Message
Canon iPf5000 driver bugs, OS X
2006-10-27 by CDTobie@aol.com
Given all the other distractions when printing on sheets of fine art paper with the iPF5000 (long waits before loading sheets, after prints complete, frequent rejection of a loaded sheet, settings required at both ends each time, etc. If you choose to print ten copies, you must load each sheet one at a time, and choose paper type and media size for every single one of them. Out of ten prints, you should plan on at least five or six sheet loading failures as well) many users may have missed this bug. Since I am printing black and white images, which are very sensitive to media setting, it shows up quite clearly: fail to open the "main" window, get an incorrect print, even though you have the right media setting defined twice: once at the printer, once in the driver preset. Haven't tested to see if this situation occurs under Windows.
The Direct Export Module for the iPF5000 may not suffer from the bug noted above, but it has a bug of its own: you can only get proper density in prints if you use a custom ICC profile. If you choose the default color or black and white settings, the prints are significantly light (about as much as a gamma 2.2 > gamma 1.8 mismatch, interestingly enough). Also worth note with the export module: you can print grayscale output, but only from RGB files; grayscale files are not accepted. Since I'm printing to PrintFIX PRO 2.0 ICC profiles designed for grayscale or tinted grayscale printing from either grayscale or RGB files, this works fine for me, but it would seem to eliminate most other grayscale printing, if accuracy is at all a factor.
This printer offers excellent black and white prints, once you get that far...
C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com