson.

Cons: Smaller ink tanks mean more swaps (even though the costs are lower than those of the P700) and more waste for people who print frequently; manual feed option can’t handle paper sizes smaller than 8×10; old-style, non-touch LCD screen feels like a relic.

Other links:

• Canon Getting Started webpage, with links to Setup utility.
• imagePROGRAF PRO-300 online manual
• Printerville: Thoughts on choosing a photo printer
• Printerville: Surecolor P900 review (with thoughts on the P700)
• Northlight Images: Canon PRO-300 printer review (comprehensive review covering all aspects of the printer)
• Wilhelm Research: Print Permanence Ratings for Canson Infinity papers
• Red River Paper: The true cost of inkjet printing

Changes & corrections

June 14, 2021: review updated to note that Epson does in fact provide PDF-based versions of its manuals.

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