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 Color prints made on the glossy roll media showed excellent detail and good contrast overall. However, color accuracy only reached our high rating (Average Delta E of 10.9) with this paper, and we noticed some slight bronzing in dark shadow areas. Deep reds seemed less saturated than dye-based prints we've made with the Canon i9900, and more orange than reds found in pigment-ink prints made on Epson's Stylus Photo R2400. But if you compare them to Epson's more competitive 24-inch Stylus Pro 7600, you won't be disappointed on most colors. And if you are looking for a printer that can give you decent proofs of photos that might later be published in a brochure, commercial poster, or magazine using CMYK inks, the W6400's color gamut is a good match.
Using Photoshop's color management setting (and turning the print driver to "No color adjustment") also gave us the best black and white prints (from RGB files). Initially, they were slightly warm in tone, but easily balanced with a curve correction in Photoshop. However, using the monochrome setting in the print driver, or turning color management on in the print driver, resulted in fairly greenish prints that were difficult to fine tune.
The W6400 can use either of two black inks, one for glossy and semi-gloss media, and a Matte Black ink for watercolor papers, canvas, and fine art surfaces. Swapping them out uses up quite a bit of black ink (45ml of black, and 15ml of color ink), so it's best to save up matte printing projects and do them all at once when the ink is loaded.
We never ran out of the inks we installed during our entire test run, a good thing since each cartridge costs approximately $70 and holds 130ml of ink. But we did have to replace the printer's maintenance cartridge ($63, street price). This cartridge is located at the bottom of the printer and absorbs inks used up when cleaning print heads, or during normal operation. As we later learned, the printer unit sent to us had been used at other locations prior to arriving at the Pop lab, so it's uncertain how many prints had been made or how long it takes before the cartridge must be replaced.
If you're looking to make lots of large, high quality prints up to 24-inches in width, and speed is a definite plus, the W6400 is a great choice. Because it uses pigment inks, the W6400 is also a good choice for making fine art prints, or posters that might have to endure some rough display conditions.
Certified Test Results
Resolution: Extremely high (up to 2400x1200 dpi.) Color accuracy: High (Avg. Delta E 10.9) Shadow/highlight detail: Very high, with slight bronzing in dark shadow areas. Image quality: Very High with Canon's Premium Super-gloss paper. Speed: Extremely fast with roll media. 4.5 min for borderless 13x19-inch print, 8.5 min for borderless 16x24-inch print. 16 min for 23x70-inch panoramic print. Inks: Canon pigment inks, 6 colors (CMYKphotoMphotoC), with separate Matte Black ink. Up to 70 year display life. Maximum paper thickness: 0.8mm (31.4 mil) Connections: USB 2.0 Hi-Speed or 10/100 Base -T/TX Power Requirements: 100-240V AC, 50-60Hz. Dimensions (WxHxD): 47.3 x 43.2 x 29.6" (1200 x 1097 x 752mm) with stand. Weight: 108 lbs. (98kg) with stand. In the box: Canon print driver software for Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Photoshop print plugin. PhotoPRINT Select Postcript 3 RIP software, 7 ink cartridges (including matte and photo black), Printer stand. 2" Core Media Spool and replaceable CT-01 Cutter Blade.
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