Canon imagePrograf PRO-1100 Review

The Canon imagePrograf PRO-1100 ($1,299.99) is an updated version of the Canon imagePrograf PRO-1000, which was introduced in 2016. We liked it so much back then that it earned our Editors’ Choice award for C-size (17-inch paper width) professional photo printers. The PRO-1100 offers a few hardware-based improvements, including enhanced Wi-Fi and the ability to print on paper up to 129 inches long. However, the most significant improvements are linked to the new Lucia Pro II inks. The PRO-1100’s blacks are deeper and richer than with the PRO-1000, and the wider color gamut opens up the contrast range and brings a heightened sense of dimensionality. Plus, the reformulated inks provide better scratch resistance and print longevity. Add it all up, and the Canon imagePrograf PRO-1100 is our latest Editors’ Choice pick for professional-grade photography and graphic-arts inkjet printers, while the Epson SureColor P900 is an equally excellent wide-format printer and could be a better choice if you need to use roll paper.

Design: A Big, Heavy Printer for Big, Gorgeous Photos

Given its price and capabilities, the PRO-1100 straddles the line between advanced hobbyists and professional photographers. It competes directly with the SureColor P900, our 2021 Editors’ Choice pick for professional-grade photography and graphic-arts inkjet printers.

These two models are now close in their overall print quality. In its favor, the P900 supports roll paper, as well as sheet paper. The P900 is slightly smaller, weighs about half as much as the PRO-1100, and has a superior control-panel display. In its favor, the PRO-1100 has an impressive air-feed system that makes it easier to handle large photo papers. It also has anti-clogging technology that automatically swaps out blocked nozzles, and its inks are less expensive than the P900’s inks.

The PRO-1100 is a large and heavy printer, even taking into account that a certain amount of bulk is needed to handle 17-by-22-inch sheet stock. At 11.2 by 28.5 by 17.1 inches (HWD) with the trays retracted, the PRO-1100 requires a significant amount of table space. Factor in, too, that you’ll need to extend the forward-facing paper-out tray enough to catch whatever size paper you’re printing. Some thicker papers will require that you use the manual feed in the back of the printer. That paper input tray is angled more toward the back than the main paper tray, which will require that the printer be positioned a little further away from a wall or other obstruction.

(Credit: David English)

The PRO-1100 weighs in at a backbreaking 71.4 pounds after the printhead and 12 ink cartridges are installed. It would be best to have two people, rather than one, lift this printer out of its box and onto a table or cabinet that can support its considerable bulk and weight.

How does the PRO-1100’s size and weight compare with the competition? It’s almost exactly the same size and weight as the previous PRO-1000, which sells now for $999.99. The SureColor P900 ($1,349) is the most direct 17-inch wide-format competitor in both price and target audience. It measures 7.8 by 24.2 by 14.5 inches. That’s a little smaller on all three dimensions compared with the PRO-1100. The P900 also weighs 35.3 pounds, which is about half the weight of the PRO-1100. Another potential 17-inch contender is the new Epson SureColor P5370. It measures 16 by 34 by 30 inches and weighs 117 pounds. Given its higher list price ($2,095) and even more substantial weight, the P5370 is less of a direct competitor for the PRO-1100 than the P900 is.

(Credit: David English)

According to Canon’s technical specifications for the PRO-1100, it has a maximum resolution of 2,400dpi horizontally and 1,200dpi vertically. That may seem low if you’re not familiar with this class of photo printers. But compared with consumer-level printers that might have that same technical pixel resolution, the PRO-1100 is more exacting in the placement and amount of ink delivered to each of its dots. The replaceable PRO-1100 printhead has a total of 18,432 nozzles, with each of the 12 ink cartridges given 1,536 nozzles.

This model also has built-in sensors that check for any blocked nozzles. If it finds a blocked nozzle, it will automatically switch to another nozzle as a backup. And the PRO-1100 has an air-feed system that acts like a vacuum cleaner to pull in and secure the paper for a more consistent and accurate application of the ink droplets.

(Credit: David English)

The PRO-1100 is equipped with two paper input trays: a top feed and a manual feed slot. The top feed can handle multiple sheets, as long as the sheets are of the same type and size. The manual slot, on the other hand, can handle only one sheet at a time. The number of sheets that the top feed can hold varies according to the type and thickness of the paper. Canon rates the top feed for 150 sheets of 8.5-by-11-inch plain paper, 20 sheets of 4-by-6-inch photo paper, 10 sheets of 8.5-by-11-inch photo paper, or one sheet of 13-by-19-inch or 17-by-22-inch photo paper. The top feed can handle paper with a maximum thickness of 0.3mm, while the manual feed slot can handle paper with a maximum thickness of 0.7mm. For that reason, you’ll find that when selecting a thicker photo paper or art paper, either from the front control panel or through a print driver, the printer will restrict you to use only the manual feed slot.

At the time of its introduction, the PRO-1000 was limited to a maximum print size of 17 by 22 inches. Since then, Canon has enabled longer print lengths through firmware upgrades to the PRO-1000. The PRO-1100 now supports printable paper up to 129 inches long, though it still offers no support for roll paper. Red River Paper does offer some of its photo papers in a flat 13-by-38-inch size, which should be compatible with the PRO-1100. In theory, you could use roll paper with this model, if you were to cut the paper beforehand to a precise length. If you’re especially interested in printing large panoramic photos, you should consider a printer that can internally handle roll paper, such as the SureColor P900.

Setup & Features: Better Wi-Fi, Throwback Touch Screen

The 3-inch color LCD on the front panel is essentially unchanged from the PRO-1000. This is a non-touch display, so you’ll have to navigate the screen’s menus with the aid of a navigation wheel and an OK button. The design is functional, but it feels like a throwback to an earlier era of printers. By contrast, the P900 has a nicely detailed 4.3-inch touch screen that gives it an advantage over the PRO-1100.

(Credit: David English)

The PRO-1100’s display screen consists mostly of text-based menus, along with a color-coded capacity indicator for each of the 12 ink cartridges. Any update or error messages are placed at the top of the screen. Though a bit crowded, the layout is logically structured and easy to navigate. Using the control panel, you’ll be able to change the size and type of the paper, alter the connection settings, manage security requirements, and initiate maintenance routines.

This model can be connected via USB, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi. The built-in Wi-Fi is dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz), whereas the PRO-1000 is only single-band (2.4GHz). And where the PRO-1000’s Wi-Fi supports 802.11b/g/n, the PRO-1100 extends that out to 802.11b/g/n/a/ac (Wi-Fi 5). That’s a theoretical jump in Wi-Fi speed from 600Mbps to 1,300Mbps. Given the large size of the photos that you may be transferring over Wi-Fi, that additional speed could prove to be a timesaver. The PRO-1100 also supports Wi-Fi Direct, as well as mobile connections via AirPrint, Mopria, and Canon’s print app.

Setting up the PRO-1100 is only a little more complicated than setting up a consumer photo printer. You’ll need to install 12 individual cartridges, which include 11 pigment-based color inks and one chroma optimizer. The color cartridges include two different shades of gray, as well as a separate photo black and matte black. That makes this model particularly well suited for black-and-white photos, as it’s able to reproduce subtle variations in grayscale tones.

As part of the setup process, you’ll also need to install the printhead. That may sound daunting, but the printer will provide you with step-by-step instructions on the built-in display. Finally, you’ll have the option to run a print alignment routine, which takes about 25 minutes to complete. It requires a single sheet of letter-size plain paper, and you can run the routine later if you don’t have the paper available.

(Credit: Canon)

Following the installation of the drivers and utilities to your computer, you’ll have a chance to download Canon’s Professional Print & Layout application. You can use it as a standalone program or as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom. It’s well worth checking out, in part because it does an excellent job of displaying and managing borderless prints with the PRO-1100. This printer supports borderless printing in sheet sizes from 4 by 6 inches up to 17 by 22 inches. Your image may not fit the sheet exactly, so this application provides the tools necessary to see what might need to be trimmed slightly to keep the image borderless. Professional Print & Layout isn’t a replacement for the editing prowess of Lightroom or Photoshop. It’s more of a super-charged print driver that’s fine-tuned to the particular capabilities of your large-format Canon printer.

Testing the imagePrograf PRO-1100: Finely Detailed, Richly Saturated Prints

Canon rates the PRO-1100 as being only marginally faster than the PRO-1000. Using the ISO/JIS-SCID N2 specifications, the company estimates that a 13-by-19-inch bordered color photo might take 2 minutes and 25 seconds to print, while a 17-by-22-inch version might take 4 minutes. For comparison, the PRO-1000 took 2 minutes and 30 seconds to print a 13-by-19-inch photo when we tested it. And it took 4 minutes and 10 seconds to print that same 17-by-22-inch photo.

While it’s an interesting comparison between the two models, these kinds of speed results are not very useful generally for this class of photo printers. Your speed results will vary widely, not only by the size of the paper, but also by the content of the image, the size of the border, the quality setting, and the type of paper. Unlike a typical business printer, where you might be printing mostly standard-quality Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents onto letter-size plain paper, you could be printing a standard-quality 4-by-6-inch photo onto plain paper followed by a high-quality 17-by-22-inch photo onto a high-gloss photo paper.

(Credit: David English)

I printed some of our 4-by-6-inch test snapshots with no borders using the printer’s High Quality setting onto a semi-gloss photo paper, and the PRO-1100 averaged 1 minute and 32 seconds per image. To see how long it might take with the maximum quality, I used Professional Print & Layout with its Highest Quality setting along with Canon Photo Paper Pro Luster paper. An 8.5-by-11-inch photo print took 7 minutes and 34 seconds to complete. A 13-by-19-inch print took 16 minutes and 53 seconds, and a 17-by-22-inch print took 27 minutes and 7 seconds. And while those highest-quality prints were finely detailed and richly saturated, they weren’t orders of magnitude better than with the High Quality setting. You might experiment to see if the tradeoffs in time and ink are worth it for your print projects.

Similar variations and uncertainties arise when trying to establish an average cost for a print with this category of photo printers. Unlike consumer photo printers, professional-grade photo printers tend to measure ink by the milliliter, not by the page. Each of the PRO-1100’s 11 color ink cartridges costs $59.99 for 80ml; that comes out to about 75 cents per milliliter. The Chroma Optimizer ink cartridge, also 80ml, sells for $54.99, or about 69 cents per milliliter. Those prices are unchanged from the PRO-1000, even though the two models use different sets of ink cartridges.

For comparison, the SureColor P900 would cost you about 88 cents per milliliter, based on the current price of $44 for each of its 50ml color ink cartridges. That means you would pay about 17% more for the same amount of ink when printing with the P900 versus the PRO-1100. On the other hand, if you’re willing to pay much more upfront for the SureColor P5370, it would cost you about 55 cents per milliliter when you spend $110 for each of its 200ml color ink cartridges. That means you would pay about 27% less for the same amount of ink when printing with the P5370 versus the PRO-1100. (As a general rule, the larger the ink cartridge, the less you’ll have to pay for the ink inside.)

(Credit: David English)

Most of the key differences between the PRO-1000 and PRO-1100 are related to the inks. Where the PRO-1000 uses the Lucia Pro inks, the PRO-1100 uses the newer Lucia Pro II inks. Those are the inks that Canon introduced for its larger, professional-class imagePrograf PRO photo printers: the 24-inch imagePrograf PRO-2600, the 44-inch imagePrograf PRO-4600, and the 60-inch imagePrograf PRO-6600. The Lucia Pro II inks offer an improved black density, an enhanced color gamut (with emphasis on the darker areas), better dark-blue representation, improved scratch resistance, and improved resistance to fading due to light exposure. Black density and light resistance are two areas where the PRO-1000 lagged behind, following Epson’s use of its 10-color UltraChrome PRO10 pigment inks in the P900.

When comparing images that were previously printed with the PRO-1000 with the same or similar images printed with the PRO-1100, I did see a noticeable improvement in the blacks. The darker blacks helped to extend the overall contrast range in both color and black-and-white photos. The blue tones are livelier and more realistic than previously rendered by the PRO-1000. Taking a nail to the finish on a fresh PRO-1100 print, it does seem more durable against scratching or rubbing. And the new Black and White Photo print mode does a better job of providing pure monochrome prints without any traces of color.

Verdict: Exceptional, If Not Without Alternatives

The Canon imagePrograf PRO-1100 isn’t a major overhaul of the PRO-1000, but a major overhaul wasn’t needed, as the PRO-1000 can still hold its own eight years after it launched. Support for roll paper, a better display, and significantly faster print times would have been welcome additions. However, given that the PRO-1100 is targeted to professionals, updating the inks is more important. The new deeper blacks are especially impressive, even when printing color photos, because those deeper tones help to create a better sense of depth and dimensionality.

Bringing the ink up to the quality of the P900 ink puts the PRO-1100 neck-and-neck with the P900. The P900 has optional support for roll paper, a larger and more detailed control panel, and a size and weight advantage that can be easier to deal with. Meanwhile, the PRO-1100 has an impressive air feed system, anti-clogging technology, scratch-resistant prints, and cheaper inks.

While the PRO-1100 is our latest Editors’ Choice pick for professional-grade photography and graphic art inkjet printers, the P900 could be a better choice if you need to use roll paper. Either printer will give you amazing prints with luscious true-to-life colors and vibrant deep-dark blacks.

About David English

Contributor

At PCMag, my focus is on printers and scanners. I started out way back in 1988 at Compute!, which still had a section of the magazine devoted to type-in programs. Since then, I’ve written more than 1,000 articles for a variety of publications, including Architectural Record, Attaché, CNET, COMDEX Daily, Computer Shopper, Digital Cinema Report, Film & Video, Hemispheres, The Leica Camera Blog, Maximum PC, Omni, PC Magazine, PC World, Sky, StudioDaily, US Airways Magazine, and ZDNet.

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