Canon i865 printer

Page 2.

Day 1.

Installing the drivers and software.

As with most hardware installations all the user has to do is place the CD in the drive and let the installation take care of itself. If the Windows Found New Hardware Wizard opens then press the cancel button. Make sure that any anti-virus software is disabled. The whole driver installation took approx. 4 minutes. The i865 has now become your default printer.

Press Cancel if you see this screen	Disable your anti virus software
Press the green button to Install	Installation completed

After the drivers have been installed you must perform a Print Head Alignment. The print head alignment is an automatic process, you can also choose to do a manual head alignment, this has to be selected from the Custom Settings. The head alignment print did a backward and forwards dance routine, by coming out of the printer and then going back in again. A row of swatches is printed then the printer pulls the print back in and a red light is projected onto the swatches, I presume this is taking the reading. Then the next row of swatches is printed etc. the whole process took about three minutes to complete. The chart reproduced below (left) is the automatic alignment, the one on the right is the manual chart. For the review I have used the default automatic alignment.

The automatic head alignment chart	The manual head alignment chart

Canon were very keen for me to include their Easy Photo Print and other bundled software in the review, they said that almost all reviewers were using Photoshop to print test files, ( I am also guilty of this), and that the bundled software would enhance peoples photo printing experience. I can verify this claim, I had to do some proofs of an assignment and I decided to use Easy Photo Print with its quick print feature. I completed the whole job in minutes and the results were very good. The Easy Photo Print is accessed through a floating toolbar, which you can resize to taste.

The Easy Print Toolbox in three sizes

The Easy Print Toolbox is automatically launched when Windows is started, you do have the option to turn this off, and it's a quick and convenient way to launch three of the applications and the applications User Guide included with the printer. To make this realy useful Canon should have included the other bundled applications on the toolbox; Photo Record, Zoom Browser EX, Easy Web print and the printer User Guide. An option to add your own image editing application wouldn't go amiss either.

© Vincent Oliver 2003 www.photo-i.co.uk
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