Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 17″ Professional Photographic Inkjet Printer

The Canon Pro-1000 was purchased so I could produce larger 17 by 22 inch prints as opposed to my existing Epson Stylus Photo R3000 that only produced up to 13 by 19 inch prints. I also wanted to try a different technology as far as printhead and ink delivery technology. I have felt that I did sufficient homework in evaluating the Canon Pro-1000 versus the Epson P800 that was my other choice. My letter size and 11 by 17 inch test prints on glossy and matte produced on the Canon Pro-1000 have the same quality as the Epson R3000. When I printed on 13 by 19 inch prints, that is when I unfortunately witnessed Canon’s apparent shortcomings. I noticed ink skid marks approx. 1/2 inch from the lengthwise edges on the backside of these large prints. I followed the roller cleaning and bottom plate cleaning as indicated on the LCD maintenance screen of the Canon Printer. This minimized the issue but it came back. Upon opening the cover, I noticed two one inch by one and a half inch dark areas on the gray foam as indicated on my attached images. These areas were saturated with ink. I contacted Canon technical support several times and per the last conversation, was told that I could get a refurbished or possible new unit. The tech deemed my problem as a printer hardware issue. I was flabbergasted. I just purchased the Canon and did not want a hand me down unit even though the tech stated it would come with the same warranty. After what I experienced with the caliber of Canon technical support expertise and a recent similar episode with the Epson R3000, I strongly feel in all likelihood that the problem will exist in a refurbished or new replacement Canon Pro-1000. After several discussions with several Canon Techs during the past week and a half, I had elected to receive a replacement printer and was instructed to return the defective printer to Canon. I did have the option of returning the unit to B and H for replacement but I was already in the process of replacement with Canon. As noted in my discussions with Canon, the defective printer deposits a significant amount of ink in two areas on the gray foam. If I was printing papers less than or equal to 11 by 17 inch, there were no apparent issues such as ink skid marks and smudges on the back of the papers. However, larger print papers such as 13 by 19 inch did receive ink skid marks and smudges on the back of the papers. As reviewed with Canon, I did follow the instruction manual’s procedure for roller and bottom cleaning. This initially had minimized the problem but it returned. Upon further inspection, I found the two areas of ink buildup being the cause of skid and smudge marks. I did receive a replacement Pro-1000 from Canon and it appears to be new but older production printer. I did run several prints through the replacement printer and ink is being built up in the identical areas of the gray foam similar to the defective unit. At this time, I will not know if this presents a similar skid and smudge mark issues down the road. The replacement printer appears new albeit older production. It is my understanding that the replacement printer carries the same warranty as the former printer. The people that had submitted glowing reviews of the Pro-1000 should inspect the gray foam to see if they have significant ink buildup that could cause aforementioned ink skid and smudge marks. So, the lessons learned is not to buy a printer (or any product for that matter) until it has been in use by the consumers for at least a year. Canon already had to recall an earlier production of the Pro-1000 due to an internal ink leakage. Canon technical support is located in the USA and I was able to understand what the technicians were saying. However, I found the technicians’ knowledge of the Pro-1000 to be sorely lacking. Note that during most if not all the phone conversations, I was put on hold while the Canon techs researched my basic questions on the operation of this printer. One should keep my Canon Pro-1000 experience in mind while evaluating other competitors’ printers in this class.

Since there’s so much confusion about this, I feel that I have to start off the review with this.. When you first set up this printer and install the ink cartridges it comes with, even before printing anything, all of your ink levels will only be at about 50%. This is normal! It’s not because something is wrong with the printer, and it’s not because Canon cheaped out and included cartridges with the printer that were only half-full (as far as I know.) Every ink cartridge is connected to the print head by a long flexible tube. You can see all of them if you open up the service access cover of the printer. Before you can print anything, the printer needs to fill up those tubes with ink. Unfortunately, this does take a lot of ink, so you start off will all levels at about 50% but it is what it is. When you do run out of ink and install a new cartridge, this will not happen again since the tubes are already full of ink, so you will be able to use the entire capacity of the cartridge for printing photos.

Edit: I can now confirm this, as I just installed my first replacement ink cartridge in this printer. The ink level shown on the printer registers as completely full when a new cartridge is installed. It does not drop down to half like the first initial cartridge you install when the printer is new. Also, I’ve since learned that the printer actually has separate holding tanks of ink inside the printer, so these are also part of what needs to be filled when the printer is new, and why your new cartridges start out at 50% when the printer is new.

Now that that’s out of the way, I have to say that I’m really happy with this printer. The print quality has been great, and it functions almost flawlessly. Take all of the frustrations and drawbacks you normally associate with printers and forget about them. This thing just works. I don’t know much more I can say about it than that. I have even been using paper that came off of a roll (which I cut to size beforehand since this printer will not print directly from a roll of paper), and the printer has no problem even printing on the paper that is curled from being on the roll. It has a vacuum feed system that you will find in most large format printers, so this helps with feeding paper, even if it’s not perfectly flat when it goes into the printer.

I’ve been very happy with the ink usage as well. I leave this printer on all the time, and normally print something once every two weeks or so. In total, I’ve printed about 16 photos on this printer, most of them large 16″x24″ with about a 1″ border on all sides, and none of the ink cartridges have run out yet. And again keep in mind this is with cartridges that started off at only about 50% due to what I talked about above. At this point, the black and gray cartridges are getting low (at about 10% now), as the photos I’ve printed have generally been very dark, night time photos. But, they still haven’t run completely out yet.

Edit: I just ran out of my first ink cartridge, photo black, but this wasn’t until I printed about 25 prints that were almost all 16×24″ with a 1″ border. And this is with the cartridges that started their life at 50%. Not bad!

The only issue I have had with this printer so far is that I cannot get the Canon Accounting Manager software to work when I’m connected to the printer over WiFi. It seems to work when I’m plugged into it directly through USB. This is the software that will give you estimates of what each specific print costs based on the costs of ink and paper that the printer is using. I’ve called Canon’s tech support, and they weren’t able to get it to work either. For what it’s worth, I’m using a Macbook with this printer. Windows users may have better luck. So, this would be nice to have, but the rest of the printer is so good that I’m still giving it 5 stars.

Update: I’m still very happy with this printer. However, I’m realizing more and more how critical it is to use this printer frequently. The longer you go without printing anything, the more ink it will waste cleaning out the print head when you print again. And it seems like it wastes A LOT of ink if you go weeks without printing something.

My suggestion would be to print something every day if possible. But this can be anything, even a tiny little dot of one color on a piece of paper, and you could use the same piece of paper to do this every day. It’s just very important to print something (anything) frequently if you want to avoid wasting a lot of ink. I’m convinced that people who say this printer uses a lot of ink aren’t printing very often. And in this case, it will tend to use a lot of ink. You can tell that it’s been too long since you’ve printed something because when you send a job to the printer, it will take a long time of “setting itself up” (it makes a bunch of noises) before it actually pulls the paper in and prints. If the printer barely hesitates and starts printing shortly after you send a job to it, this means you’re printing enough.

Also, I don’t feel a huge need to have the accounting manager I mentioned before. In the control panel of the printer, in job history, you can see exactly how many milliliters of ink each recent job used. If you want to obsess over the cost of each and every print, maybe you’d want the accounting manager. But I’m satisfied with just looking at how much ink a job used every now and then, and I can get a pretty good sense of what a certain size of print will cost.

Back to what I said before, I figured out that printing one tiny dot of ink on an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper costs about five and a half cents in ink, assuming you’ve printed recently and it’s not using a whole lot of ink to clean itself before printing. I think most of this ink used is just to keep itself clean, not just to print a little dot on a sheet of paper. But, if you did this every day, you’d still use less than $20 of ink in a year, and I think this is far more economical than all the ink the printer seems to use when you let it set for too long without printing anything.

So again, above all else, use this printer frequently and it will be good to you, even if it just means printing one tiny dot on the same sheet of paper every day. This printer does not like going for long periods without printing.

I’ve had the new Pro-1000 for a week now and so far I love it – by far the best quality prints that I have gotten either from a personal photo printer or from my local photo lab.

Pros:
– The printer itself is well designed with an elegant build and stylish finish
– The output from the printer is exceptional across all media I have tried (glossy, art, matte papers from Canon and others) and the software plugin for Lightroom is very easy to use. I am getting far better prints (more accurate color rendition, details, contrast) with this setup that I was getting from my local photo lab
– Set-up and operations are a breeze. I had it from the box to my first print in under 30 minutes. The machine is quieter than I expected and faster as well – probably due to the new technologies at use in the printer. It is capable of putting down more than 30million drops of color per second! I also like the airflow technology to feed paper – this solves a fairly common problem I used to have (with Canon printers especially) of slightly crooked paper feeds.
– The printer works well with non-Canon photo papers. I’ve tried Moab, Hahnemuhle, Canson and haven’t gotten a bad print once the ICC profiles are installed. The printer comes with some of these profiles already installed. I had to experiment a bit with Matte paper to avoid very dark shadows but Canon’s Print Studio Pro made this pretty easy to correct. And the flip side is that the shadows and darks on glossy paper look absolutely amazing. My first glossy print was like seeing HD TV for the first time.

Cons:
– I expected a large footprint from a printer that does 17″ prints, but just from looking at the product specs it’s hard to appreciate the size and weight of the Pro-1000. Not a big deal once you have it installed in the right location, but don’t plan on moving this thing by yourself.
– Would be nice for this price range if the printer did not limit length to 22″. The comparable Epson has a paper roll option which would be ideal, but hopefully a driver upgrade will allow users to set a customized paper length beyond 22″.
– Minor point, but the buttons on the printer feel cheaply manufactured compared to the rest of the printer and have more play than I would expect.

To be determined:
– Is this an expensive printer? At $1300 yes, but to properly assess the value of the printer, more data is needed on the average life of the ink cartridges. At $60 each to replace the 12 ink cartridges, the print efficiency is the major factor in the overall value. It’s too soon to say, but I compared the very simply ink level image that the printer provides at Photo 1 and Photo 15 (13xA4, 2xA3), and there is very little change. Ink levels are well under 70% but as another reviewed has noted, this is due to the initial charging process. Will be helpful as more experienced accumulates with this printer to get a more accurate sense of the printing capacity.

As a professional photographer whose primary clientelle purchase images publication in glossy magazines, it is essential for me to know that the image files submitted to the editors will meet or exceed their expectations for color and resolution. Having a quality on-site printer is a basic requirment of my business. My last printer was the HP Pro B9180 which served me well for eight years (it appears I was fortunate to have purchased one of the good ones). But when the HP began to fail I faced the onerous task of deciding what would be its replacement. The Epson line of printers have been a staple for photographers for many years, but the well-documented clogging issues and reported problematic head replacement were red flags for me. Lo and behold the Canon Pro-1000 was announced and I was excited by the announced features such as the 12 ink format, the improved print head, and the vacuum paper advance. I awaited the reviews breathlessly and impatiently. Ultimately the decision was made based on the initial positive feedback from the reviews on the B&H site. I’ve now had the printer for about two weeks and have made about a dozen prints on various media including Canon’s sample pack of 8.5 x 11 papers as well as some using my leftover HP Advanced Glossy 13 x 19 sheets (not the best for judging the quality of the Canon printer). From the very first print it was obvious that this was going to be a happy printing experience – especially when I receive my first pack of 17 x 22 paper (another excursion into uncertainty since Canon seems to be lagging in providing a quality 17×22 gloss paper on the order of its smaller Pro Platinum line). The setup was relatively problem-free, and I was prepared for this monster footprint in advance. Having experienced several pro printers over the past couple of decades it has to be said that the technology and construction of the Canon Pro-1000 is mind-boggling. Comments about the printer being pricey simply don’t compute in my estimation, given the complexity of this piece of equipment. I have little doubt that the profit structure relies on future sales of inks and papers – not on the base machine. Now, having said all that, on to the print quality. My current photo equipment is all Nikon including 2 D700s and 2 D3Xs plus the full range of Nikkor glass. Although the majority of my images find their way onto 8.5×11 and 11×17 glossy magazine pages, a number of architectural clients want much larger prints in the 24×36 and 30×45 range or larger. Knowing the final quality of a 24mpx 16bit image at these sizes is a great advantage, especially if you don’t have to incur the expense of going through a photo lab and the ensuing discussions with the print technician. And this isn’t something one can decide by simply enlarging the image in Photoshop, which will more than likely discourage one from attempting that kind of resampling in print. Happily I have now been able to estimate the success of those enlargement requests by simply cropping the selected image proportionate to the client’s specification and testing that printer-enlarged crop on a sheet of 13×19 or 17×22 glossy because of the Pro-1000’s amazing print quality. And a whole world of extended gamut ranges has opened up, especially in red and blue. Hooray! If it hasn’t been apparent so far, let me say that I am delighted with this purchase and look forward to years of happy and profitable printing experiences with the Canon Pro-1000 … as well as the continued support of the quality B&H experience.

This has been an astounding printer. I’ve had many different large format photo printers over the years, mostly Epson, Canon, and HP. This is by far the best one of the bunch in terms of print quality and ink efficiency. I’ve printed quite a few 17×22’s, 13×19’s and 8×10’s and still the ink levels are above 70%-mile been ecstatic with how many prints I can get on a set of cartridges. The initial charging process when first setting up the printer drains quite a bit of ink filling the printers tubes, but the second set of cartridges that you use will last MUCH longer. The initial charging process drained around half of a brand new ink cartridge, but the tubes that are filled are huge- so it’s understandable.

I’ve had zero issues with clogging. I have the printer set to never turn off, only the screen goes to sleep after a few minutes. The reason for this is upon startup, a bit of ink is purged to prevent clogging- just keeping the printer on prevents this and in an idle state with the screen off, the printer uses less power than an LED lightbulb. Each week I print a nozzle test pattern if I have not printed that week to keep any ink from drying. This uses a minimal amount of ink while ensuring that clogging doesn’t occur. I have an old old canon Pixma that is rarely used and now neglected- it has gone 10-11 months without printing with zero clogs. I expect the pro-1000 would have similar anti-clogging properties but I’d rather be safe and not test that theory.

My first printer was recalled and all printers sold after February are the new models with the recall fix already applied. Apparently there was an issue that’s could cause the printer to leak ink on the table or whatever the printer was sitting on- nothing dangerous. Canon sent me a brand new printer via overnight shipping without sending my recalled one in, then I was able to send my old printer back in the box the new one came in. Absolutely painless experience and they gave me a full set of ink cartridges and purge container for my troubles- that’s over $730 worth of supplies.

I recommend this printer to anyone and everyone in the market for a large format photo printer without hesitation. The black and white images are stunning, the color images are gorgeous, all the while printing faster edge-to-edge prints than most comparable models out there. I wish this printer supported rolled paper, but that’s my only complaint and 17×22 is large enough for me 99% of the time. If you’re on the fence about a large format photo printer, this is the one to get. I loved my Epson P800 until I bought this and got to use it- my P800 was sold approximately a month after owning the Pro-1000.

The output from this machine is stunning but it is unnecessarily crippled by the print driver – not allowing prints longer than 22. You cannot set a custom print size so that you can print a 16×24 on a 17×25 sheet of paper. Printing 16×20 instead chops off a huge amount of image from a 3:2 camera. This has caused me to consider unloading the printer and getting an Epson P800 every day. Since I can’t print the size I want at 17…. this is basically a glorified 13 machine.

The prints coming out of this printer are fine. But, at what cost? I’ve made 75 prints in 3 months consuming 8.33 square meters of paper and 71.42ml of ink. That also is fine. This data is from Canon’s Job List program. There are 12 80ml ink tanks in the printer for a total of 960ml of ink. That’s over a quart of ink. Three days ago, I was low on 3 tanks. I started the printer and it went into automatic cleaning mode. When it finished, I was low on all 12 tanks and the maintenance tank was almost full. Let’s say that I was left with 10% in each tank. That’s 8ml of ink in each tank for a total of 96ml. Lets also assume that the initial usage of ink on setting up the printer was 50% (480ml). The setup printer starts with 480ml of ink. I now have 96ml. The printer has consumed 384ml of ink. The prints used less than 72ml of ink. That leaves automatic cleaning taking up 312ml of ink. Over 65% of the printable ink was used in automatic cleaning. When I bought my Epson 7900, the printer wouldautomatically do a head cleaning every time the printer was turned on. After many complaints, Epson quickly changed the firmware such that all head cleanings were at the user’s discretion. Every time I turn on or turn off this printer, I mutter #%&#%&#* printer. In what world is this a professional printer? After having used 71.42ml of ink, I’ve had to purchase $744 for ink and another maintenance cartridge. In eight years, I’ve replaced the maintenance tank on the Epson 7900 once.

Canon had recalled The P-1000 product line as of January 2016! Let me tell you my small horror story. First, let me say dealing with Amazon and the Vendor North Beach Camera has been a pleasure. I received the printer fresh out of the box and went about eagerly looking forward to printing with this single nozzle head technology. However when it came to installing the printhead – I did just as the instructions said and it went into failure mode “Printhead not installed – Error 140B.” I watched a 3rd party perform the installation on Youtube. Same as me. Did it again – failure error 140B. Each time, the printer goes into some long process. After about 6 tries it goes into another failure mode, you cannot get out of. “Maintenance Cartridge is Full – Error 1720.” I checked the cartridge – not a drop of ink in it. I really wanted to run this Canon as I’ve had issues with the Epson printers. So I called a large distributor in Los Angels to see if I could get a Canon P-1000. He could not sell it because Canon has had a full recall on this and they have to go back to Japan.

So far printing quality on the standard Canon Pro Luster has been excellent – better than my defunct Epson 4900 after running through portraits, black and whites, landscapes, etc. Loving the replaceable print head! Minor Cons – Slow between sheets (timed about 2 minutes between prints – to be fair, this may be an issue with the computer). No roll capability. Real Con – Every so often while printing borderless, the print head starts hitting the back edge of the paper and smearing ink on the surface. I’m a little worried about printing on my expensive C-size stock until I figure out what’s going on.

I purchased this printer in March, 2016. I bought Canon because it would allow me to change the print head myself whereas the Epson I owned became effectively useless once its print head went bad. But at least that printer lasted for several years before failing. The Canon worked for 2.5 years and then gave up one me WITHOUT EXPLANATION, unless you call error code B208 an ‘explanation’ (if you look it up it just says, printer needs repair).

After turning off the printer, as warned, I called Canon support and their response was basically to say I needed to buy a new printer. End of story. A few days later I turned the printer on again – and it worked. I made over a dozen prints without a hitch, turned it off and left it powered off for about 2 weeks. Today I’m back to B208.

I’m going to mess with it some more, but I really dislike owning equipment I can neither trust nor fix. Failing that, I’ll have to decide whether or not to invest in another of the same printer or go back to Epson with my tail between my legs.