In the runup to the US announcement of Canon's new PIXMA Pro1 printer, we had an opportunity to sit down with Mr Katsuichi Shimizu, Managing Director, Member of Board and Chief Executive of Canon's Inkjet Products Operations worldwide. Our discussion was wide-ranging, and we'll be posting a full transcript later, but for now, here are a few of the key points Mr. Shimizu shared with us:

• The Pro1 is aimed strongly at pro photographers; Canon isn't really expecting to sell many of them to amateurs. (Although we personally think that a lot of amateurs with small side businesses doing things like school sports photography, church portraits, etc will snap them up.)

• This is the first model of what will become a broader product line over time. The line will likely expand both downward to less expensive models more suited to enthusiast photographers, as well as upward to wider formats or other attributes addressing a higher-end pro market.

• Canon noted that market demand will dictate the specifics of the model line expansion, but we could expect to see enthusiast-oriented models without the bulk-ink ("off-axis inking") system and fewer ink colors. Likewise on the high end, while no specific plans have been made, it makes sense that the line will eventually extend to models with wider than 13" carriages.

• The key features of the Pro1 are print quality, accuracy, and consistency out of the box. (Canon strongly emphasized the out of the box experience; photographers should be able to just plug it in and print, and get really excellent print quality without tweaking.)

• For the first time, the Pro1 will feature very strong support of third-party papers, with ICC profiles for over 120 different paper types available at product launch, and an aggressive program to develop even more profiles going forward. The printer will include profiling software in the box (supporting the Eye1 and Color Munki spectros) so photographers can develop their own profiles, but the big message here is that you don't have to be expert at profile creation to use a really wide range of paper substances and surfaces.

• The defining features of the Pro1 (and the expanding line of printer to follow it) are its ink and nozzle technology: Completely new pigment formulations, a new nozzle system to deliver them, and the new "color optimizer" layer combine to result in unusually low levels of metamerism and essentially no bronzing.

• Some very happy news for Canon printer fans: We asked about the impact of the Thai flooding on Canon's printer manufacturing and whether it might impact availability of this exciting new model. The answer was in several parts:

  1. Printers destined for the US are already on boats or already landed in the US, so there'll be no short-term availability problem.

  2. Canon has for some time been constructing a new printer plant in Thailand much further to the north, at a considerably higher elevation. This new plant has just come online, so all production can be transferred from the flooded plant to the new one very quickly.

  3. Two other major Canon printer plants are located in Vietnam, so have been unaffected by the recent Thai catastrophe.

As noted, our interview with Mr. Shimizu was quite wide-ranging: We'll have a lot more to share once we get the full interview transcribed: Stay tuned for more details sometime in the next couple of days!