Canon Pixma Pro-200: Printing from PL4 or the Canon Print Utility

Just replacing my previous printer with the Pro-200. Understand I can print from either PL4 or the Canon software. Two questions, please:
(1) does anyone have a preference for which to use, and can you please share the reason for your preference?
(2) if I choose to use the Canon software, does anyone have a preference for the best way to setup the export file and type? Note that I am interested in producing the best quality images on pro glossy papers at maximum size (13" wide). Color and B&W.

All questions and comments welcome. Thank you very much.

I always export at the finished pixel size for a resolution of 240ppi to a 16 bit uncompressed TIFF file.

Then I use macOS Preview to do the printing, including setting the appropriate ICC profile for my printer/paper/ink

N.B. I said export for 240ppi because that is the pixel resolution I use for exporting to give the desired size in centimetres. I am not talking about the dpi (dots per inch) resolution of the printer. That has to up to you to decide what quality you want.

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I suspect that you will need do some experiments to answer your question definitively. That’s what I found in trying to optimize prints from a lower end Canon printer. My raw workflow: on a Win10 PC and within PL4, I export a resized, 16-bit TIFF file with an embedded aRGB profile to NIK Output Sharpener Pro at a usual resolution of 300 ppi (using the NIK OSP settings menu). After making sharpening adjustments there I save the file to the same folder as the original (should appear in your thumbnails next to the original). If you stay within PL4 for printing, then you have a choice to make: Managed by Printer or Managed by DxO Photolab. Using Canon papers, I have always had better luck using the Managed by Printer setting (using the Canon XPS printer driver). This has been true even when printing the same file from LR6 which I also sometimes use. Using the appropriate Canon ICC paper profiles doesn’t improve things. I suspect it’s a PL4 / LR6 to Windows printing pipeline issue, but I gave up taking it any further. The PL4 printing function is not well liked by many on this forum and improvements are rumored to be on the way (fingers crossed). But it’s serviceable, particularly for the mostly amateur kind of things I print and I know that some of my observations may be idiosyncratic to my setup. Joanna said how she prints on her Mac, and she really knows her printing! Many on this forum print from LR, others say great things about Qimage. As Canon has several versions of its printing / layout software, there may be others on the forum with experience who will comment. I do know that Keith Cooper of Northlight Images (UK) at http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/ uses Canon and Epson supplied software for some of his printing and his great printer reviews (including the Pro-200) might be of interest.

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