Canon’s heating up the summer with the release of their new PIXMA office printers and new brand ambassadors at an event held yesterday at the Cyberzone in SM North EDSA. The five new models – PIXMA MX886, MX426, MX 416 and the IX6560 – and the three new brand ambassadors – Jo Avila, Jun Miranda and Per Andre Hoffman were introduced amid enthusiastic press from Technology and Lifestyle and shoppers in the Cyberzone Area. The event highlighted the capabilities of the new printers that include WiFi N capabilities and wireless printing from iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android devices.
The new printers also offer Full HD video printing from Canon digital cameras, improved web printing through Canon’s Easy-WebPrint Ex software, intelligent color cast exposure correction through Auto Photo Fix II, a simplified home screen menu, and exclusive access to Canon’s Creative Park Premium content.
The launch also served as an exhibit area of sorts for photos printed with Canon’s PIXMA printers.
The three brand ambassadors extolls the virtues of Canon’s printers, which they feel sets the bar as far as print quality goes. “Canon PIXMA printers are designed for professional photographers and serious amateurs and hobbyist in mind,” says Jun Miranda. A photographer since 1985 and one of the first ones to shift to digital photograph, he’s also the first Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop and Lightroom in Asia and founder, president, and program director of the Philippines’ most sought after school in digital imaging. For Miranda, photography is a process. “The first step is capturing the image and the final step is actually printing the image,” Miranda said. “When you just upload your photo on the Internet, you don’t show the quality of the image. Only a print can show you how sharp it is, its highlights, and shadows.”
Printing is also about experience, said professional photographer and lecturer Jo Avila. “People love handling a print. There’s something about the print, its tangibility that makes the images more alive. That’s why you print.” After earning a degree in AB Communication at the Ateneo de Manila University, Avila spent the next two and a half years apprenticing under his photography teacher, Pancho Escaler of Chroma Philippines, Inc. He went professional in 1997 but still teaches today, covering basic and advanced photography. “It’s only when you learn about color management that you’ll understood what Canon has been saying about original inks and paper,” he said. “You’re dealing with color profiles, which are only good as long as they are accurate.”
“The magician of light” Per Andre Hoffmann, who has shot worldwide, said he’d rather not print if he would not get the best possible quality. His combined text-and-photo-articles reach far over 160 million upmarket consumers worldwide. His work regularly appears in the National Geographic, Geo, Stern, Vogue, Time, Life, Newsweek, and other leading newspapers and magazines worldwide. “If you want to print, you have to present it in the best possible quality and you need a printer that will give you the maximum resolution, the colors need to come out the way you expected them to come out,” he said, pointing out that Canon PIXMA has achieved this quality. Hoffman said his apprehension with print stemmed from his discontent with prints coming from commercial photo laboratories. His experienced with PIXMA, however, resulted differently. “My first Canon PIXMA produced true-to-life colors, perfect lights and shadows, stunning resolution, contrast, and overall impression,” said Hoffmann whose PIXMA prints using Canon papers have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.