Canon i865 printer

Page 4.

First prints. Updated 16/9/2003

The i865 not only replaces the i850, but it also has CD-R printing, Photo tray and the option for duplex printing. In addition the i865 also has the extra black ink tank (BCI3eBK) and now delivers 2 pl ink drops, all of this for the same price as the i850 makes this a very desirable printer. But how well does this printer perform with our photo-i test chart and with other selective photographs. Lets give it a try. The test picture is one that I created for PC Pro magazine. Hopefully it is a representation of the type of photographs readers are likely to take. I use it for all printer reviews on photo-i, if you want to try the image on your own printer, then click on the first image and download the Test.jpg image (751K will expand to 20mb). The image appears on completion of the download, save it to your hard disk - please note that this image is intended for your own personal use only and may not be published or reproduced without permission.

Original	Photo Paper Pro	Canon i950

The immediate thing that strikes me on our test file print is how warm the whole picture is, look at Sophie's skin tones. The eye is not as smooth as on the i950 even though both printers are using the same 2pl drop size. The dots on the i865 are perhaps more visible at this magnification because this printer is only using four colours instead of six colours as in the i950. I should stress that this example is a high magnification and under normal viewing you would not see any print dots. The i865 dots produce a quality that is very similar to film grain, I quite like this as it seems to bridge the gap between digital and film capture.

i865 detail	i950 detail
i865	i950

There is good saturation of colour throughout, this is probably due to the extra black of the 3e cartridge. Detail has held in all the cotton reels including the black, I am particularly impressed at how the white strands have also kept their detail. When this printer was first demonstrated I was shown a couple of comparison prints from the i850 and the same prints produced by the i865. I thought then that the i865 would lose detail in the white and black reels. This is clearly not the case, I don't think the scan of the print has shown this too well.

Detail held in black and white reels	Strong green and blues

The monochrome picture has printed very well without any objectionable cast in the greys, I must admit I was expecting to see a cyan or magenta cast, perhaps I have been reviewing printers for too long. The grey tones are warm, maybe a little too warm for some tastes but this can be quite flattering in portraiture and picturesque scenes.

The original file	The i865 print

I will return to more greyscale printing later in the review. These first prints were made with the settings set to Auto and letting the printer take care of everything. The print took 2 min 35 sec. with Print Quality set to High, the same file with Print Quality set to Standard took 1 min 46 sec. Using Auto settings produces a print that is too light for my taste, setting the Colour adjustment to ICM gave a richer colour print and better density throughout.

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