Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Driver
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Driver & Reviews – The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 is a high-quality A3 + photo printer with a printing width of 13 inches which is designed to give an extraordinary display result on glossy and matte media. The imagePROGRAF PRO-300 replaces the PIXMA PRO-10S in Canon’s printer lineup – a printer we have rated as one of the best photo printers.
The two main options for inkjets at this price point are dye or pigment-based inks. Dye-based printers are usually faster and work better with glossy photo paper because the ink molecules are small enough to fully absorb under the glossy outer surface of the paper. Pigment-based inks work better with matte and fine-art media because the results tend to look better and the ink is stronger and resistant to fading.
Whichever ink option you choose, the abundance of fine detail in an A3 or 13×19 inch photo print can be simply stunning, with a wow factor that is much more than an A4 print. It lets you print photos large enough to frame and hang on a wall, right from your own desktop.
MAIN FEATURE
The key to the success of this Canon printer in providing the best quality results on glossy and matte media is that it has a ‘chroma optimizer’, which is contained in the cartridge itself. This smoothes the finish when printing on glossy photo paper so that there is no difference in color reflectivity and different hues. The ink range itself is very complete, totaling ten separate cartridges. In addition to the chroma optimizer, you get matte ink and photo black, cyan, photo cyan, magenta, photo magenta, yellow, gray, and red ink. Everything comes from Canon’s latest LUCIA PRO lineup, providing the potential for a wide gamut (color space) with rich and vibrant color rendition, as well as high-fidelity black and white photo printing.
Unlike the older pigment-based 13-inch Epson SureColor SC-P600 printer, Canon includes a dedicated channel for matte black and black photos on its print head. This is to avoid wasting time, ink and money when switching between glossy and matte media.
Like the PRO-10S, the PRO-300 works with cartridges having a capacity of 14ml. This should prove sufficient for about 30 to 60 borderless A3 + prints of each cartridge, although it naturally varies depending on the color and density that stands out in your image. Ink costs typically average around $ 2.75 / £ 3.70 per borderless A3 + photo print, which is quite reasonable. Like most inkjets, the PRO-300 comes with ‘setup cartridges’ but, unlike some printers, it has a lot of stamina instead of running dry after only a few prints.
An unusual feature of the PRO-300 is that it can make borderless prints on matte and fine art media, not just glossy photo paper. This can be a big advantage but you need to disable the ‘safety margin regulation for paper size’ option, which is enabled by default in the printer driver. Indeed, Canon warns that ‘depending on the environment, conditions such as paper abrasion can cause paper smudges or a reduction in print quality’. Nonetheless, we made a dozen or more borderless A3 + photo prints on Premium Matte photo paper and Premium Fine Art Smooth media without any ill effects.
Another bonus is that the printer serves a variety of media. This includes not only Canon’s impressive fine art paper catalog, but also media from independent manufacturers including companies such as Hahnemuhle, Canson, and Awagami. What’s more, Canon Professional Print & Layout software is available as a free download, which functions as a standalone application or as a plugin for Canon Digital Photo Professional and Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. This allows both soft check and hard check for different paper types and gives you the option to apply individual adjustments to separate images to be printed on the same page.
BUILD AND HANDLE
At 14.4kg, the PRO-300 is not light. It has a very sturdy chassis and the build quality feels very good overall. Handling is improved by the inclusion of a manual top feeder and a rear fender. Apart from serving a variety of popular print sizes, the printer can also produce panoramic prints up to 990.6 cm in length. Another handling improvement over the older PRO-10S is that the PRO-300 has a 3-inch color LCD display. It is equipped with a set of adjacent navigation buttons, making it easy to set the paper type for each feed path, as well as to perform routine maintenance and keep an eye on ink levels.
Connectivity is good, with built-in Wi-Fi and ethernet as well as a high-speed USB port. A suite of cloud-based printing options includes AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Windows 10 Mobile, Canon Print Service, and PIXMA Cloud Link. The printer is fairly quiet in operation at about 40dB (A) and ‘Quiet’ mode is also available via the menu system.
PERFORMANCE
Print quality is truly extraordinary. The color rendition is very rich and bright, but also very real. The soft proofing and hard proofing features provided in the Professional Print & Layout software make it easy to get the results you want on different media, without wasting ink and paper. Black and white photo quality is as impressive as the color output, with incredible tonal definition and richness.
When you’re making prints to last a lifetime, it seems a little harsh to criticize the printer for lacking speed. Granted, any desktop printer will be much faster than ordering prints online and waiting for them to show up in the mail. Even so, if you need to make multiple prints quickly, speed can be an issue. Print speed is very similar to that of the PRO-10S, which is not as fast as most dye-based printers, but still agile enough for a pigment-based printer.
A borderless A3 + print on glossy paper at the highest quality setting takes about 9m 30 seconds for color, and about one minute less for black & white. At the default quality setting, the same color print takes only 6m 30 seconds to output. The best quality borderless color output on the A3 + Premium Fine Art Smooth takes longer, just over 12m, while the smaller A3 print with a white border takes about 10m 20s (Premium Fine Art Smooth) or 6m 50s (Premium Matte) . For A4 borderless output on glossy paper, you’re viewing around 4m 30s in highest quality mode, and 3m 20s in standard mode.
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Driver Support for:
- Windows
- Windows Server
- Mac
- OS X
- Linux/ Unix
IJ Start imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Set Up Driver and Software Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Set up Driver Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 XPS Set up Driver Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Printer Set up Driver Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Full Software Package Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 IJ Network Device Setup Utility Software Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Media Configuration Tool Software Installer for Windows
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 EasyPhotoPrint Editor Software Installer for Windows
IJ Start imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Set Up Driver and Software Installer for Mac
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Set up Driver Installer for Mac OS X
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 CUPS Set up Driver Installer for Mac OS X
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 ICA Set up Driver Installer for OS X
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 IJ Network Device Setup Utility Software Installer for OS X
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 Media Configuration Tool Software Installer for OS X
- Download -= imagePROGRAF PRO-300 EasyPhotoPrint Editor Software Installer for OS X