Colour printing on Glossy

I now have a full compliment of media for all three printers and can now continue with the review.

Continuing with Glossy media, Epson Premium Glossy, HP Advanced Photo Paper and Canon Photo Paper Plus (PP-101). All three printers are producing very similar looking prints, the differences are very subtle. The Epson prints are perhaps a little more open, i.e. there is better detail in the darker areas, but without loss in the highlights. The HP is producing very accurate colours, compared to the on screen original image. The Canon is producing very colourful looking prints, perhaps slightly more saturated than the original, but not unacceptable. In fact both sample scenes look spectacular on the Canon.

All the glossy media I have used in this test has produced excellent glossy prints, although not as glossy as Canon's PR-101 High Gloss media (this will not work with the 9500).

Epson

HP

Canon

The above scans are 95% accurate to the original prints. Each print was scanned in on a Epson V750 scanner using the same settings and scanner profile. Please bear in mind these are scans of the original prints and then reduced.

Looking at the Epson print; the blue sky has lost some saturation as has the foreground green plants. The yellow plants are excellent. The HP print looks about 1/2 stop underexposed, but retains good detail throughout. I like the balance of colour saturation, it's slightly larger than life but not objectionable. The Canon print has the most punch, the colours are strong and lively, this print has a 2/3 stop underexposed look. When shooting colour transparency film I would always slightly underexpose to get a deeper colour saturation, this print does exactly that. The Canon prints also have a contrast boost, this produces a very similar result to dye ink prints. Look at the statue in the Canon print and compare it to the Epson and HP prints.

Looking at each print out of context with the other two, you would not be disappointed, regardless of which printer is used. In all cases you could tweak the colours in Photoshop or other imaging application to produce a more, or less saturated print.