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Within the battle of the greatest large-format desktop picture printers, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 A2+ / 17-inch printer dominated the roost for almost 10 years, however the smaller A3+ / 13-inch PRO-300 gave it a superb run for its cash. The latter’s ink set delivered even deeper blacks and ultra-dark shadows with higher element.
In 2024, the newer PRO-1100 A2+ fought again with a reformulated set of 12 next-generation Lucia Professional II inks and retook the crown. Shortly afterwards, the PRO-310 adopted sizzling on its heals, albeit with ‘solely’ 10 inks underneath the bonnet, however with the identical second-generation Lucia Professional II benefits, all packed right into a printer that’s extra conveniently compact and cheaper to purchase.
All 4 printers are designed to ship the final word in photographic print high quality, appropriate for professionals to make gallery prints for exhibitions and to promote their work. Let’s take a better look.
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Specs
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Inks/sort |
10 pigment |
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Max print dimension |
A3+ / 13-inch, 1.8m / 70.9in panoramic |
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Max print pace |
A3+ with border, 4m 15s |
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Max print decision |
4800 x 2400dpi |
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Enter trays |
1x high, 1x rear, printable disk |
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Scanner |
None |
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Show display |
3-inch colour LCD |
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Interfaces |
USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wi-Fi |
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Dimensions (W x D x H) |
639 x 379 x 200mm / 25.2 x 14.9 x 7.9in |
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Weight |
14.4kg / 31.8lb |
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Value
Contemplating that the PRO-310 is aimed on the most demanding skilled and fanatic photographers who need whole management over creating prints on the highest degree, I believe that the asking worth of $849 / £699 / AU$999 could be very cheap. When you don’t have to go bigger than A3+ / 13-inch prints, this mannequin solely prices about two-thirds of the value of the bigger A2+ / 17-inch PRO-1100, which retails for $1,299 / £1,099 / AU$1,799. The PRO-310’s ink cartridges are additionally lower than a 3rd of the value to purchase.
There’s a catch although, in that the cartridges have a comparatively low capability of 14.4ml in contrast with the 80ml cartridges of the PRO-1100. The underside line is that, per milliliter, ink for the PRO-310 prices about twice the value. A full set of 10 cartridges for the PRO-310 will set you again about $150 / $154 / AU$310.
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Design & Dealing with
No person actually desires to purchase and run two picture printers, which creates a little bit of a dilemma. Dye-based inks are greatest for shiny picture paper, because the comparatively small molecules of ink are absolutely absorbed beneath the shiny outer layer. Which means you get a extremely easy end with no ‘bronzing’ – a time period given to areas of uneven reflectivity relying on the colour and density of inks. Conversely, pigment-based inks are higher for matte picture paper and high-quality artwork media, because the bigger molecules are extra strong and proof against fading, in addition to giving higher picture high quality on some of these paper. Nevertheless, bronzing could be a huge drawback when you use pigment inks on shiny paper. As with different imagePROGRAF PRO printers, the PRO-310 goals to cowl all eventualities.
The trick is that whereas the PRO-310 has 10 cartridges, solely 9 of them are precise pigment-based inks. The opposite accommodates a ‘chroma optimizer’ which is actually a transparent liquid that’s utilized to shiny prints to easy out the looks and decrease bronzing. Not solely that however, as with the larger PRO-1100, the chroma optimizer has been reformulated to provide a good smoother end. One other improve is that you could apply chroma optimizer selectively, ignoring the white borders of prints. And that’s simply the beginning of the brand new cartridge enchantment.
I used to be correctly amazed once I first used the earlier PRO-300 printer, because it delivered a black density the like of which I’d by no means seen earlier than from an inkjet printer, or any printer come to that. The PRO-310 units the bar even larger, with a brand new set of reformulated Lucia Professional II inks. General picture high quality is claimed to be improved, particularly in magenta hues, though the matte black ink stays unchanged. And that’s not all. The brand new inks embody wax of their composition, which drastically reduces the chance of scratches and abrasion when dealing with, packaging and transporting completed prints.
Then there’s the matter of print longevity. When you’re a professional photographer promoting prints to your purchasers, you need them to final a lifetime – ideally extra, to allow them to be handed down by future generations. The brand new inks enhance resistance to fading so you may hold prints on the wall and count on them to final for 200 years. That’s one thing that I naturally can’t check for myself, however the determine is predicated on accelerated exams utilizing Canon Picture Paper Professional Platinum, carried out by an unbiased lab of the Japan Electronics and Data Expertise Industries Affiliation.
In different information (or not) most of what made the PRO-300 such an awesome printer is fortunately unchanged within the PRO-310. Headline points of interest embody that it will possibly create borderless prints on matte and fine-art media in addition to simply on shiny picture paper. Nevertheless, it’s good to disable the ‘security margin regulation for paper dimension’ possibility within the printer driver, and it’s not a very risk-free course of. Even so, I created 20 or so borderless A3+ picture prints on Canon’s Premium Matte picture paper and Premium Tremendous Artwork Easy media with no issues in any respect.
As I’ve come to count on, help isn’t restricted to Canon’s personal picture papers. {Many professional} and fanatic photographers have their explicit favorites from a big selection of high-quality artwork papers made by the likes of Hahnemühle, Canson and Awagami. I like {that a} huge vary of unbiased media is straight supported by the printer.
The supporting software program is basically good as effectively. The print driver is easy and intuitive, and there’s additionally Canon Skilled Print & Format, which is accessible as a free obtain. This works as a standalone program or as a plug-in for Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, in addition to for Canon’s personal Digital Picture Skilled, supporting totally different workflow choices. The software program permits mushy proofing and laborious proofing for a lot of totally different paper sorts, in addition to creating layouts of a number of photos on the identical web page.
What I like most is that you could create ‘sample prints’, the place small variations of the picture are printed a number of instances on a sheet of paper, with delicate variations within the therapy of tone and colour. You possibly can then choose your favourite model for the ultimate print, in addition to saving it for future reference.
On the subject of construct high quality, the PRO-310 isn’t any light-weight at 14.4kg. That’s excellent news so far as I’m involved, because the printer has a extremely stable metallic chassis and a pro-grade really feel to its construct high quality all through. There are twin paper feed choices, together with an upright feeder on the high and a handbook rear feeder. The latter is extra appropriate for thicker high-quality artwork media and in addition permits panoramic prints or banners of as much as of as much as 1.8m / 70.9in in size. That’s a substantial step up from the utmost size of 99.6cm / 39in for the PRO-300.
Effectively linked, the PRO-310 has built-in 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and wired ethernet, in addition to the standard high-speed USB port. There’s additionally 5GHz Wi-Fi Direct, which was absent within the earlier mannequin, plus WPA3 and TLS1.3 safety. The printer is appropriate with the Canon Print app for Android and iOS, in addition to varied cloud-based companies together with AirPrint, Mopria, Canon Print Service and Cloud Hyperlink. There’s a 3-inch colour LCD display and an intuitive set of onboard management buttons, which you need to use for organising totally different paper sorts for every feed path, finishing up routine upkeep and protecting a verify on ink ranges.
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Efficiency
Print high quality is just spectacular for each colour and black & white picture prints, and on each shiny and matte media. The secret’s within the new inks, and there are many them, together with matte black, picture black, gray, cyan, picture cyan, magenta, picture magenta, yellow and purple, plus the chroma optimizer. The PRO-300 was fabulous by way of colour rendition and tonal vary, proper down to essentially dense blacks, and the PRO-310 is even higher. For actually black blacks, there’s no beating matte picture paper or high-quality artwork media, fairly than shiny or luster papers.
I at all times suppose that reliability is a significant component within the efficiency of any large-format picture printer. Contemplating the value of ink and picture paper or high-quality artwork media, it’s massively irritating when you go to the time, hassle and expense of making a giant print, solely to seek out out that it’s ruined by faint traces throughout its floor. There can be an issue if paper is ate up the skew, particularly when you’re making borderless prints. To make sure streak-free prints, the PRO-310 makes use of Canon’s ‘FINE’ print head expertise, which routinely checks for clogged nozzles in actual time and swaps to adjoining nozzles if wanted. It may well do that because of a big built-in redundancy within the variety of nozzles within the print heads. And to ensure the paper is fed with the utmost precision, the printer additionally options automated deskew correction.
Pigment printers are usually slower than dye-based printers and the PRO-310 isn’t any exception. You additionally have to consider drying time, whereas dye-based prints on shiny paper are usually touch-dry just about as quickly as they land within the output tray. Even so, prints from the PRO-310 are naturally a complete lot faster than ordering prints on-line and ready for them to show up within the publish.
In my exams, an A3+ borderless shiny print took 6m 30s in commonplace picture high quality mode and 9m 30s in top of the range mode. Borderless output on A3+ Premium Tremendous Artwork Easy took 8m 20s in commonplace mode and 12m for highest high quality. Downsizing to A4, I acquired print speeds of about 3m 20s in commonplace mode and 4m 30s in top of the range mode.
Suffice it to say that the PRO-310 doesn’t hold you hanging round, ready for prints. And anyway, if I’m making a top-quality print that’s going to final for a few hundred years, I’m greater than keen to attend a couple of minutes for it to be produced!
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Pattern prints
The next gallery accommodates a choice of prints that I made with the PRO-310 on Canon Premium Tremendous Artwork Easy paper. This paper has a matte end however I created borderless prints anyway, which is a further problem for the accuracy of the printer. The photographs proven are images of the completed prints, which themselves are prints of digital images taken on the Dorset coast within the UK, underneath very moody and dramatic skies. There’s additionally quite a lot of different images, largely chosen for his or her massive tonal vary and really deep blacks, to indicate the printer’s skills on this respect.
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Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310: Verdict
I not too long ago reviewed the superb Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 A2+ / 17-inch printer. It’s completely fabulous but it surely’s a giant chunk of a machine that wants quite a lot of actual property and weighs a hefty 32.4kg / 71.4lb. The PRO-310 is way more compact and manageable, weighing 14.4kg / 31.8lb (lower than half as a lot). It’s additionally way more inexpensive to purchase and, whereas it makes use of two fewer ink cartridges, the print high quality continues to be totally excellent.
For me, it is smart to purchase the PRO-310 as a substitute of the PRO-1100 and order my prints on-line on the uncommon events that I wish to go bigger than A3+ / 13×19-inch, or panoramas of greater than 1.8m / 70.9in in size. My solely disappointment with the PRO-310 in contrast with the PRO-1100 is that, drop for drop, ink works out to about twice the value. Even so, working prices are nonetheless fairly cheap for a printer of this dimension and impeccable high quality.
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Options ★★★★★ |
High options embody 10 pigment-based inks, twin paper feeds, borderless printing on matte in addition to shiny media and panoramic/ banner printing. |
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Design ★★★★★ |
The printer is basically solidly constructed and reassuringly weighty. The onboard controls and colour LCD are good to have and the general design is impeccable. |
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Efficiency ★★★★★ |
It’s not the quickest printer on the planet however continues to be fairly fast for a large-format pigment printer. And the print high quality is totally elegant. |
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Worth ★★★★☆ |
The printer itself could be very competitively priced however ink works out to about twice the value in contrast with cartridges for the bigger PRO-1100. |