Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer Review: The Pro Photographer’s Desktop Darkroom

There’s a unique kind of heartbreak familiar to every serious photographer. You spend hours planning a shoot, waiting for the perfect light, and carefully composing your shot. You then dedicate even more time to post-processing, meticulously adjusting every detail until the image on your calibrated monitor perfectly matches your artistic vision. With excitement, you send it off to a professional printing service, only to receive a print that feels… wrong. As one user aptly described it, it’s that “all-too-familiar sinking feeling” when the print that arrives is too dark, lacks sharpness, or has a bizarre colour cast. This experience isn’t just frustrating; it feels like a betrayal of your hard work. It’s the moment you realise that the final, crucial step of bringing your digital art into the physical world is completely out of your hands. This is the chasm that the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer promises to bridge, offering a path to reclaiming total creative control, transforming your desk into a professional-grade print studio.

What to Consider Before Buying a Professional Photo Printer

A professional photo printer is more than just an office peripheral; it’s a key solution for photographers, artists, and designers who demand uncompromising accuracy and archival quality in their physical prints. It solves the fundamental problem of inconsistency and lack of control inherent in outsourcing printing. The primary benefit is achieving a perfect match between your digital vision and the final printed output, ensuring that the colours, tones, and details you painstakingly crafted are faithfully reproduced on paper. This capability empowers creators to produce gallery-quality work, fine art reproductions, and client deliverables with confidence, right from their own studio or home office.

The ideal customer for this type of product is someone facing the limitations of standard printers or the unreliability of print labs. This includes professional photographers selling their work, serious hobbyists who want to exhibit their photos, graphic designers creating high-fidelity proofs, and artists reproducing their original pieces as giclée prints. It is for those who understand colour management, ICC profiles, and the nuances of different paper types. Conversely, this kind of printer might not be suitable for those who just need to print occasional snapshots, documents, or school projects. The higher initial cost and the price per print are overkill for casual use. For them, a standard all-in-one printer, or even a compact instant photo printer, would be a more practical and economical alternative.

Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:

• Dimensions & Space: A printer capable of handling A3+ (13×19 inch) media is, by necessity, a substantial piece of equipment. The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer measures 63.9 cm wide and weighs a hefty 14.4 kg. You must account not only for its footprint on your desk but also for the clearance needed at the front and back for the paper path, especially when using the straight-through manual feed for thick fine art papers.
• Capacity/Performance: The heart of a photo printer is its ink system. Look beyond just the number of inks; consider the technology. The PRO-300 uses a 10-ink pigment-based system (LUCIA PRO), which offers superior longevity and fade resistance compared to more common dye-based inks. Key performance metrics include the maximum print resolution (4800 x 2400 dpi for this model) and the ability to handle a wide range of media types and sizes, including panoramic prints.
• Materials & Durability: A professional printer is an investment, and its build quality should reflect that. The chassis should be rigid to minimize vibrations during printing, which can affect accuracy. Look for robust paper trays and feeding mechanisms designed to handle heavy and delicate fine art papers without causing damage. The overall construction should feel solid and engineered for consistent, long-term use.
• Ease of Use & Maintenance: While professional tools require some learning, the setup and daily operation should be streamlined. Look for clear displays, intuitive software, and reliable connectivity options like Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Long-term maintenance involves replacing ink cartridges and the occasional maintenance tank. It’s crucial to consider the cost and availability of these consumables, as they represent the ongoing operational cost of the printer.

Keeping these factors in mind, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer stands out in several areas. You can explore its detailed specifications and features here.

While the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer is an excellent choice, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:

First Impressions: A Substantial and Purpose-Built Printing Engine

Unboxing the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer is an experience in itself. The sheer weight and size of the box immediately signal that this is a serious piece of hardware, not a flimsy home office device. Inside, the printer is securely packed with foam and numerous pieces of orange transit tape, which must all be meticulously removed. We noted one user’s frustrating experience with a hidden orange plastic block causing initial errors; this highlights the importance of following the setup guide to the letter. Once freed from its packaging, the printer presents a sleek, professional, and dense black profile. At 14.4kg, it feels incredibly solid and well-engineered. The plastics are high-quality, and the overall design is functional and minimalist, dominated by the large 3-inch colour LCD screen on top. Setting it on the desk, it commands a significant amount of real estate, a clear statement of its professional intent. It feels like a worthy successor to Canon’s legacy of pro printers, promising a level of performance that its substantial build suggests.

Performance Deep Dive: Where Ink and Paper Become Art

A professional photo printer lives or dies by the quality of its output. It’s not about speed or fancy features; it’s about one thing: the faithful and beautiful translation of a digital file into a tangible object. In our extensive testing, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer proved itself to be more than just a printer; it’s a precision instrument for artists. We explored every facet of its performance, from the initial setup pains to the final, breathtaking prints that rolled out of it.

Setup and Software: A Tale of Two Experiences

Our setup process was methodical and, thankfully, smooth. After removing all the protective materials (and triple-checking for that hidden plastic block mentioned by one user), we moved on to installing the 10 individual ink cartridges. The process is straightforward, with each cartridge clicking satisfyingly into its dedicated, colour-coded slot in the print head. The printer then performs an initialisation and print head alignment routine, which takes several minutes and uses a small amount of ink from the starter cartridges. Where experiences seem to diverge is with the software and network connection. We opted for an Ethernet connection for maximum stability, and our Windows-based system detected the printer without a hitch. The driver and software installation package, which includes the vital Canon Professional Print & Layout (PPL) application, installed cleanly.

However, we cannot ignore the significant setup frustrations reported by others. One user described a “nightmare” scenario with a Mac running Ventura, where the software wouldn’t start and prints would cycle for 30 minutes before ejecting a blank sheet. Another user encountered repeated “clunking and clinking” error messages. These reports suggest that while the hardware is sound, the setup process can be a major hurdle depending on your operating system, network configuration, and perhaps a bit of luck. Our advice is to be patient, follow the on-screen instructions precisely, and start with a wired connection (USB or Ethernet) before attempting to configure Wi-Fi. The PPL software itself is powerful, acting as a standalone application or a plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. It provides granular control over print settings, ICC profiles, and layout, and is an essential tool for achieving professional results.

The Heart of the Matter: The LUCIA PRO 10-Ink System

This is where the magic happens. The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer uses a sophisticated 10-colour pigment ink system. For anyone who, like one artist reviewer, has been disappointed by the “fuzzy and dull” output of dye-based all-in-one printers, the leap to pigment ink is a revelation. Pigment inks consist of microscopic solid particles suspended in a liquid. When printed, these particles sit on top of the paper’s surface, resulting in prints that are incredibly sharp, light-fast, and water-resistant. This archival quality is non-negotiable for professional work intended for sale or display.

The ink set is intelligently designed. It includes dedicated Photo Black and Matte Black inks, and crucially, you don’t have to manually swap them when changing paper types. The printer has separate channels for each, so it automatically selects the correct black ink for the media you’re using—a massive time and ink saver. The addition of a Chroma Optimiser cartridge is a game-changer for glossy prints. It applies a clear coat over the ink, levelling the ink droplet height. This reduces bronzing (where colours appear to shift in hue at certain viewing angles) and enhances black density, creating prints with a uniform, professional finish. The result of this technology is staggering. We printed a series of challenging images—portraits with subtle skin tones, landscapes with deep shadows and vibrant skies, and monochrome architectural shots. In every case, the prints were breathtaking. The colour fidelity was spot-on, the tonal transitions were buttery smooth, and the black and white prints, thanks to the dedicated grey and black inks, exhibited a depth and richness that is simply unattainable on lesser printers. This is the quality that makes the investment worthwhile, giving you the power to create prints that are undeniably professional. For anyone serious about printmaking, the stunning output from this ink system alone justifies its place in your studio.

Masterful Media Handling and A3+ Capability

A printer’s versatility is defined by the range of papers it can handle, and the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer excels here. It features two primary paper paths: a top-loading auto-feed tray and a manual rear-feed slot. The top tray is perfect for standard photo papers like glossy, lustre, and satin up to A3+ size. The true professional capability, however, lies in the manual feed tray. This provides a straight-through paper path, essential for handling thick, heavy, and delicate fine art media without bending or scuffing them. We tested it with Canon’s own Pro Platinum paper as well as third-party heavyweight cotton rag and baryta papers. The printer fed each sheet flawlessly, and the results were consistently superb.

The ability to create borderless prints up to the maximum A3+ (13×19 inch) size is a huge advantage for creating full-bleed artwork and photographs for framing. Furthermore, the printer supports custom panoramic printing up to a length of 990.6mm, opening up exciting creative possibilities for landscape photographers. While one user wished for an integrated paper roll holder and cutter, that feature is typically reserved for much larger, more expensive roll-fed printers. For a desktop sheet-fed model, the PRO-300’s media handling is comprehensive and robust, catering to virtually any need a professional photographer or fine artist might have.

What Other Users Are Saying

Our positive experience is largely mirrored by other dedicated photographers and artists who have invested in this printer. One user eloquently summed up the core value proposition after wasting “hundreds of £’s” on disappointing online printing services. For them, finally achieving a print that perfectly matched their calibrated screen was the ultimate prize. Another praised the “rich and vibrant” pigments and found the printer to be reasonably economical for larger prints, confirming our own assessment of its target use case. For artists, the switch from dye-based inks to the PRO-300’s pigment system was a transformative moment, providing the durability and vibrancy needed to sell professional art prints.

However, the feedback isn’t universally perfect. The most common thread among negative reviews centres on the setup process. As we noted, some users, particularly on macOS, have faced significant software conflicts and connectivity issues that led to immense frustration. Another user’s initial prints were “grey and not sharp” due to a setup issue with a missed piece of packing material, highlighting how critical a perfect setup is to achieving the printer’s true potential. This feedback underscores that while the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer is a phenomenally capable machine, it demands a careful and patient approach to installation to unlock its performance.

How Does the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer Compare to the Alternatives?

While the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer occupies a specific professional niche, it’s useful to compare it to other types of photo printers to understand who it’s truly for. The alternatives cater to entirely different needs, focusing on portability and immediacy over ultimate quality and size.

1. Canon Zoemini Mini Photo Printer

The Canon Zoemini is at the opposite end of the printing spectrum. It’s an incredibly compact, pocket-sized printer that uses ZINK (Zero Ink) technology to produce small, sticker-backed 2×3 inch prints directly from a smartphone. There are no ink cartridges to manage, making it the ultimate in portability and convenience for social events, journaling, or decorating. Compared to the PRO-300, there is no contest in quality, size, or permanence. The Zoemini is for fun, instant gratification and sharing physical snapshots on the fly. You would choose the Zoemini for a party or a scrapbook, whereas you’d choose the PRO-300 to create a gallery exhibition.

2. INSTAX mini LINK2 Smartphone Instant Printer

Similar to the Zoemini, the INSTAX mini LINK2 is all about speed, portability, and fun. It uses traditional instant film to produce credit-card-sized prints with that classic, nostalgic look. It connects wirelessly to a smartphone and its companion app offers creative features like adding frames, stickers, and even embedding videos into the print via a QR code. The LINK2 is a social tool, designed for capturing and sharing memories in the moment. It appeals to a younger demographic and those who love the tangible, retro charm of instant film. It’s an excellent choice for events and creative personal projects, but it’s not designed for the colour-critical, large-format, archival output that is the sole mission of the PRO-300.

3. Phomemo M08F Portable Thermal Printer

The Phomemo M08F carves out a different niche entirely: portable document printing. This is a thermal printer, meaning it uses special thermal paper and no ink at all to create monochrome (black and white) prints up to A4 size. Its main advantages are its slim, highly portable design and freedom from ink cartridges, making it ideal for mobile professionals who need to print contracts, invoices, or boarding passes on the go. While it can print images, the quality is strictly monochrome and not intended for photographic purposes. You would choose the Phomemo for business travel and administrative tasks, situations where the PRO-300’s size, weight, and colour capabilities would be entirely impractical.

Our Final Verdict: Is the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer Worth It?

After extensive testing and analysis, our conclusion is unequivocal: for the serious photographer, discerning artist, or small design studio, the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer is a spectacular investment. It delivers on its promise of gallery-quality prints with breathtaking colour accuracy, deep, rich blacks, and superb longevity. The 10-ink LUCIA PRO system is the star of the show, rendering images with a subtlety and fidelity that can genuinely match a calibrated display. While the initial setup can present challenges for some, and the long-term cost of ink is a significant consideration, the results speak for themselves.

This is not a printer for the casual user. This is a specialised tool for creators who have grown tired of compromising on their final output. It is the solution to the frustration of inconsistent print labs and the key to unlocking complete creative control from capture to final print. If you are ready to elevate your work and produce tangible art that truly represents your vision, the PRO-300 is one of the best desktop machines you can buy.

If you’ve decided the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3+ Photo Printer is the right fit for your creative workflow, you can check its current price and availability here.