I just purchased my first photo printer, Canon G620 (G550/G650/G620), in part thanks to a large number of very positive reviews, including this site. In particular, people often describe the print quality as comparable or better than the one you can get in a shop. And my intention was to use it as a substitute to ordering from a shop.
My first impressions: the colors seem to be good, though I will have to teak the white balance a bit as grey in my X-rite color target prints a bit warmer (and pinkier) than it should. For example, when my target grey is 6600K, +22 (ACR), the Canon Paper Plus Glossy II prints as 7350K, +14, and Canon Paper Glossy as 8200K, +12.
But colors are fixable. My biggest grip is the fuzziness of the prints - even when I set it to custom, maximum (Fine=1) quality setting. I could already see the fuzziness with my naked eye (rather obvious), and then decided to explore this further, by taking a macro (4:1) photos of the print.
Here is the result. The pixel size here is 1.72 um, the area is 1.4 mm^2. On the left is a print made in a shop (Costco Fujitsu printer, 300 dpi native resolution). On the right is the print made with my Canon G620 at the highest quality setting. The difference is pretty dramatic. While the color unevenness is almost non-existent in the Fujitsu prints, in G620 it is rather extreme - colors are represented by dots of 20 um diameter (corresponds to 1200 dpi), separated by much larger distances. In my tests, I have to blur the scans from the G620 prints with a Gaussian with the radius of 50 um to get rid of the fuzziness. The resulting blur diameter (100 um) corresponds to 230 dpi. So the actual resolution of G620 prints is more like 230 dpi, much less than the specified "1200x4800 dpi".
Is anyone else really bothered by the fuzziness of the prints from Canon G6*0 printers?
An element of of a 4x6 photo (shot on a 20-megapixel camera, Canon 6D) printed on G620, then scanned at 1200 dpi (left: G620; right: original digital image):
My first impressions: the colors seem to be good, though I will have to teak the white balance a bit as grey in my X-rite color target prints a bit warmer (and pinkier) than it should. For example, when my target grey is 6600K, +22 (ACR), the Canon Paper Plus Glossy II prints as 7350K, +14, and Canon Paper Glossy as 8200K, +12.
But colors are fixable. My biggest grip is the fuzziness of the prints - even when I set it to custom, maximum (Fine=1) quality setting. I could already see the fuzziness with my naked eye (rather obvious), and then decided to explore this further, by taking a macro (4:1) photos of the print.
Here is the result. The pixel size here is 1.72 um, the area is 1.4 mm^2. On the left is a print made in a shop (Costco Fujitsu printer, 300 dpi native resolution). On the right is the print made with my Canon G620 at the highest quality setting. The difference is pretty dramatic. While the color unevenness is almost non-existent in the Fujitsu prints, in G620 it is rather extreme - colors are represented by dots of 20 um diameter (corresponds to 1200 dpi), separated by much larger distances. In my tests, I have to blur the scans from the G620 prints with a Gaussian with the radius of 50 um to get rid of the fuzziness. The resulting blur diameter (100 um) corresponds to 230 dpi. So the actual resolution of G620 prints is more like 230 dpi, much less than the specified "1200x4800 dpi".
Is anyone else really bothered by the fuzziness of the prints from Canon G6*0 printers?
An element of of a 4x6 photo (shot on a 20-megapixel camera, Canon 6D) printed on G620, then scanned at 1200 dpi (left: G620; right: original digital image):
. But he did note the issue. I suspect a majority of people reviewing this printer are heavily focused on the color gamut and accuracy, and indeed this is where the printer shines. I just wish the printer could do both (resolution and colors).
