Printer Delima: Canon PIXMA PRO-100 or Epson Artisan 1430

I am trying to decide between the Canon PIXMA PRO-100 and Epson Artisan 1430. Both has their pluses and minuses.

Canon PIXMA PRO-100
- Doesn't support 11x14 borderless printing
- Multiple black cartridges

Epson Artisan 1430
- Supports 11x14 borderless printing
- Single black cartridges

It would be a no brainer if the Canon supported 11x14 borderless printing. I was actually shocked when I googled and found out that you can't print 11x14 borderless with Canon but you can with 13x19. The 11x14 paper is about $20 cheaper for a pack of 50 than the 13x19 paper thru red river paper. I would really like to print 11x14 prints so I bummed at the Canon for this reason.

I have a feeling I would like to print black and white which the Canon is better at because of its multiple black cartridges.

Does anyone have thoughts on which printer would be a better choice?

I'm curious where you found the limitation of no borderless 11x14 printing on the PRO-100. Seems pretty odd that larger and smaller sizes work borderless, but not 11x14. I did see a note on a different printer, the PRO-10,that it can't do borderless 11x17 (11x14 not mentioned) - not in the specs but in a Canon KB article: "Borderless Printing is not available for legal, 11" x 17" (279.4 x 431.8 mm), A5, B5, or B4 sized paper, plain paper, or art paper." Which is also odd.

I have the Epson Artison 1430; I think it is a nice printer, but from reading the specs it is not in the same class as the Canon Pixma PRO-100 (which lists at $500, vs $300 for the Epson). The PRO-100 uses 8 (vs 6) inks, and has built-in wired networking in addition to the wireless and USB.

Here is where I found out about the 11x14
http://www.redrivercat​alog.com …look-getting-started.html

You need to read down into section titled "Media Type" about half way down on the page.

Thanks for the link. It is a very thorough review, and they clearly say no 11x14" borderless. Still, if it was me seriously thinking about buying this printer, and that feature was important to me, I would contact Canon to ask. Maybe Red River missed something, though I doubt it. Or maybe it was a driver issue that Canon fixed.

I'm curious: is the 11x14 paper issued by Canon?

I'm asking because my HP printer will do 13x19 borderless, HP does sell 13x19 photo paper, but I've never even looked at 11x14 paper, and I don't believe HP puts out that size paper.

What I've done plenty of, though, is to print, say, a 12x18 photo on the 13x19 paper. I bought an office "standard" paper cutter, so it's quick and easy to trim the shots!

If you are going to spend in the 500 dollar range look at an Epson 2880. Prints up to 13" wide and has 3 shades of black ink. Have not checked but has larger carts so ink is probably cheaper.

tonylong wrote in post #16205668
I'm curious: is the 11x14 paper issued by Canon?!

I would never have thought to check... no, it does not look like Canon sells 11x14 photo paper. Imagine that. But to suggest that Canon would restrict their printer driver in some way to only work on paper sizes they sell? No, I don't think I would go there. I would more likely believe that it is something in the printer design - perhaps limits on where overspray can occur without damaging the printer. (Just made that up, by the way)

lar55 wrote in post #16205732
I would never have thought to check... no, it does not look like Canon sells 11x14 photo paper. Imagine that. But to suggest that Canon would restrict their printer driver in some way to only work on paper sizes they sell? No, I don't think I would go there. I would more likely believe that it is something in the printer design - perhaps limits on where overspray can occur without damaging the printer. (Just made that up, by the way)

Well, I'm thinking that in order for them to design the "full bleed" function they likely only deal with "standard" photo paper sizes, but that's just a guess.

Well I decided to pull the trigger on the Canon PIXMA PRO-100. Excited about making prints at home to hang on the walls.

I bought one a few days ago. I like it very much. I have never printed digital B&W before but this printer does a very good job. When using Ilford Gold Mono Silk it's very much like a wet print.

Epson over Canon any day.

I just got the Epson 1430 -- it is amazing. HIGHLY recommended. 8x10 and 4x6 are beautiful. They look like they were printed on a pro machine.

If you know what your doing either will produce amazing results. Just picked up a Pixma 100 off of craigslist for 150 with the 13x19 paper. It was actually cheaper to replace my existing 9000 MK II with inks out.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #16209791
Epson over Canon any day.

I have to disagree with you. I've had two Epsons. Neither was a dedicated "photo" printer. Both were pigment printers and both were disappointing when printing photos. One was a generally bad printer and a terrible ink clogger. The other was a good office printer and could print color graphics well but absolutely failed when printing photos. To it's credit, it never clogged.

I've had several Canons mostly of the 5 cart (CMYK plus pigment black for text) variey. Except for my recent purchase of a PRO 100, none were "photo" printers but all printed beautiful color photographs as well as doing reliable general duty as an office printer. And the PRO 100 is spectacular. I know Epson makes some really good pigment photo printers but Canon has dye nailed and, I am told, the new PRO 1 (pigment) is as good as it gets.

Here's a possible work around for your 11x14 problem if you don't want to trim a 13x10 down. The paper feeds are centered rather than left sided so you might be able to set up an 11x14 image area, tell the printer it's 13x19 paper but load 11x14. I haven't tried this and it might not work or might be very messy. Just a thought.