Canon Launches Industry-First 13 x 19 Inch Desktop Photo with ChromaPLUS Eight Color Ink System for Wider Color Gamut

Business Wire, Feb 9, 2004

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PMA 2004

BOOTH #E11

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 9, 2004

Canon's top-of-the-line i9900 desktop photo printer empowers consumers, photo enthusiasts and working photographers to make their own professional quality borderless photo prints. The 13 x 19-inch inkjet printer features new red and green ink cartridges for rich, accurate color rendition, industry leading 4800 x 2400 dpi(a) maximum color resolution, microscopic 2 picoliter ink droplets, as well as USB 2.0 Hi-speed(b) and Firewire(R) interfaces. The i9900 desktop photo printer will be available in May for a suggested list price $499.99(c).

The i9900 photo printer is the first in its class to offer eight individual ink tanks. Canon's exclusive ChromaPLUS 8-color ink system adds individual red and green ink tanks to the cyan, magenta, yellow, black, photo cyan and photo magenta inks that are commonly found on six-color printers. The red ink tank allows for an approximately 60% increase in the orange/red gamut over six-color printing and provides for previously unobtainable orange hues and well as richer reds. The green ink adds about 30% increase in green gamut as compared to six-color printing and creates more accurate and deeper greens in grass and foliage. The resulting finished print more closely matches the color characteristics of positive photographic film.

Canon's dye inks produce higher levels of glossiness, more vivid colors, reduced graininess and better contrast photo quality when compared with traditional flat and lack luster pigment-based inks used in conventional printers.

"With the proliferation of higher resolution digital cameras quickly entering the consumer market, the need and the opportunity for people to print larger than 8.5 x 11 inches is rapidly increasing," said Yukiaki Hashimoto, senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Imaging Group at Canon U.S.A., Inc., a subsidiary of Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ). "The i9900 Photo Printer allows users of higher megapixel digital cameras to expand beyond the small canvas of traditional desktop printers and print up to 13 x 19-inch borderless photos."

In addition to the two new colors, Canon has further increased the printer's photo quality by doubling the maximum color resolution to 4800 x 2400 dpi(a) from the earlier generation i9100 photo printer. The i9900 photo printer features the world's longest and highest nozzle-density print head in a consumer product and has 6,144 nozzles, capable of ejecting a staggering 122 million droplets per second(d) that are a mere two picoliters in size. The print head uses Canon's exclusive advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology(TM), which ejects consistent prescribed-volume ink droplets for smooth gradations, accurate skin tones and rich, vibrant colors. To match the look of minilab prints, the i9900 photo printer supports edge-to-edge borderless printing in 4x6, 5x7, 8.5x11 and 13x19 inch sizes.

Photo printing speeds on the i9900 printer remain significantly faster than the competition. Users can print a 4 x 6-inch borderless photo in about 38 seconds, a 5 x 7-inch borderless photo in approximately 47 seconds, an 8.5 x 11-inch borderless photo in about 84 seconds and a full 13 x 19-inch borderless photograph in under three minutes(c). For printing text, websites and other documents, the i9900 model features print speeds of up to 16 pages per minute (ppm) in black and up to 12 ppm in color printing(c).

ICC Support

ICC profiles provided allow for the accurate translation of color data from any other compliant device into the Bubble Jet i9900's native color space. For professional users reliant on consistent color reproduction across devices (such as scanners, monitors and printers) the ICC profile permits tremendous flexibility by ensuring the retention of color accuracy during printing, irrespective of the image source.

Direct Photo Printing

Direct photo printing is made possible without using the computer thanks to the PictBridge featured on the new i9900 photo printer. PictBridge is an industry standard for digital printers, digital cameras and digital camcorders that allows the direct printing of images from PictBridge compatible digital cameras and camcorders to a PictBridge compatible printer, regardless of brand or manufacturer, without the use of a computer(f).

Bundled Software Easy-PhotoPrint 2.1

Canon's latest release of its Easy-PhotoPrint software - version 2.1(g) - works directly with Canon's new Digital Photo Professional software(h), improving the professional-level of support.

Together with Digital Photo Professional software, the Easy-PhotoPrint software is now capable of identifying color-space information automatically and transferring it accurately to the Canon i9900 photo printer. Easy-PhotoPrint v2.1 software enables image data obtained in Adobe RGB with a broad color range to be faithfully reproduced on the Canon i9900 photo printer.