Canon has announced a new flagship product, the Canon ImagePrograf Pro-1100 – an update to the nearly decade-old ImagePrograf Pro-1000 professional printer aimed at studios, professional photographers and businesses.
It has the exact same dimensions (723 x 435 x 285 mm) and weight (32.4 kg) as its predecessor. But don’t let its similar appearance fool you, because there’s a lot of exciting new technology inside, like 5G Wi-Fi.
The Pro-1100 can print in sizes up to A2+ or 17″. However, using paper rolls, the Pro-1100 can now produce prints that are well over twice as wide as the Pro-1000. Whereas its predecessor could produce panoramas up to 1.2m wide, the Pro-1100 can produce panoramas up to 3.27m wide.
The ImagePrograf Pro-1100 is designed for high yields and uses a wide range of 11 inks and Chroma Optimizer. “Chroma Optimizer is applied over the printed image to cover the unevenness between the ink droplets. In doing so, it evens out the height of the ink droplets to improve gloss and smooth the print surface, as well as expanding the color gamut,” explains Canon.
Like its predecessor, the Pro-1100 holds 11 inks – each with a large capacity of 80 ml, but these are new PFI-41000 inks.
Dye is good for speed, color and vibrancy, but Canon says the color can fade within seven years. The Pro-1100 uses pigment ink instead, which is better for contrast, black and white prints and also longevity. Canon claims its prints have a lightfastness of 200 years (or 180 years on art paper), which is a significant increase over the traditional 60 years.
The new Lucia Pro II inks are also designed to improve dark colors and black density on art paper by tightly arranging the dyes to produce rich colors and improve fine gradation in dark areas.
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The wettability of the ink is also increased to achieve better coverage of the black pigment particles. In addition, the pigments have lower reflection to also improve black density. This also helps reduce reflections that cause bronzing: an adverse effect that can make prints look metallic.
Wax is also added to the new inks to make them more scratch resistant on glossy paper. This should reduce waste and also save time by eliminating the need to reprint, which can take several minutes. Canon classifies the Pro-1100 as a mid-range printer, surpassed only by Canon printers with larger MegaTanks.
You can of course use Canon’s Auto Refill service to automatically reorder ink when you’re running low. This is set to 10% by default, but can be adjusted individually for each ink – useful if you know you use more of some colours than others.
Speaking of print times, the Pro-1100 uses the same PF-10 printhead as its predecessor, so its speed is unchanged. An A2 print (LU-101 color) should take about 3 minutes and 35 seconds, while an A2 print (PT-101 color or black and white) should take about 6 minutes.
Borderless printing uses a vacuum system and starts at A2 size, which is somewhat limiting if you want to print borderless in smaller sizes.
But it’s not just the printer itself that’s been redesigned. Canon’s Professional Print & Layout software has been updated with some handy features, including improvements to Crystal Fidelity, which can now extract additional information from Canon cameras like the EOS R5 and R5 Mark II to help you proof in certain environments or prevent highlights from blowing out in harsh exhibition lighting.
There’s also a new black and white print mode, Chrome Optimizer now has three settings (On, Off, or Partial), and supports a variety of new print sizes from 7 x 10 inches to 12 x 12 inches.
Canon also understands that users may not want to switch between software programs, so the drivers are also included in Adobe packages such as Photoshop CC and Lightroom Classic CC to streamline the printing process.
Another nice new feature is the Custom Media Registration Flow. This gives users more options for the length of time the Pro-1100 stays on the paper while drying, as well as the height of the print head.
Sales of the Canon ImagePrograf Pro-1100 are set to begin in September, priced at £1,099.99 (US and Australian pricing to be confirmed).
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