High Quality Digital Photographic Printing at Home
Sunday, February 25, 2007
I posted a question on LLForum about the source of 3" spindle adapters. I could not find them anywhere for sale, whereas there are a number of places to buy extra spindles.
A sort of blog on LLForum by an early Z3100 adaptor with paper and usage recommendations. Of particular interest, are his recommendations for Epson Premium SemiMatte Photo Paper (250gsm), which he recommends to calibrate using SemiGloss/Satin media setting, and which he claims is pretty much the same as HP Professional Satin but is much cheaper. Also, he recommended Pictorico High Gloss White Film (213gsm) for high-gloss paper, but warned it is very expensive. What he said was a little ambiguous, and it is possible he believes HP Professional Satin is still a little better. Not to mention the native advantage.
Another problem some had with Z3100 has been the so called Zebra Stripes. This post at LLForums links the the HP article explaining this issue. It would seem that it boils down to either very low humidity or to incorrectly chosen media type. The good news is that this problem is very hard to miss (unlike the deep reds problem, which many people missed).
There is a good possibility that, for a time being, Z3100 is not going to be optimal for printing on matte media. I think it is very likely either HP or some third-party RIP will solve the dark reds on matte problem, but it may take a while. In the mean time, I want to print. It seems people are getting excellent results (though I am yet to confirm this myself, of course) with glossy and satin HP stock with Z3100, and, in particular, HP Professional Satin (Q8759A) looks like a good candidate paper. It seems like a better candidate than HP Premium Instant Dry Satin Photo Paper. The differences between them are explained in this Luminous Landscape Forums post. I plan on going to Keeble & Shuchat Photography to check out the different papers. Maybe I can tolerate a little gloss -- after all, it does yield higher DMax. HP Pro Satin can be bought here in 24" rolls.
After a long pause, the saga continues. I have just gotten HP Z3100 24". Primarily, this decision was based on great Luminous Landscape review, a couple other reviews, $1,000 rebate going on currently (hope it fairs better than my other attempts to get a rebate), and theoretical objective facts, the primary one being the built-in spectrophotometer.
Despite its size and weight, the printer was very easy to put together, and I prefer its ability to roll on its own feet to the Epson 4000 I used before, which had to have a dedicated large-size chest a its support.
Of course, as with any other new product, there are problems. The most notable problem (discussed in this Luminous Landscape Forums thread) is the lack of saturation in dark reds on matte papers. Supposedly, the problem is either much less severe, or absent, on glossy and satin media. Currently, it's not clear whether this is caused by the way the printer mixes colors, or by the ink set itself. The former cause can be eliminated in software (firmware). HP is supposed to come out with a new firmware and driver version in late February.
One of the posters figured out that choice of paper type matters, despite the built-in profiling. This is likely because the printer lays down different quantities of ink depending on specified paper stock. He got much better results with "Litho" and "Super HW coated" media types than with "HP photo matte".
Since I have not yet put together the new Photoshop machine (to replace my old, dead one), I can't do any experimenting of my own. I was able to profile the printer, but the color patches printed for profiling did not have saturated dark reds, and I don't know whether this is by design, or because the printer is unable to produce them (in this setting). I am using Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art paper, of which I had 17" roll lying around for a while now.
