I look forward to report on the Z printers in practice.
Undoubtably the inclusion of the spectrophotometer is very interestig for those of us that use a wide variety of papers and are continually using new ones.
One concern that I do have is the relatively small number of pathches generated in the Z printers. It has been my experience that around 1000 patches are needed to build a good profile.
High ink linearity would reduce patches necessary , but Epson K3 inkset performs well in this respect and still requires the said number of patches.
This is also partly due to the different ways in which different paper coatings receive the ink, a factor that is independant to ink linearity.
In the worst case scenario however HPs approach would enable us to evaluate papers and produce useable results. Promising candidates could then be subjected to a more rigorous evaluation and custom profiling in the traditional manner.
Another benefit would be to evaluate any differences in ink or paper batches and drift due to nozzle wear . These factors are often ignored once a custom profile for an ink/paper/printer combination is in use.
All this is a big move in the right direction. It will be interesting to see what Epsons response is, especially as HP will have most probably tied things up with XRite- Gretag. They could go to Fuji but I doubt this would be a popular move.
To maintain market dominance, they will need to pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat.
This will include auto black ink change.
It will have to address nozzle blocking.
A much faster printer, maintaining quality, could do it.
Slashing ink prices by 50% or more would go over well, but would only be tempoary as HP (and Canon) would undoubtably match.
I suspect Micheal's forthcoming report will cause more concern at Epson.
Cheers,
Brian,
www.pharoseditions.com.au
