Canon native print resolution

[Round Tuit]

Sorry, I shouldn't have used "dots", since it has several meanings. What I meant is using two nozzles for one pixel. If you go back to the beginning of this, what I found puzzling is that everyone says that the "native" resolution of Canon printers is 300 dpi. However, I found documentation that the nozzle pitch is 600 dpi. (For brevity, I won't keep inserting the comparable numbers for Epson, but the same issue applies, however.)

Manfred responded:



So, my point is that if one is feeding a 300 ppi file into a printer that has a nozzle pitch of 600 dpi, it can't produce 600 different dots per inch. My hypothesis is that if there is anything to be gained by setting the firmware to 600 dpi (720 in the Epson world), it would only be by outputting 600 ppi files from the software.

Therefore, if I get around to testing this, I'll run only three prints:

1. Output at the standard 300, firmware set to 300. (I think that is "high", but I have to check this.)
2. Output at the standard 300, firmware set to 600. (I think this is "highest", but again, I have to check.) If my understanding of "highest" is correct, this is what I have been doing since I bought the printer.)
3. Output at 600, firmware set to 600.

My hypothesis is that if there is a difference in resolution, it will only be #3, and if there is a difference in quality between #1 and #2, it won't be resolution per se.

Let me add to the confusion!
I have a Canon Pixma Pro 100. Canon specifications for it give maximun DPI of 4800 horizontally and 2400 DPI vertically. The printer has 8 inks and the print head has 768 nozzles per ink for a total of 6144 nozzles. All this according to Canon.
The easiest way to get 600 and 300 from these numbers is to divide 4800 and 2400 by 8 respectively but would mean that 8 nozzles are required for each dot!
I'll leave you to sort this out.

[Manfred M]

Let me add to the confusion!
I have a Canon Pixma Pro 100. Canon specifications for it give maximun DPI of 4800 horizontally and 2400 DPI vertically. The printer has 8 inks and the print head has 768 nozzles per ink for a total of 6144 nozzles. All this according to Canon.
The easiest way to get 600 and 300 from these numbers is to divide 4800 and 2400 by 8 respectively but would mean that 8 nozzles are required for each dot!
I'll leave you to sort this out.

You've got it completely figured out Andre. The problem is that given the language the printer manufacturers use, they use the word "dot" to mean two different things. The smaller dots (something Ted refers to as a "droplet") make a full colour "dot". Just to confuse things even more, a dot can actually use 9 "colours" as the printer does not have to deposit any ink at all and the base paper stock colour can be used as well.

[pschlute]

I have learned a lot from this thread. I had not really understood the relationship between an image pixel and a printer's dot.

Because I send my files to a commercial printer (sized according to their ppi requirements), I have never had to delve into the hardware side of the process.

Once again CiC proves to be one of the best forums around.

[Manfred M]

While I realize that "dot" here doesn't mean a squirted droplet - I'm floundering with "two dots per pixel" because my humble Canon all-in-one doesn't mention that action. Could we go deeper?

Higher end photo printers from Canon and Epson have two different size nozzles. One size is 300 / 360 ppo and the second is 600 / 720. The first group is what the default printing mode uses while the second smaller set is used in the "high quality" print mode. The way the print driver works is that a single larger droplet will be deposited on the paper and in the high quality mode it will use two different smaller nozzles and will deposit two separate droplets.

So far as I know, this mode is not available on dye based printers like your all-in-one. The ink absorption will spread into the paper fibres, so finer resolution is likely not possible. Pigment based inks, used in higher end photo quality printers use pigments that are mechanically bonded to the paper print layer (i.e. the carrier medium expands the print layer and as it dries, it shrinks and mechanically holds the pigment).

[DanK]

You've got it completely figured out Andre. The problem is that given the language the printer manufacturers use, they use the word "dot" to mean two different things. The smaller dots (something Ted refers to as a "droplet") make a full colour "dot". Just to confuse things even more, a dot can actually use 9 "colours" as the printer does not have to deposit any ink at all and the base paper stock colour can be used as well.

It's even more confusing than this. They also use "nozzle" to mean two different things: the number of nozzles is not the same as the "nozzle pitch". And the number of nozzles isn't easily divisible by the nozzle pitch. The successor to your printer, the current dye-ink Canon Pixma Pro 200, has 768 nozzles per ink. My Prograf Pro 1000 (pigment ink) has exactly twice that number, 1536 per ink. And to add to the puzzle, the maximum resolution in droplets is 4800 x 2400 dpi, which is twice that of my Prograf (2400 x 1200 dpi). I have no idea why any of this is true.

However, for purposes of this discussion, the number of droplets isn't really germane. The question is what the printer is doing when the firmware is set to highest quality and the nozzle pitch is 600/720, that is, twice what most people set in their printing software.

I haven't figured out what sort of image would be best to test this. It has to be something with very fine detail. It occurred to me yesterday that the front face of US currency would be a good choice, but I think it may be illegal to post photos of it.