Other info on printing with HP printers,films, instructions, PDF documents, see both my site here, or here. My HP B9180 
review here
The day the huge unmarked box arrived by lift gate truck, the start of a new printing era was about to begin. We pushed the box into the entrée leaving it unopened and untouched per HP’s instructions. The suspense was only slightly alleviated by sneaking a peek inside the box handle holes.
The printer was the pinnacle of many years of work by HP, of which they made a number of graphic arts professionals part of the shaping of this project. We asked for a dream machine, with more bells and whistles than any current printer. We wanted it all. The features we asked for are changing the realm of inkjet printing forever more. The box was in front of me to make good on this promise!
A few days later two very friendly young engineers came all the way from Barcelona to ensure the out of box experience was a great.
Set up couldn’t have been more straightforward. The instructions were clear and concise, illustrations well done, and there is a DVD to go with it all if really needed.
To take the printer out the box is historic moment that forever moves the level of inkjet printing into new realms. More about concept than image quality alone.
Just a few tips on installing the Z printers. Make sure you don't throw the temporary printhead plugs far as they have quite a bit of ink in them. I did and my wall now looks like one of those amusement park paint centrifuge illustrations. Also make sure that when setting up the Z the mechanical paper feed switch does not become disconnected under the body. Mine did become just slightly disconnected preventing paper feeds. As always, if you have ever had another Z printer installed you must remove the driver/queue before proceeding if not the paths will surely get crossed before long.
The Z series printers are production roll and sheet feed large format inkjet printers with unrivaled feature sets by any other competing printer. They are 12 ink, 11 color pigmented ink high stability stand mounted machines. This is a the first launch of a LFP with the HP Vivera Pigment lineup. This series was preceeded by the HP B9180 Pro Photosmart, and the kiosk printer, SnapFish. They are a new ground up printer with a lot of brand new interface features, and integrated hardware and integrated software from both HP and co-developers. Read on.
There are two widths available being 24" and 44" with inclinations of photo printer with raster driver, and the GP packages with a Postscript embedded hardware RIP by Adobe, and GP stands for Graphics package which includes the Advanced Profiling Solution. APS is also optional for the standard photo printers. Although the standard photo models are exactly the same in every aspect except the additional card, to upgrade on site a technician would surely be required.
The Postscript option comes with more memory than the standard models and has all the language options included for vector and raster image processing. The UI for the Postscript version is slightly different which allows for direct placement of jobs via the web server, and reprinting any spooled jobs, even saving prints permanently on the hard drive for print on demand locations.
The Z printers use encapsulated polymer pigment inks developed for the entire line, now and future products for the pigmented photo printers, called Vivera pigments.
The Z2100 and B 9180 use a classic 4 hue inkset with CMYK and dilutions of lC, lM, and light gray, as well as a matte black for fine art media, and or porous absorbent paper stock.
All HP Designjet and the Photosmart 9180 are pumped cartridges. This is necessary for consistent fast printing eliminating possible ink line starvation, and also reduces risk of air in the tubes.
Target market for the Z 3100 required a radical new approach to HP’s photo printers.
HP’s conviction was to maximize lightfastness, and in turn print permanence. When formulating the inks there are many compromises linked to the choices made according to requirements of the particular technology. The Vivera inks dye and pigments are leaders in stability, and above all lightfastness. These specific qualities limit having a huge gamut within the standard CMYK colorants, thus adding primaries extend regions of the gamut into zones never before had with pigment printers, yet allow the maximum lightfastness. HP also chose to maintain an almost pure black carbon pigment, with just enough blue components to lessen the naturally red pure carbon look.
These are important steps into making the Z3100 the obvious choice for museum grade printing, and gallery prints.
Z 3100 models use a light Cyan, Magenta, light Magenta, Yellow, K (Black), matte K, Gray, light Gray, Orange, Green, and Violet, and finally transparent ink Gloss Enhancer. Note the Cyan rather classic Cyan is not included as light Cyan covers prepress proofing, and any extensions past there are easily covered by the addition of violet. I was worried about the smoothness of transitions on Cyan ramps yet in fact the ramps are seamless and very smooth.
The added primaries build colors that were previously not attainable with the classic 8 ink set-ups. This gamut extension is ideal for certain types of photography in particular landscape and or art work composed of bright colors in the originals where vivid bright saturated colors produce realistic scenes and repro colors closer to what your eye sees and digital capture.
The quad blacks are superbly handled in the printer. Switching between photo blacks and matte black is completely transparent to the user as each ink has its own channel. While I thought all four blacks are used on porous papers including of course fine art , canvas, traditional art media, after checking with HP engineering it is not true. On glossy and semi gloss photo type media the matte black isn't used as it would not adhere anyway, and the Dmax of the black (photo) is darker than the matte black can produce.
What the tri blacks offer (quad on heavy fine art media) are smooth transitions, with absolutely neutral tone up to the lightest regions of the prints. While it may be a surprise to some, most printers add some composite colors to enhance the tonal range. HP print only grays when instructed with zero composite. To take it further, HP is the only printer that when the values of r=g=b prints only gray in these regions. That tells you that the grayscale and gray tones in the prints are dead neutral every time, but also when you batch print, color and B&W side by side, it is possible to have the B&W printed in K only, right beside a full color image.
Combine this with Gloss Enhancer and you have opened up potential for printing B&W with the highest quality achievable on all substrates including glossy. This was a challenge that had to be met, as the manufacturers of B&W darkroom materials have stopped producing the majority of consumables needed for reproduction of fine art B&W.
HP is the first to meet this challenge with an extraordinary print permanence, all along keeping ease of use at a very attainable level for all.
What is proving to be the best kept secret is transparent ink called Gloss Enhancer. Naming such an ink was a problem due to the process variable that affects its application.
It is a polymer that is applied with it’s own print head channel finely tuned by a screening algorithm that has been calculated to add varying amounts of this transparent ink in areas that cause gloss differential and bronzing. It is not a varnish that covers over all areas, nor a single layer coating without screening. It is an integral part of the concept of printing excellent gloss and satin prints with the character of traditional darkroom printing. I can’t see using a printer without it. It is that good. Most users, most of the times don’t reach the maximum gamut, yet the Gloss Enhancer is something that adds value to anyone printing on photo glossy stocks, and proofing as well. It all but eliminates gloss differential, and an added benefit is GE also eliminates bronzing to a large degree, even reduces illuminant metamerism. It does have a slight coloration if viewed at very oblique angles 20º, yet few even notice this.
Light Gray, light Cyan, and light Magenta (and combinations thereof) causes gloss differential. There are two modes for GE, Eco mode which ink the dominant zones of the before mentioned inks, yet not the paper white, or the highest coverage setting, Whole Page which inks the same areas as Eco plus the paper white to the page set up border. For gallery prints you’ll want to use Whole page. For other work and satin you’ll find Eco mode cheaper but also more efficient to run. Please note that it is image content dependant so ink usage is entirely linked to image content.
Gloss Enhancer goes a long way in making excellent glossy and satin prints B&W or color free from annoying gloss differential and bronzing while providing a lab quality print with the added print permanence that stable pigments can give.
Deciding to use a volume of 130ml is a very reasonable one from all technical standpoints. Problem with this is the established market leader has larger capacity cartridges. So should HP follow suite with all the inconveniences that go with larger cartridges? I think not but in the end HP may go that route, due to market pressure. Truth is 130ml cartridges are the compromise for consistent printing within the expiry date and the capacity without stratification, or varying degrees of flocage etc. Now the price: many will argue the price of Epson’s 220ml is less per ml than the per ml of HP 130ml carts. Well simple, HP markets them at a bi pack of 130 ml carts for an equal cost as the competitor. That being equal and considering the lightfastness on the HP far superior I’d say the cost per ml a bargain on the HP.
The 24" model is delivered as far as I know with 69ml cartridges, whereas the 44" comes with 130ml cartridges . At least 14ml each tank is used for initialisation or more depending on the model as the ink lines are shorter on the 24". Alignment , which is done automatically upon set up, also nozzle checks, all are part of the initial purge.
The HP print heads are scalable lithographic printed thermal technology heads. The number of nozzles for the curious is 1056 per channel X12. The volume delivered is fixed but not the same volume in picolitres for all colors. Matte black, M, Y, and the added primaries are 6 pl, all the rest including Gloss Enhancer are 4pl. The maximum firing frequency is 48kHz, less of course if the print commands are firing all nozzles continuously. This translates to faster print times at equal settings over the current market leader thanks to the advantage of thermal over electro-mechanical technology. What is more interesting is the heads have drop detection for constant checking of each and every nozzle. If the measured output is less than expected routine maintenance is programmed to clean the nozzles affected by a purge and wipe. The level of cleaning depends on the measured output levels. If the routine maintenance cannot remedy the flow in the individual nozzles they can be remapped to a contingent inline nozzle on the same bus (all background processes) to double up on subsequent passes leaving error free printing. The number of heads that can be remapped is quite surprising. This vastly improves consistent band free printing, but also increases the print head duty cycle substantially. The system so far has worked flawlessly even a little dust or lint picked up on rag media was correctly detected automatically and alerted me of the need for a cleaning. On a large print this is a great feature indeed. The Z series are able to detect not just nozzles with a less than optimum flow " but "misdirected drops" which are also masked. We are able to detect the nozzles of the 12 colors (>12762 nozzles) in around 50 seconds.
What has always been a technical and costly procedure if you have to change a head on the Z series or 9180 you simply plug in a new one and recalibrate the printer. Change only the bi-tone head indicated by the utility. The heads are around the 70$ US and can run through an estimated 2.5 liters of ink. The cost to have new heads then becomes quite insignificant compared to the amount of printing you get from each bi-head. Considering that each head change brings the writing system back to new, it simply makes sense. HP has typically been the Volvo’s of the printer world. They are found running perfectly many years after the technology has eclipsed date purchased. Fact is all inkjet print heads have MTBF rates that cannot be ignored. The rate of failure or use isn’t indicated anywhere but you’d be surprised at the point when the degree of flow on the majority of nozzles falls behind an acceptable level. Not only has HP addressed this with constant monitoring of the nozzles and a remap algorithm, but letting you change the print heads for the cost of one large fine print, giving you new print conditions. This requires only a few minutes of time to have the machine in perfect accordance with factory spec, retaining print consistency. Ultimately thermal prints have more varied output over time, thus auto calibration keeps a constant control and validation on the actual state of printing. This is a milestone in itself for limited edition printing, with a guarantee that simply can only be had with the Z series printers.
The Z series however is a different type of sensor. Z series have an optical drop pad detector that measures the firing of each individual nozzle by detecting the amount of light passing upon firing. The signals from the photosites are used to build a data table of any nozzles needing attention and or remapping of any nozzles with reduced or zero flow. Not only does the sensor then correct for clogged nozzles but also for those that have improper direction of the droplet projection. This is a guarantee that when printing you will have all dots reproduced by the screening with correct placement, band free printing.
The printer can be left on where there are daily maintenance routines performed. This is basically a once a day purge and cap of a few droplets of ink. Included is the optical drop detection, thus the printer is ready at all times to print without fault due to the print heads. If you turn off the printer the boot up of the printer computer takes some time, and a higher amount of make ready routines make it advantageous to leave it on as recommended. I do turn mine off though as the fan is albeit quiet, but in a small quiet room still an irritation.
A tip though on the sensor, since it is just before the park and cap station any lint and hair will be prone to depositing itself right on top of the sensor. Once a month open the top and clean off the opening of the sensor.
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HP decided early on to favourise ink stability, lightfastness, and print permanence putting these before any other qualities. With the demise of almost all producers of B&W material, this is a step, and very serious approach to continuing the conservation of photography and digitally reproduced art. Color photographic RA4 process is far from the stability of today’s pigment printers, and HP takes it further than the average.
What seems to be a renaissance of returning to the print as the permanent storage media tells you the importance of choices towards maximizing permanence. With all the changes in file formats, application native formats, the rapid degradation of CDs and DVDs, one has to wonder in 20 years if you will be able to find your digital shoes box, and open your images if you do. With print life on high quality media even exposed to handling the prints off the Z are up to this challenge. Better yet when properly framed and conserved the Z takes print permanence to new levels.
Of course when Henry presented the first results of Vivera pigments to the upper staff of HP, they were expectedly impressed with the results. Yet I was overjoyed with a number more or less in the fine print. It is the bare bulb testing that proves the inkset so stable. Not only are the lightfastness numbers consistent across the board, but the stability on exposed prints point you to the fact that the HP pigments are at the same consistent resistance even when exposed without glass. Most printers appreciate the surface of fine art media, especially canvas. Putting it behind glass though is not sharing the sentiment of the texture quality. The Z printer is better placed for expositions non-glass mounted without risking much in the way of lightfastness (naturally physical surface damage a higher risk).
At this time test are continuing at WIR. I suggest you monitor their site regularly for final results.
For this review I’ll just extract some numbers from the B&W 9180 WIR results;
All behind glass> 250 years, all bare bulb >200 years.
So far on the Z 3100;
All except ID Glossy (>150 years) are >230 years, all >100 years bare bulb in color non-glass mounted. Same for B&W for bare bulb, and +>250 years for glass mounted. I don’t know why there is a difference in B&W as the inks are exactly the same in all B&W except the mid gray in the Z 3100.
Compare other current inksets and you’ll quickly see just how stable the HP inks are and the vast gains to be had in image permanence on the majority of media types over the competition.
Wilhelm Imaging Research
Some would say this is the most amazing and innovative feature that any printer company have put out up to date. I would agree, considering what drew me to HP in the first place was the Auto Closed Loop Calibration that came about on the HP DJ 10,20, and 50 PS printers some time ago.
I’m convinced that it is a combination of many features that make the i1 Embedded Spectrophotometer (let’s now call it as HP does ESP) a revolution in inkjet printers but we must consider it’s integration with all the components to really see it’s value, and why.
The ESP is co-developed by Gretag Macbeth now X-Rite and HP. The technology used is the current i1 sometimes called rev D. It uses white LED illumination with a spectral distribution of 430-700 nm. The aperture is 4.5 so the same as i1 handhelds but the minimum patch size is 10mm vs. 6 mm (i1). Even though the ESP can read down to 400nm the illuminant does not contain light below 430 and it’s unlikely that optical brighteners will convert the >430 nm light waves to UV band light. Hence the notion of a UV cut spectrophotometer.
The ESP has a built in calibration tile, and compensates for differences in height from the surface through innovative lens design.
If there are two regrets I have the first is I would have liked a spectro with bands spaced at 10nm rather than 20 nm, and I would have liked a way to clean or know the opening is clear of lint or gummed ink.
The jury is still out on whether or not UV cut is the best approach. Graeme Gill a very prominent color developer thinks that since the viewing conditions including both view lights, and daylight will have UV, then to exclude it in profiling will lead to differences in expectations. I am on this side, as I dislike the surprises in any case between expectations of the measured values compared to what we eventually see.
Yet the fact to have the ESP leads to possibilities that you wouldn’t want to do without. All third party developers have access to a good SDK to implement any aspects of the ESP for calibration, profiling, and verification of control strips. Ultimately much more is possible, which in time we may see some features specifically for market sectors with custom measurements per print etc. Having an ESP onboard is not redundancy; it is a step towards hardware level consistency. Some have said well I already have a spectro. You’ll never be able to attain the precision of this spectro on a handheld instrument. Ease of use, automation, all make it a must have feature. Since the goal of a true production LFP is to be able to print and reprint with consistency, having an onboard device with proprietary implementation, you could conceivably print the same exposition at multiple remote sites anywhere simultaneously.
Auto Closed Loop Calibration is the foray of HP that is only now finding its importance to fine art and photographic reproduction. It is nothing more than printing out a set of density patches from solid to zero value in increments fine enough to build a precision graph of the output derived from density measurements. What is amazing is that this is done in the printer with no other intervention other then the user’s request from the utility or front panel. No delicate and substantial equipment necessary, no learning curve, no extra applications. Simple but extremely adapted to bring back into spec, the printer’s writing system taking into account the actual paper used, state of the heads and inks, atmospheric conditions pretty much all the variables which affect consistency.
The printer sends a series of patches of 16 tints for each ink tank less Gloss Enhancer, and Matte Black if on glossy. The print is made occupying around 17x24 cm with hexagonal patches for a tight fit and reduced flare off adjacent patches. The patches are tints only, there are no overprinting color. It is in fact a process that makes the output follow an optimized linearization.
The dry time is set according to the paper automatically, then the printer reels in the print and is measured by the ESP. The process takes less than tens minutes including dry time. The printer then calculates a look up table for corrections on all incoming jobs for this media. The table is lodged on the printer’s hard disk, and is managed to all LAN clients, as are profiles. Profiles are actually uploaded to the client computers as well as residing on the printer with the LUTs.
The only way to maintain such tight calibration is a guarantee of consistency from print to print, even after changing consumables, or the variables that are not controllable such as R.H. Only HP printers have this feature, which for limited edition fine art series or any print runs to be run non-contiguous make all the difference in the world.
To rigorously maintain calibrations also guarantees that the printer will retain usability of profiles, factory, or custom. In fact calibration is should be done much more frequently than profiling. When you profile a current up to date calibration must be in place before proceeding. If this is not the case the advantage of the system wide calibration and profiling potential is discounted.
This calibration is of course absolutely necessary when changing print heads.
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Having the ESP onboard is the key to opening the doors to automated profiling. This is not only with the embedded hardware profiling but also for others who use the SDK to create their own profiling system. So far Advanced Profiling System (APS) is the only one I have worked with. I know rip makers EFI and GMG have included auto calibration, but I have no idea if third parties (outside X-Rite) have made profiling options with the Z. It is possible though, if the demand is there.
The built in profiler is a limited patch fully automatic set up, that has met its goal of being the world’s easiest profile creation tool. In essence it’s a one button around seven clicks profiler according to HP color scientist Johan Lammens. It couldn’t be easier, and is something that has to be applauded. To bring such simplicity to something so complicated is a huge step to bringing an ICC profiled workflow to any user who wishes to. It has what it needs in terms of set up for most users needs. For users who need more the APS option is promising to give them the advantages to continue using the onboard ESP, adding larger charts rgb, and CMYK, choice of a couple of white point temperatures, an editor for custom tuning profiles either per job (client requests per job or style without modifying the document) or for closer tuning a match when there are discrepancies. APS also adds the all important strongly suggested monitor calibration and profiling. It is a very nice adaptation from the i1 Display Match program. It has some statistical information at the end of profiling interesting and informative at the same time. Some have criticized the need for yet another monitor calibration instrument when many users will already have one or more. I feel that it is of utmost importance to insist to all users that to have a match to screen the monitor has to be calibrated and further profiled. Without it no end of color mismatches will occur. No end of customer concerns, most being based on the prints not matching the screen. The price point for APS is very good indeed and I don’t see the price of the HP (i1Display2) to have much significance in the overall package of APS. If you already have your preferred device, you can continue using it and it’s application, just as I do. Yet to use the HP APS with the colorimeter as a dongle, more importantly to ensure that user really think about calibrating their monitors is simply something that brings it all together for all users.
Profiling within the utility is a very straightforward process. You launch the Color Center and click on create and install ICC profile. Next if you have a paper already loaded it selects that paper. Drop down the triangle for more info if you need to. Of course if not you select whatever media and you’ll have to load it. If the calibration is valid it shows okay. If not it will do a calibration first (10 minutes or so), then proceed to print, dry, and measure, creating the profile totally in the background, transparent to the users. This takes around 20 minutes for the 463 patch rgb chart. Please note that there are two important variables for profiling from a users point. First is if you want to use Gloss Enhancer on photo media. It’s your choice. In any case the machine calculates the profile on your choice, then adds a alternate profile on the other setting based on an assumed character of that media. Be careful though as I find it is not as good as making the profiles separately and naming them as such rather than using the assumed profile alternates.
This shows that in the automatic naming it may judicious to add something to the auto name to indicate your preferences at run time.
The onboard profiler is efficient and easy, extremely easy to use. It covers for making profiles to ascertain that the printer is producing prints with a repeatable target. With the Auto calibration, the onboard profiler makes it a simple task to maintain a high standard of controlled print characteristics without investing in third party equipment and or knowledge in using any supplementary gear.
There are some users however who are well versed in color management and will need to have more options for their workflow. To use the onboard ESP, you will need the APS option. It is a very customized hybrid built by both HP and Gretag/ X-Rite based on the color engine of Profile maker 5+6, with many parts of the interface echoing i1Match. There are a lot of features completely new, or at least adapted for the HP printer and ESP. The interface sports a clean wizard style single window that is easy to navigate without missing steps. Almost everything has been done to prevent you from making any type of error, almost as foolproof as the Print Center Easy (built in profiling) can be. You must have the HP Colorimeter plugged in whenever using APS. You can also use the i1D1+2, Lt or the Huey with APS, but the option is sold only with the HP Colorimeter and APS application. This insures that the notions of having a calibrated monitor are essential for any amount of screen to print matching be at all possible. It is not required that you actually use the APS module for your calibrations but there are preferences as in i1 Match to remind you the frequency of monitor profiles validity. I have tried the monitor profiling side. It went as expected with the nice interface surprise at the end with statistics and delta E matching. Having what I believe a superior calibration application though, I just use that and use APS for print profiling
Times for a calibration from the utility are around 9 minutes. Times for printing a Tc9.18 chart with GE on the whole page are 10 minutes print time, <4m dry time, <10 m scan time, and about 6-8 minutes calculation time. It does use multi threading so your actual config could be faster than this. There still is a problem with APS where it uses too many processor cycles causing system starvation and page outs.
The options you have are settings for white point so far 5000 K and 6500 K. They really need a tungsten correlated temperature there too such as Illum. A 2856 or 3200 for galleries. A very nice feature is the ability to print on an external printer and bring it back into the Z for remote (well remote to the Z) profiling. You will at this point need another LFP as the large patch charts are not yet tiled to multi-page documents.
Update: APS version 1.3 now fully supports multipage printing and reading, autmated or outsourced manual on all formats of paper down to the minimum width as long as a minimum length of 30cm is respected. I tried on A4 sheets which takes 5 A4 size pages to print and read the Tc9.18 charts in rgb. You can print the small patch charts but that defeats the purpose. There are some quick try charts for one off paper samples with the Easy charts that were first seen in i1 Match version 3. The two standard charts are the Tc9.18 for rgb, and if you have a rip to output to, ECI 2002. It would have been better to see more expansion in the chart list or flexibility in adding charts.
Inside APS is a simplified profile editor. It can be used to customize a profile for a client’s bias. For example if they prefer a slightly higher contrast, a bluer tint, with a warmer grey balance it is all done with sliders with a reference image before and after. You can save out the edit list to base tests on and further tweak any control you like. It could be used for either side of the monitor or printer sides, but with the HP colorimeter your screen will be very well calibrated from the start.
The good news is you can drag and drop APS profiles on ProfileMaker 5 and or PM Profile Editor and modify the and or recreate the profile from the spectral information contained in the APS profile. This way you can change the correlated white point, black generation if using CMYK profiles, the rendering style, or any other characteristic that may be lacking for your use.
For the price it does a lot and does it quite well. It does at this time fall short on flexibility, so as long as you are aware that it has current limitation of printing on large sheets or roll, and no Tungsten white points, amongst other oversights, it is still a good buy if it serves your purposes.
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I've updated my 9180 review with details and screen captures on EDE 5.1.4 in use with the 9180. Reporting on XF will come. Q6643D EFI Designer Edition 5.1 RIP for HP XL International
Update: although I've had better luck with EDE, I can't get XF to work having problems on both OsX and Windows XP. I can see reason why GMG insists to have people come to install the high end rips, as they are very complicated indeed. On both Mac and Windows XF is a very complicated series of apps, and frameworks that once installed is difficult to unistall.
My experience with the beta, and first GM of EDE prompted EFI to send some new software with the bug fixes anticipating users reports including mine.
What a difference it made. The EFI Designer Edition 5.1.4 not only installed without a hitch, but also all the automatic updaters ran happily in the background, downloading and applying the Service Pack dot update to the initial installation. It even saved out the updater (s) in a folder created on the desktop. This is helpful if you ever need to update the system, change hard drives, or reinstall.
The EAC licence code feature also now works as expected so the installation is straight forward, simple, and efficient. I don’t have the HP version but assume the installation will be exactly the same. I will suggest any users with the first versions of EDE 5 ask for new CD’s, or access online updates.
The EFI site is hard to find things on, such as a search for EDE yields nothing. You have to type Designer Edition for example to bring you to pages on EDE. . HP EFI DE is still at V4.2 on their help pages and updates. If you finally find the EDE product pages and click on support you go into a continuous loop back to ColorProof FX. Proofing support Plans are still listing EDE 4.2 so they really need to have their product managers get on top of their current products. Later I found where HP EDE updates and support could be accessed directly in the application help browser rather by accident. You have to find it under HP support in the help menu, and then go forward a few pages to find it here.
Once downloaded, you can install the update.
This is true only for the HP EDE, the full EFI EDE now works perfectly with the automatic and manual updates from the same Help menu.
Update Profiles, is a bit unclear. If you read the text at the top of the page it’ll work, but it should have been a hyper link with cookies to remember your selections, or a XML log that version and date checks your downloads.
The EDE help PDF says there are HP Professional Pantone Emulation swatch books under the tools menu. It says it is only available to HP customers whatever that is supposed to mean. Probably that means that it is only in the HP EDE version. I do remember seeing it before in the HP beta. It was a super power user tool for personalising printed Pantone colors. Surprisingly EDE 5.1 supports Multicolor profiles (I’ll assume this means N-color profiles useful for more than 4 primary color channel printing. Yet no profiles are available for the Z printer?
The interface is attractive and the main panel attractive and intuitive. The problem is the settings are in the preferences. There you’ll not easily find or understand what you need to do to get to print.
You’ll be bouncing around from job settings back to the main panel, back to preferences, back to main panel, back to the job settings.
There are no tool tips to indicate why options are not available so users will no doubt flounder about between the prefs panels and the help PDF. I still cannot set custom page size without input source height error and other faults that should be easily processed. For a rip not to print what is out of artboard or is clipped is not acceptable. Just as in any other driver or rip it must print what portions it can, only to be pre-empted by a print preview. Adobe Photoshop CS3 got it right this time, fully color managed and size / placement proxies well done.
You now can edit and close custom page sizes, yet cannot edit the name without deleting and starting over. If the custom page size is in use you have to modify the job (s) with it before modifying the custom page set up.
EDE has a habit of sending document info at 72 PPI that is totally incorrect. Printing from vector programs like Illustrator creates many problems, as the plot will be incorrectly placed because of this. You are obliged then to check every single job coming from vector programs, a BIG bug in the PPD I’d say.
Custom page sizes do not show up in the page set up in the driver menus, even in the EFI Software Virtual Printer, hence not a very good way to implement custom page sizes other than for printers who will buy batches of cut sheets that will not vary. Some of the media sizes do not work at all, for example 24” roll does not work creating a very strange plot preview with the document being centered in a 24"x15metre plot..
There are few relative sizes in the EFI software printer PPD,you’re your custom managed media at a system level are not going to work out. The default installation includes too many relative sizes in all formats, AINSI, ISO, DIC , etc which should be localised for system level unit measures and localisations.
The installed default media list lacks a vast choice but with the updates, both a fairly complete list of media and their respective ICC profiles will be installed automatically in the background.
No GE manual control; it is however available as a media profile/profile, reasoning behind this is flawed.
No provisions are available for “save inked” cut off which is HP talk for cutting off the plot at the end of document printed area. No one these days want to plot a full page for a few or a one off image on a large format size. If the custom pages worked, this would be less of a problem, but see above!
Finding printers requires some time to build the list be it TCP/IP, Bonjour, or other. Even though EFI have corrected most major bugs that prevented the rip from handling the simplest of plots, I still can’t recommend software that is in this state. If EFI can fix the obvious bugs and UI faults I will recommend it. It is a good program for printers that are already established but this review is about the Z3100 for which EFI DE is simply not ready, but in much better shape than before with version 5.1-5.1.3.
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This is the rip I’ve been waiting for. It’s not yet finished as far as the driver goes but IP7 seems to be fine. The interface seems a little cleaner than IP6, simplified in a way. New users will find it quicker and easier to use than before. It always has been a powerful rip for production printing where you can make nesting placements, packages or whatever you need to with an outstanding simplicity. It does this with the color matching pretty much transparent to the user. In terms of color there is still some things that need to be reworked but the first test shows exactly what and why I though the Z printers need ImagePrint. Most gradients have the smoothness that the Z should be capable of with the driver. Where as the driver color gradients have a lot of contrast they have some problem in producing a smooth long gradient. IP7 not only produces much more shadow detail but the gradients are smooth. The reds extend to the limits where the driver reds have some difficulty having reversals due to GCR and or separations. The delivered beta for the Z however is not without fault. There are some contouring problems and transitions with abrupt edges. There were only two profiles provided at the time for testing. I would hope that the transitions are improved, otherwise it would be a disappointment to have a shipping version with these faults.
The calibration in IP works as expected and gives you something of a large checker playing field. It takes 10 minutes for a calibration in IP with no options, thus automatic. I didn’t find options for GE, but it is included in the media set up. There are not options as in the driver , Eco, Whole Page, or off. Number of passes or max detail, are set in the media "profile". In any case the screens are unique to IP thus max passes and detail are a driver control that are independent of HP driver settings, and coded by Colorbyte in IP controls. I noticed the data path is coming into the LCD front panel saying that it is in PCL G3UI. This just says that IP is sending out native HP language data, so it should as fast or faster than the driver. In use I see IP sending to the printer faster than the raster driver, a lot faster than EFI, but EFI has to plot the entire page on a roll as the page set ups are not working, especially not custom page sizes. In IP7 custom pages are easy to set up and work as expected.
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Page margins and skew is measured for each media load. Measuring or finding the front edge, then the outside edge for the page width and calculating the page size and alignment in real time do this. This info is reflected in the layout preview window to help avoid wrong page to image confusion or mistakes. The media is advanced and a second position of the left edge recorded. A tolerance range will either pass or fail skew. Later in paper paths there will be more on the actions taken for skew.
The end of page is a constantly monitored optical point to ensure no inadvertent end of page or roll overspray into the carriage cavity. This is often a feature that saved many mistakes in using the wrong page size set ups or end of rolls.
Print head alignment is done upon demand or whenever you change the print heads. It is fully automatic. A very complex chart is printed, and then measured inline, corrected, reprinting the corrections, then validated. It is done with a combination of the page margin sensor for the placement of the samples (relative position), then three color filtered lights are used in measuring the reflection density of the alignment patches. It is quite quick, considering the complexity in the chart and the fact that no user intervention at all is necessary (other than loading the media in the first place). Any software alignment where you have to evaluate the best aligned strips by eye have always been unreliable even doubtful. This system cannot be beat.
As mentioned before in the print head section., there is an optical drop detector. It fires about 3 drops in front of a light source to check for the amount of flow produced for each nozzles. This is done every 5 pages or so (I assume it’s a certain square surface rather than pages) and or so many days of idle time, or any change in cartridge, print head. The amount used is miniscule compared to the advantages. What is nice is it is opto-electric so you have no need to intervene, nor to read printed charts looking for missing lines etc.
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As with other HP LFPs the Z printers have a built in hard drive. At this time it is a 40Gb 2.5” that is on the controller board is the interface between the comm. port and the logic board. On the PS option, and the language kit options, you can reprint, and or store prints at will up to the limit of the free space. Housed on the hard drive is all the software necessary for the printer, and of course the Unix operating system. The profiles and calibrations are stored here too and are available to all LAN posts, or any HTTP connected server. It is a very nice touch considering that you can store as many profiles as you like and they are always ready. The communication between LAN computers is very easy and efficient. Management of the printer thus becomes a trivial task, and is available to any authorized users. The settings by default for everything concerning set up , security are quite easy to do, yet have the potential for any IT managers to set up to any standard necessary. The printer accepts USB2 connections or preferred Ethernet. I was surprised to find it is Gigabit Ethernet so for those with a LAN on Base 10/100/1000 you’ll find even better spool times (maybe this is only on the PS version). Keep the USB cable short if you do use one. Long cables will introduce some stalls, or even disconnects. Be sure to use a powered high quality hub too if on USB.
HP has language options for those using Vector apps like CAD. Yet this option also lets you access your spooled print jobs so you can reprint, and store them on the hard drive. Might be an option for someone selling posters on demand, or other print on demand centers.
One thing unique to the Z is the live feedback to the printer driver and or utility. What type and size of media loaded lets you see a visual in the preview of where your print will be on the page or roll. If I looked more often at the layout feedback I’d save a lot of waste!
Overall design is sleek, smooth, and refined. It looks great actually, and always gets comments on its design. I would have preferred a flat top to place prints, but it wouldn’t have that look that it does. Construction is solid; the printer is built for the long run. It is a platform that can be maintained for many many years of use going far beyond in ROI compared to less serviceable printers.
There are some concerns on the catch tray. The choice of material is poorly adapted. Considering that the GE is fragile and prone to scratching, a soft felt like fabric should have been used. A tip; I undo the forward bar of the catch tray and put a take up roll on it. On very long runs I just manually turn the exiting job once and a while. Beats the catch tray and ensures the print doesn’t get damaged by touching the catch tray apron.
This utility is the control center for everything you may want to do with the printer. The first section is Information Printer Status, and Printer usage.
Second section is Job center with Job accounting, and if you have the upgrade options, Job Queue, Stored jobs, and submit job. Job accounting allows you to view printed jobs consumption details, even export the list as an Excel sheet. In Excel you can then plug in your cost of supplies for a accurate cost control. The printer can send emails to an external SMTP server local or remote to accounting.
Third section is the Color Center. Here the important functions such as calibrate your printer and display, Install ICC profile to tag profiles to custom papers, Create and Install ICC profile for making your own custom profiles, Manage Papers where you can add custom paper names,.
Fourth section is Configuration. Here you’ll find the Web Server settings duplicated, including Printer Settings, Network Settings, even a button Additional Settings which takes you to the Web Server.
Fifth and last section is Support. Printer Documentation Troubleshooting, Online Diagnostics, Direct online Support, Contact Tech Support, and last Firmware Update.
The utility is as clear as it gets for UI design, easy to navigate, and very powerful. Naming is well thought out, and in every panel concise help available. It is a utility that beginners to the most seasoned pro find ideal. HP has to be congratulated on this one , making what is very complex and turning it into something of an art of User Interface design and function.
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All communication can be handled remotely thanks to a built in web server in the printer. This is a common trait with the Designjet printers; even the 9180 is included in the printers with a web server. What the Z has is set up and information on the printer available to all administers of the printer. This can also include online remote help which in itself a blessing. The available pages in the browser are variable depending on the options you have. You can access the printer by typing the LAN address. There you will have accounting info, status of the printer’s supplies, trouble shooting help and links to HP direct support, full network set up, firmware updates, media set up additions, email SMTP set up, and much more. This is one reason why the Z should really be run with an Ethernet connection. The web server is extremely reliable and by shortcutting the host based utility, you have a stable and constantly updated interface where you can set all the parameter for the printer you like.
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A nice touch that was indicated long before shipping was the links inside the interface for both Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture. I don’t have Aperture on my home machines so I will only speak for Lightroom. Inside the print module the interface has menus for the essential calibration tasks. I tried the help too which launches a browser from Lightroom and has some documents on printing from the main applications for DTP already there, more to be added.
HP Pro Plug-in inside Adobe Photoshop
The promised Pro plug-in is now available for the Z. I used to try it with the 9180 but found the plug-in to sometimes crash Photoshop. The final version I had seemed to be stable but I find nothing there that I can’t do in Photoshop with Print with Preview, then the driver windows.
In theory it sounds good but if you have many different printers, you’ll be back and forth between UI designs. Thus I don’t think it is something of huge importance for this type of printer, nor type of user for this printer. At this time there is also a conflict with the 9180 Plug-in which crashes Photoshop, so the two are not compatible. I do want to say over all these years HP has a disappointing track record of software compatibility between models. It seems each time you install a new driver for any one of a number of printers it breaks the functionality of the others. A bad installer routine, inconsistent installers, broken modules, crashes are unfortunately too frequent.. It really shows that their divisions are not communicating well or at all.
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Z printers are as other LFP rather roll feed foremost and sheet fed second. Being new to LFP I found the Z easy enough to load. HP say you can only load the roll from the rear. I don’t have enough room here so I load it when I can from the front. It is a challenge but I can do it. When you load you just push the edge sheet or roll into the slot. The optical sensor will beep then you go to the front panel and select the media form roll or sheet. Next you select from the drop down list the media type at which point it advances the media. The media is checked for width and skew. If the skew is in tolerance it says Paper Loaded Successfully” then resets to Ready. If there is too much skew on roll, the printer front panel asks you to release the large lever on the left. It then tries with it’s rollers to adjust the skew automatically. If it cannot you must then release the lever and line up the media to the front dotted blue line. Simple and fast. For sheets you have to do this if you don’t get the paper in straight first try.
The printer takes 0.8mm according to spec, but we have successfully loaded much higher thickness. If the paper doesn’t buckle with the ink on high loads, then you can get away with it.
There are some problems though in the design of the load system. First off like others we wonder why the lever is on the left when one has to be on the right for paper skew and the first edge is always right.
Additionally, the sheet support although well marked for sizes lacks any type of stop edge for guiding the paper in. Inadmissible. The leading edge (8 cm )of every roll load is needlessly cut off. Sadly missed is a paper tray, at least a 13” tray for proofing. There is no take up roll. You can’t load sheets from the front. Nor is there a remaining roll length indicator or printing remaining roll length on the back or front of the edges of the paper. To recap, what they have is easy enough to use, but for such a nice printer foresight is sadly lacking in media handling.
The extensions are far too short for handling large sheets. It’s easy enough to load A3+ (albeit getting the sheet in straight the first round is less obvious) sheets but larger sheets are going to be a struggle. Since there are no guides on the sheet laoding backing tray it is a hit or miss affair. This is a printer that is destined to printing large format fine art. It falls short on handling large sheets risking kinks in the paper folding over. The often rejected sheet loads is very frustrating. I'm even getting repetitive errors saying there is a paper out when in fact the job has been printed and the printer is just doing a self check. Unfortunately these arrors are propagated to all print servers! A bug I hope they'll fix.
The roll cores are 2”+3”. I don’t know if it’s me but changing to 3” using the supplied converters leaves me wondering if there is not a better way. Yet I’m an engineer and that’s the questioning an engineer has when something could be better. The 2” cores go on to the spindle with ease and the load end holders are very solid and well done. I successfully load rolls straight off 4 out of 5 times, even from the front.
For minimum sizes; you can load letter size sheets. I do this by opening the cover, placing an orange print head cap in the security switch, and load the paper. This way you can see the paper lead edge come in up to the carriage. You can then align it somewhat before the beep draws the paper in. So you can print letter /A4 but it’s a tad small.
Rolls are marked in the specs to be a minimum of 18”. Recently we tried a roll end cut to 29 and 27cm. Around 29cm seems to be the practical width limit.
So far I have tried most of the HP media developed for the Vivera pigment inks. The most practical for photo repro are both Advanced Satin and glossy , also known as Instant Dry. The print well, have a good gamut, are resistant to scratches, robust, 100% waterproof. On all glossy media, including HP, you really should use at least Gloss Enhancer on ECO mode. If you are making gallery prints, whole page is a better choice. I also use ECO mode on Satin more often than not.
Matte papers that are coated work well, especially HP Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art. Epson Enhanced matte works out just as well too, so if you have a stock, you can keep on using it. Relatively uncoated matte media such as PhotoRag is excellent for B&W, but you'll not have optimum results on the Z printers for color outside watercolor type of muted unsaturated papers. The problems will be noted in the saturated reds that are L 50 or darker. The Easy profiles are different than APS profiles, neither being that good for matte media. Generally I prefer the built in Easy profiles but have found images that work better with APS profiles. At this time there can also be pinch roller marks on the back side of matte media, or worse on the front side. This is something that may be corrected soon with an upgraded pinch roller assembly, and the already released star wheel track.
Third party media. Here is the most disappointing part of the testing on the Z. It just doesn't come meet the marketing hype of being able to print on any media. Some work as well as or even better than the optimised HP media. Yet , some of the best papers just now coming out have anomalies in image quality, or worse mechanical artifacts such as the roller marks damaging the paper. Such is the case with Innova Ultra. I'm not sure if the new Harmon Baryta FA AL papers are unaffected.I also noted things like bronzing and or Gloss Differential even showing through GE. With Hahnemuhle Baryta for example you must let the paper dry then polish off the haze that sits on the paper. So before buying a batch of media, try a sample pack, read the forums, etc to ascertain compatibility.
As previously stated, the z printers have a very unique advantage over other printers when it comes to printing both the grey part of an image and monochromatic grayscale B&W prints. When the values r=g=b are in the document, the printer writes these values with gray inks only, without composites. With other printers these areas are built using composites including black and gray. This leads to gray balance failure in various lighting conditions. It also prevents you from printing batch prints on large rolls with side-by-side true grayscales beside full color. If you set GE to eco mode only the areas on the print that cause gloss differential and bronzing are affect or better, corrected. This is a huge time saver with the best potential print quality run on batch ganged or nested jobs. The quality is exactly the same as if you printed B&W on a separate print run as it is with the color prints on the same roll or sheet , if you have large sheets.
When printing on fine art media, specifically on the media set up in firmware at or above 5.0.4, all four gray inks are used making it a true quad black printer. The blacks are all hue constant and need no additional composite to correct for hue shifts as other printers do. The gray ramps on the Z are the most accurate that exist in today’s printers. The HP Vivera pigments are also amongst the best in terms of lightfastness too. In almost every case testing by WIR indicates the HP walking away from the competition. The only area that seems to need work is the dark storage, which is probably due to the paper , not the inks.
There are multiple ways to print grayscale or monochrome if you like images. As said earlier if the image is in rgb but grayscale already printing it as a color image will still result in gray only inks. If you want to convert the images in the driver from their native color space you simply select grayscale. You can use an ICC profiled mode, but I strongly suggest for monochromes to use printer color management, then print as grayscale with gray inks only. This is a table based quad or tri ink printing but I find it better than using ICC color management in rgb driver formats. Perhaps with ImagePrint using separate channels will fetch better results.
HP includes a very simple to use but very well thought out toning interface in the driver. If you use the “apply midtone adjustment to all” it is a single tone over the entire image area. If you uncheck this you can tri tone the prints as you like. The fields are marked H, M, S for highlight, midtone, shadow. The zone definition is the start and end points for the three zones H,M,S. You move the X and Y points in the hue wheels until you find the toning you want. There is a little bubble image that shows you the type of changes you are making. The only thing that is hard to see is the brightness is not maintained with the changes so you’ll end up printing out a ton of test first. Also, to be able to upload the image vignette into the UI would have been ideal. If you chose not to tone just uncheck the apply field. Be aware that the toning is dependant on using color inks to add to the gray inks. It is not outside of what we call GCR , and this in effect limits the degree to which you can tone or tint shadows. You have somewhat more control in Photoshop with less contouring in shadows, but again the limit is in the GCR in sperations. I haven’t used it since the early days of beta testing. It is a good feature, but needs a bit of tweaking to make it exceptional. HP said that the suggestness to maintain brightness should be incorporated in the next software versions, but that doesn't mean next dot updates.
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Many things point to the Z series printers having considerable economy in operation and ROI.
Perhaps one of the biggest flaws in the competitors latest printers are the changing of black inks between media types from fine art to photo media. An embarrassing situation that costs in the neighborhood of $90 US is unacceptable in cost and above all in needless chemical waste. The Z series have dedicated channels that need no purge whatsoever to change.
One of the advantages of CLC is to ensure prints and reprints will be spot on for density, and using the profiles with these calibrations will greatly reduce the number of rejected prints.
True on the fly custom profiling for HP or third party stock at will is going to reduce time of both sending out or having an someone come in, even save time over manual treatment of your own profiles. The turn around time on profile creations is now as fast as a single large format print.
The optical system not only saves time on manually input data from print charts but also reduces risks (Optical Drop Detection) of banding inadvertently missed on busy production schedules. The risks of clogged heads are greatly reduced and in the event there are clogged heads, the heads are easily removed and cleaned with water.
User feedback in the driver UI, set up per media will prevent wrong page set-ups and placement of the print per page size and or format.
I did the accounting on the Z3100 on the last 100’ roll including only image area with and without Gloss Enhancer and also roll feed Hahnemuhle PhotoRag. With Gloss Enhancer the cost is a bit higher and the results when using GE justify it’s use. I would consider only figures with GE for photo substrates. I get averages of 18.52 ml/m2 or 1.73 ml/sq.ft. Interpolated costs of ink assuming the bi-packs of ink are all the same for 2x 130 ml = $0.796 /sq. Ft. HP onsite store has listed them for $118. This will probably come down when more printers get online. Better resellers will have competitive offers yet give you the service and support that are a huge plus value for this equipment. Or 6.63€ (Euro) /m2 at today’s rate converted to $8.61/m2. These figures include all cleaning cycles but not calibrations. Calibrations are the covered surface of around A4, or A3 for the built in profiles. The APS solution charts are more like an A2. The figures for color and B&W printing are surprising close only less about 30% for quad tone B&W, and not a substantial difference without GE on Color. It’s still mid grey that is most used, and GE of course depending on the mode used, off, economy which is all inked areas needing GE, except white, and whole page which covers the document set up size. These numbers are on the latest firmware, so they could change with the next firmware as media set ups are still in progress of fine-tuning. I assume that a rip could have better UCR than the drivers yet compromising of course some of the photographic aspects of rich black rgb printing offers.
Elusive gamut plots are going to make us all blind. Needless to say the first thing a color expert does is start comparing the plots in the synthetic 3D plots of what the profile performance does in an application like ColorThink. I’ve gone through more paper with this printer printing charts and profiling internally and externally, than most have even printed on in the time they have had their printer. With every change in ink separation, and the firmware and or media set-up .oms files one must consider redoing the profiles. This is both bad and good. It is frustrating in the sense of what had previously been accomplished is undone. Yet the gains sometimes subtle, sometimes huge, are well worth it. The current firmware is most the way there and the changes to come will no longer undo the rest. On photo media the gamut plots are as expected from a 12-ink printer; fabulous. The differences when comparing HP Z 3100 to Canon pigment printers, and Epson K3 are what give each one a thumbprint. Epson have a lot of room in the bottom of the L*a*b* space in shadows, in saturation from around mid point downwards. Canon has a nice red and is brighter than HP and Epson. HP has nicer greens than both and green blues. Both Canon and HP have better top end brightness or lightness if you like and have a clear advantage in vivid bright colors. Both Canon and HP naturally have gamut extensions in the points where the additional primaries come into play. What we do see is that clearly with all these printers if one is shooting digital, then you will need to encode from raw into a bigger space than Adobe rgb. There are simply a lot of colors clipped in Adobe rgb that the Canon and HP are capable of, Epson too. I want to emphasize that real world comparison of prints to be more valuable than synthetic plots. The vast majority of prints fall easily within the gamut of any high quality photo printer. The Dmax on all the pigment printers are very close to the same value. How the rest of the colors perform, smoothness, detail restitution, realistic appearance are all at least if not more important than any amount of pixel peeping one may do. The reproduction of color from the Z easily covers the needs of very exigent professionals in almost every imaging domain I can think of. It certainly covers anything I can through at it for advertising and beauty photography. The B&W printing is a real joy with GE as it simply works so well on fiber look alike media and superbly on glossy media. Prepress proofing is handled well enough even with the rgb driver giving me low enough delta E for a good simulation. Its strengths are definitely the photo media and if using fine art paper best results are on the optimized media such as the excellent HP Smooth Fine Art by Hahnemuhle. Relatively raw uncoated media such as many rags are acceptable but not it’s strong point. Again, if the image is not extreme in color and saturation the prints are still good. Overall looking at the gamut extensions, type of tonal range, the Z printer may be the pigment finest landscape printer out there. The bright greens and colors in landscapes seem so realistic that you want to touch them. Character in prints is hard to describe, also very subjective. You’ll have to make some prints yourself to see the subjective image quality in front of you. As most have said, if you have the same image printed on all three brands, you’ll be hard to find any that says it is better in every way over another. They all have a thumbprint, a character, all good. Even after a year of printing on the Z I still discover strength in areas that you can only find in printing real images.
The release of the Z 3100 series printers has ended the long held crowned mainstay of a monopolistic withheld niche market.
Amazing technology that is accessible to many users in many sectors of graphic arts, set the Z 3100 apart.
The Z 3100 rises to the challenge of being one of the finest printers for graphics arts ever made. More than just another printer box, the thinking that went into this system goes far beyond, reaching out where no one has dared venture. Little things and big things alike are all about making a platform on which you can count on now and in the future. This printer series is about listening, and creating as much as inventing. It would be enough just to make another printer, but necessary to invent a new concept from the ground up. Overall most things worked out very well. No version 1 is perfect, and the Z is no exception. What is exceptional is HP’s continued efforts on improving features and image quality long after the official closing of possible changes to shipping product. They are also continuing to improve hardware albeit more quietly on that front. It won’t end there. There are many things that are planned that didn’t make it into the first shipping models that will come for these Z printers.
In the end since image quality is comparable and subjective between all three pigment printers, you need to look at which printer offers the most options you either need now or in the future. That leaves you with the Z series in a very favorable position indeed!
N.B. I finally had a chance to call HP Tech Support (France of course). The service was exemplary. The person on the phone cordial, knowledgeable, efficient, being the way one would like was a surprise in the right direction.
The same cannot be said for the HP France supplies store. I've never had worse service ever. Their appointed delivery service doesn't want to deliver to anything other than enterprises, and make a real fuss about delivery to individuals like myself or most other photographers will be. How is one to expect HP to get online sales going when such daft spotty service exists locally. That alone is a big problem if HP wants to succeed in localisations. I'll assume that in the U.S. the online store is a lot better. A shocking experience that has not left me indifferent, so be warned of HP's lack of cohesion and or sensibility to this niche market.
For other info on printing with HP printers see both my site here, or here.
