As you know, we’re giving away a Canon Pixma Pro-1 Professional Inkjet Printer (click here to enter). Some of you have emailed us asking, “what’s so great about this printer?” We’ve also had a couple of questions like, “Why is this printer $1,000?” Well here are 5 reasons why the Canon Pixma Pro-1 Rocks.

1. Twelve Ink-System for Increased Color Gamut and Superb Image Quality

There are a total of 12 inks used with the Canon Pixma Pro-1: Yellow, Photo Cyan, Cyan, Photo Magenta, Magenta, Red, Light Grey, Grey, Dark Grey, Matte Black and Photo Black plus a new ‘Chroma Optimiser’. That is two more color tanks than Canon’s previous flagship, the Canon Pixma Pro-1. The extra cartridges also allow the printer to have a wider color gamut than than the Pro-9500 MkII and just about any other typical photo inkjet printers out there.

Canon-Pixma-Pro-1-ink-2

There are 5 black and grey inks that can be used when printing black and white image. This provides a very neutral tone and crisp blacks, as well as smooth greyscale transition. Moreover, having dedicated Matte and Photo Black inks means that you are not wasting ink and time switching between the two black cartridges.

The Chroma Optimiser fills in the gaps between the color droplets on gloss and semi-gloss paper to produce a more uniform ink surface area for smoother tonal gradations in color.

pixma-pro1-chroma-optimiser

2. Large Ink Tank Capacity that is Surprisingly Economical

Not only does the Pixma Pro-1 has 2 more colors than the Pro-9500 MkII, but each 36ml tank has twice the capacity compared to the smaller 14ml Pro-9500 MkII cartridges. At $35.99 a piece for the colors cartridges and $29.99 for the Chroma Optimizer cartridge, the cost per milliliter works out to $1/ml and $0.83/ml, respectively. This is lower than the $1.14/ml cost of the Pro-9500 MkII and the $1.21/mL cost of the highly touted Epson Stylus Photo R3000.

An additional benefit of the larger ink tank capacity is longer period of usage before ink replacement.

Canon-Pixma-Pro-1-ink

3. New Ink Tubular Delivery System Mean the Ink Tanks No Longer Ride on Top of Print Head

Unlike traditional injet printers where the ink tanks sits on top of the print head, the Pixma Pro-1 has its ink tanks on both sides of the printer. Each ink cartridge then feeds ink into the tubular delivery system connected to the print head itself. This separate housing unit of the ink tank is also one of the reasons that the cartridges can have a much larger capacity than normal.

Canon Pixma Pro-1 Ink Delivery

4. Excellent Factory Color Profiles and Color Management Software

Color accuracy is important for the professional photographers and having the right color profile set up for your computer, monitor, and printer setup is key to getting prints that looks close if not the same on screen as it is on paper. As DPReview discovered during their extensive review, not only the factory color profiles accurate, but also custom ICC printer profiles that you can create using Canon’s free Color Management Tool Pro software, can give you even greater, finer control.

Additionally, if you want to use photo and fine art papers from third party manufacturers, you can download additional ICC profiles from the Canon website specifically tailored for those paper and the Pixma Pro-1

Canon Pixma Pro-1 ICC Profiles

5. USB 2.0 and Ethernet Port for Speed and Flexibility

Finally, the Pixma Pro-1 also has both a USB 2.0 and Ethernet Port for speed and flexible image transfer. The Ethernet port also means that if you have to place the printer farther away because of its large size, you can use a longer Ethernet cable to connect it to your computer or router.

The SLR Lounge and Calumet Hollywood Canon Pixma Pro-1 Giveaway

As you can see, there is tremendous value with the Canon Pixma Pro-1. If you prefer not to shell out $1,000 for this professional printer, the next best thing is to enter our Canon Pixma Pro-1 Giveaway that we are having alongside with Calumet Hollywood.