Frustration, then success with Canon IP4700
Dec 2, 2009
Purchased this printer last week-end, after a long hesitation. My goal was to have a good quality photo printer, faithfull color repriduction with Lightroom and Photoshop, long lasting prints at a reasonable price.
The IP 4700 seemed to fit the bill. Very inexpensive, Chromalife 100+ inks are excellents, 1pl droplets make very good prints and the price per page is much lower than the Epson printers. (with the starter ink cartridges, I printed about eight 8x10 and 30 5x7, and the small cartridges are still half-full!!).
The color reproduction was my frustration as I could never quite get the accurate colors with the bundled ICC profiles. After much, much investigation, internet search and frustrating trials and errors, I have success!
Canon's cryptic coding system for their ICC profile does not help.... and is the key. Once you decript it and actually figure wich profile goes with which paper, it finally works brilliantly.
So, for reference, and to save other users some time and ink, here is compiled together the solutions I have found, from various sources of information:
If you use Lightroom, or Photoshop, make sure you TOTALLY DISABLE the printer driver's color matching (see instruction manual on how to do this).
Then, use the following ICC profiles from within Adobe products (make sure you specify that Lightroom/Photoshop manage colors).
Code Description Quality Setting
MP1 Matte Photo Paper 1
PR1 Photo Paper Pro (I and II) 1
PR2 Photo Paper Pro (I and II) 2
PR3 Photo Paper Pro 3
SP1 Photo Paper Plus Glossy 1
SP3 Photo Paper Plus Glossy 3
SP4 Photo Paper Plus Glossy 4
SG1 Photo Paper Semi Glossy 1
SG3 Photo Paper Semi Glossy 3
GL1 Photo Paper Glossy (or Photo Paper Plus Glossy II) 1
GL3 Photo Paper Glossy (or Photo Paper Plus Glossy II) 3
PT1 Photo Paper Pro Platinum 1
PT2 Photo Paper Pro Platinum 2