Advice for Printing from Affinity Photo with Canon Pixma G7020

[DianeF]

I recently bought and just installed a new color printer, a Canon Pixma megatank G7020. I bought it because of the large ink tanks and the lowered cost of color printing. Now I have a large backlog of things that I would like to print from Affinity Photo. I have printed some materials out on plain copy paper (which is what I'm likely to use most of the some since I'm printing materials to be used in collages and other artwork), and the print quality seems decent though a bit dull.

Having used other color printers in the past, I was surprised at what seem to be minimal tools for color management that appear in the print dialogue boxes accessed through Affinity Photo. For example, I can no longer find a ColorSync option in the dialogue boxes that come with this printer. It appears that all you can change is the media type, with a very limited range of choices, and the print quality from draft to best. I have scrolled through all the print settings and can't find anything else. Am I missing something here?

I believe you can change some settings through the printer itself though I generally prefer to allow my software to control the settings. But I could do that if the choices increase.

If anyone has used this printer or its predecessor the G6020 and has some advice for me about how to optimize print quality, I'd appreciate hearing it. Thank you.

[Lee D]

Have you installed the Canon drivers for your printer and confirm in the OS that the Canon driver is being used. The reason for this is that on macOS the Print window options are based on what the driver provides the OS to make available such as different media types, print quality settings and colour options.

If you are printing on standard copy paper most print outs will appear duller, as the paper isn't as bright as others. The ink can also sometimes show bleed or absorb markings on the paper.

[DianeF]

Hi Lee,

 

Thanks for your comments. Yes, I've installed the printer drivers. That was done automatically when i installed the printer. I also called the company and talked at length with a tech support guy who was himself a photographer. He confirmed that the settings for this printer were limited as it's not really intended as a printer for serious photographers. Instead it's intended for businesses. That said, I did print out some photos on photo paper, using their matte photo setting, and was surprised at the excellent results I achieved. The prints on copy paper aren't even that bad. I've fiddled with different settings and qualities of print and compared the results. Even though the settings from the software are limited, you can do more from the printer's panel itself and override some of the initial settings. 

One thing that's making me happy about this printer is that I can print as much as I want without having to spend $80 on ink after a few prints. I even found a way to get it to print on fabric. Since I want to use the printer to print fabrics and papers for collage and my own art work, and it seems good enough for that, I've decided to keep it. It's probably not the best printer for serious photographers but good enough for occasional photo prints.