canon pixma ix6550

[jhal]

Hi folks,

my trusted Canon pixma ip5000 is coming to the end of its life...I've had this printer for 7 years and I changed the print head once. I resisted replacing it for a new one as the BC-I cartigdes are easy to refill and with the right paper profile the photo print quality is very good.

I am now getting banding for the first time when printing A4 towards the end of the page. Looks like the ink quantity from the print head to the paper is less. Perhaps a faulty head? I don't know.

So searching around I came across the ix6550 which is in my budget for an A3 printer.

Questions:

• Any of you using this printer what's your feedback/impression reagarding print qualtiy ( photos)

• Is it easy to refill the cartidges and do you have to rechip them?

• what't the photo quality for B&W prints?

• any issues with clogged head & banding

Thanks
John

 

[jhal]

anyone???

Hi folks,

my trusted Canon pixma ip5000 is coming to the end of its life...I've had this printer for 7 years and I changed the print head once. I resisted replacing it for a new one as the BC-I cartigdes are easy to refill and with the right paper profile the photo print quality is very good.

I am now getting banding for the first time when printing A4 towards the end of the page. Looks like the ink quantity from the print head to the paper is less. Perhaps a faulty head? I don't know.

So searching around I came across the ix6550 which is in my budget for an A3 printer.

Questions:

• Any of you using this printer what's your feedback/impression reagarding print qualtiy ( photos)

• Is it easy to refill the cartidges and do you have to rechip them?

• what't the photo quality for B&W prints?

• any issues with clogged head & banding

Thanks
John

 

[Andrew Curatola]

I think but I'm not sure the UK version iX6550 is the USA version iX6520. Like I said I'm not sure. But if is the same, the following is a reply I gave to another poster who had just bought the iX6520 in the USA:

Jerry, I have a Epson R3000 that I use refillable inks & carts and use only for photos. I have Color Munkie and I make all my printer profiles. Two weeks ago I bought a Canon iX6520 (just like you) for general printing. I printed out some photos as a goof. I was amazed how fantastic the photos looked even comparing the same printout to my R3000. Very hard to tell them apart. If the iX6520 can print the print outs I saw I can imagine what their higher end printers can do.

Getting to the ink part is what your interested in. The carts for the iX6520 are real tiny weenie carts, I think it's 11mil and for a printer of this size 13" x 19" max, Canons ink greed is showing. What I did was bought a refillable inks & carts kit for the iX6520. The bottom line was the refillable thing was a bomb I threw the whole kit out. The carts were so small that you would get ink all over the place when you try to refill them no matter how careful you were.

What I opt for instead was compatible inks that if you look around you can fine real good inks at very reasonable prices. The places I use are Enviroinks.com and next I'm going to try Abucus.com inks which I heard good things about. So far Enviroinks is the ink I'm using right now that are giving me fantastic prints outs, next I'll try Abacus inks. As for the longevity for these dye base inks I can't answer that. I use my R3000 with pigments for my photos.

Andrew

 

[Whataphoto]

I am not happy with the IX6550 as it is impossible to get a crisp black and white print. There is always a magenta cast. I have tried all sorts of paper and use the good canon inks but no good. Will have to buy another printer as b/w is my favourite form of printing out photographs.

 

[John139895]

The ix6550 is great value and perfect for colour prints. Unfortunately if you print a lot of Black & White it's not so good. As mentioned above, there is a strong magenta cast to the grey-scale prints.

 

[lovingtheview]

Whataphoto wrote:

I am not happy with the IX6550 as it is impossible to get a crisp black and white print. There is always a magenta cast. I have tried all sorts of paper and use the good canon inks but no good. Will have to buy another printer as b/w is my favourite form of printing out photographs.

Too easy: You are asking the wrong printer to do a task which requires some expensive, highly focused technology.

 

[JB7846]

I have just bought the ix6550 and predominantly work in B&W. All my prints irrespective of size have the magenta cast - somebody must know how to stop this? any takers?

 

[Gary Pearce]

hi

I use ix6550 with cheap inks off ebay and glossy paper from Firstcall Photographic.

I print from Aperture 3.2.4.

When I print BW I change the Render Intent (in the Aperture Print Options) to Perceptual.

This seems to work for me, giving prints that I'm more than happy with (I'm no expert)

gary

 

[jambo84]

JB7846 wrote:

I have just bought the ix6550 and predominantly work in B&W. All my prints irrespective of size have the magenta cast - somebody must know how to stop this? any takers?

I have the Canon ix6550. I use the Easy Photoprint EX software that came with the printer. When using a paper brand called Rayfilm (I believe it's made in the Czech Republic), and their Photopaper - High Gloss (260 g/m2), I get perfect black and white prints when viewed in daylight. Viewed in fluorescent light and comparing next to the monitor, there is a very very slight magenta tint, but nothing of importance, and of course fluorescent lighting sucks anyway.

I've used a bunch of other papers before this that made all prints have a strong magenta tint, and even some gave a cyan tint. Different papers absorb different inks in differing amounts, meaning that photos will be tinted. Choosing the correct paper is everything with this and also other printers. I assume that Canon-paper will render correct colors on printing, since that's what they profile their printers against, but that paper is just too expensive. If you profile your printer yourself, you could use any paper, as the printer will then adjust the amount of ink to fit with what you've profiled it against.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you should always use original ink from Canon if you want correct colors - otherwise you'll have to reprofile your printer in most cases.

 

[SHARONG]

Hi there

wonder if anyone can offer advice on sudden banding problems with this printer.

the banding is in the blacks. I am printing on ilford gold fivre silk. I have cleaned, then deep cleaned heads and also re aligned the heads, no avail.

the only thing left is to replace the near empty black tank...will that fix the problem, or do i try re cleaning heads? any other thoughts greatly appreciated.--

Endeavouring to create gob smacking imagery.

 

[Sammy Yousef]

I have just bought the ix6550 and predominantly work in B&W. All my prints irrespective of size have the magenta cast - somebody must know how to stop this? any takers?

Are you using original inks? If not you may need to fine tune the colours and save your settings. But lets assume that's not your problem for a moment.

Since we're talking about black and white I'm willing to bet you're not selecting grey scale in the printer driver options.

If you select greyscale, only the black ink will be used (and since you're only using one nozzle expect it to take longer).

If you don't select greyscale the printer will mix all the inks to make black and you'll get hints of colour showing through plus colour casts..

Using the maintenance functions to clean the rollers isn't a bad idea either but I don't think that's your problem.

Please do let me know if this fixes your issue.