HP9180 & Soft-Gloss Photo-type papers

[alan9940]

Hi All,

Just got a new HP9180 printer and was wondering if anyone using this printer has successfully output B&W on any of the newer photo-type papers such as Museo Silver Rag, Hah Fine Art Pearl, or Innova F-type gloss?

Along with the printer I ordered some Silver Rag, downloaded the 9180 profile from Crane's website (no instructions, though...odd) and tried printing a B&W photo that I had tinted toward sepia in PS. The B&W image is, of course, tagged with a color color space rather than GG 2.2. It came out very dark and didn't reveal any of the tint color. I tried printing the image both from the plug-in and the more typical Print with Preview. Not good! I, also, printed it as grayscale and the tinting, of course, is non-existent, and it seems rather "bluish" in the indirect light of my workroom.

Anybody had any good luck with any of these papers? What settings, etc, are you using? Plug-in or P w/P?

Thanks for any help provided.

- AlanH

[jdyke]

Although I am not familiar with this printer I suspect that your problem is that either the profile is not very good or that some of your settings are not quite right (you are setup to colour manage in photoshop and the printer)


B&W printing using ICC profiles (custom or otherwise) is not that good on most printer. Many printers suffer from 'metanersism' when using a colour ICC profile which is why most dedicated B&W folk use a RIP or specialist inks.

You may be better off using the printers built in B&W - not sure if it has its own toning like the R2400
Here is a link I found on this printer that may help- http://www.neilsnape.com/HP9180_review.htm

Hope you get some success soon.

JD

[alan9940]

Although I am not familiar with this printer I suspect that your problem is that either the profile is not very good or that some of your settings are not quite right (you are setup to colour manage in photoshop and the printer)
May be worth a try. B&W printing using ICC profiles (custom or otherwise) is not that good on most printer. Many printers suffer from 'metanersism' when using a colour ICC profile which is why most dedicated B&W folk use a RIP or specialist inks.

You may be better off using the printers built in B&W - not sure if it has its own toning like the R2400
Here is a link I found on this printer that may help- http://www.neilsnape.com/HP9180_review.htm

Hope you get some success soon.

JD
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Hello JD,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I run a fully color managed environment using EyeOne to calibrate my monitor, ICC profiles for printing, Solux print viewing light, etc. I think I may have found an answer to my B&W printing issue, though...I e-mailed Crane asking what settings were used when they built their Silver Rag profile because there are no instructions with the profile on the website. They responded that they used HP Advanced Soft-Gloss for paper type; apparently, when a custom paper is added via the Color Center it's simply a description setup...that is, proper inking levels must not be set based on paper type! This is just a guess, though, I'll have to look into this issue further...so far, I'm fairly impressed with the HP9180 printer, but not so much the software and HP's documentation.

Thanks, again,
AlanH