i950 Color Bubble Jet
Photo Printer

The Effects page lets turns your photo into a simulated color illustration, slide the lever to increase or decrease the effect. You can also create a monochrome effect like Sepia, Pink, Blue, Green or select a custom color. The Vivid Photo option enhances the green and blue colors and contrast and may be too much for some images. You can also enable or disable the Image Optimizer or Photo Optimizer PRO enhancements which help produce better enlargements from lower resolution images.

New on the i950 is the Photo Noise Reduction option that helps reduce speckle noise often found in blue areas such as the sky. It has two settings: Normal and Strong.

Left is no Photo Noise Reduction, Right is with PNR enabled.
(Click on either thumbnail to see a larger sample image)

The Profiles page lets you load, create or save custom sets of printer parameters for the type of printing jobs that you do frequently.

The Maintenance page lets you clean the print heads with options for a regular cleaning cycle or a "deep" cleaning cycle for really clogged heads. There is also an option for aligning the heads or checking the print nozzles. You can also set the Auto Power Off time, Custom Settings and the Quiet Mode. From here you can also start the Status Monitor (see next frame.)

The Status Monitor shows you visibly the level of ink in each of the ink tanks. It also tells you the status of the printer and the setting of the paper thickness lever.

When one of the tanks is low the Status Monitor will pop-up to alert you. The low tank(s) will have a yellow exclamation mark over it to let you know that it needs to be replaced soon. The ink warning first comes on when there is still some ink remaining so you won't run out in the middle of a printout and waste a sheet of costly photo paper.

Here's the low Photo Magenta ink tank after I finished the current print job. The chamber on the left side is full of ink when the tank is new. As you can see it drained the left chamber completely and the foam-filled side that feeds the head is very close to empty. The Photo Magenta and Photo Cyan tanks consistently run out faster than the other colors when printing photos so there's little argument for the need of these additional colors.

Steve's Conclusion

The Canon i950 is an incredible printer, it's fast and quiet and there's no denying that the replaceable ink tanks are more economical than having to replace a multi-color cartridge when only one of its colors runs out. You'll go through 2 to 3 of the light magenta and light cyan ink tanks for every one of the other colors so stock up on these. The Canon i950 is a color photo printer and has been optimized for this task.   Everyday text & color graphic printing is accomplished much faster on the 4-color Canon i850 which also prints a very respectable photo. To producing the best possible photos those two additional "photo" inks make a noticeable difference and you won't mind a little slower text printing.

Installation on my Windows XP Pro machine was quick and simple, the printer was good to go within minutes of taking it out of the box. The driver software is designed so that even novice users can be cranking out photo-quality prints quickly. The key is simplicity, instead of numerous print time options like selecting an output "dpi" resolution or enabling or disabling microweave or high speed ... All you really need to select is the proper paper type and the rest of the settings will be matched to produce the best photo. Print after print came out looking exactly the way they did on the screen in Photoshop or PhotoImpact. The inability to get the printout to match the screen is probably the #1 complaint of most digital printing neophytes. There are advanced driver options to produce more Vivid blues and greens and to help eliminate the "blotchy" look of blue sky scenes.

We've tested a number of different papers and as expected, the i950 makes the best prints on its own "Photo Pro" paper. Canon's Photo Paper Pro has the same "look and feel" of the best heavy-weight conventional photo paper. I have tested several other papers that deliver prints equal in brilliance and color to Photo Paper Pro, one of the best is Konica QP Photo Gloss and Silk paper. Canon is now making their own matte paper and it's the equal to the Epson Double-Weight Matte that I have loved since it first came on the market. Canon now offers 5 x 7 inch size glossy photo paper as well.

The Bottom Line

Canon i950 on the left ------- Canon S9000 on the right
(Click on either thumbnail to see a larger sample image)

The 2400dpi technology used in the S900/S9000 printers creates photo-quality prints that will satisfy most users.  However, if you're one of those people (like me) that just isn't happy unless you have the absolute best -- I'll see you at the checkout line. I don't see any real speed increase but remember that the S900/S9000 are already two of the fastest photo inkjet printers on the planet. If these things pushed the paper through much faster there'd be no time to spray the ink on it!

Price, performance and economy, the Canon i950 Photo Printer is an excellent value. And in today's world where your time is the most valuable commodity, the i950 can literally pay for itself in increased productivity. If you have a need to make larger prints then look at the new Canon i9100, it's Canon's wide carriage photo printer and prints borderless 13x19" prints and has added the new 5x7" paper to its list of media types. The i9100 features the same, fast print speeds and photo quality of the i950 but with a slightly lower, 2400 dpi resolution using 4-picoliter size ink droplets.