The 24-inch and 44-inch models of Canon's imagePrograf line of large page printers have a new 8-color system (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, matte black, photo cyan, photo magenta and gray) and Canon's "Lucia Ex" ink-set, which can achieve greater details in shadows, deeper black density, and improved scratch resistance.

Canon also added a built-in color calibration function that compensates for color variations caused by age and environmental photo effects and increases the color representation across the wider printing formats.

The imagePrograf models also have an increased output speed that can produce prints at twice the normal speed of the current 8-color models and at half the normal ink consumption. Canon clocked the 44-inch model at an average of 80 seconds and the 24-inch model at roughly 35 seconds to produce a B0-sized page. Each of the S-series printers also comes with a 160GB hard drive that allows the printer to print multiple pages without the use of a computer.

Both models will ship this April with a price tag of $4,995 for the 44-inch model and $2,995 for the 24-inch model.