OK everyone...after reading all the mixed comments on this machine over the last month or so, with some trepidation, I finally leased a 44" model from HP and it was delivered to the house last Thursday evening. Set up began Friday morning.
First, my qualifier. I am a full time professional landscape photographer shooting mostly large format cameras and film for the last three years. I sell my work in galleries, thru art consultants for commercial and residential installations and for publication. The majority of my prints are done by West Coast Imaging in California using a Chromira for my glossy paper work and Epson 9600 or 9800 printers for my fine art matte paper work. I do all the color correction work based on the 4x5 transparency and then send the file via FTP to WCI for printing. My smaller work has been produced in my studio on an Epson 2200 on luster and Fine Art papers for about four years. I do not make gamut charts or pixel peep. I base my opinions on the final print, no matter who prints it.
The set up has been described in detail elsewhere, so suffice it to say that it was easy to assemble the machine alone except for turning over the beast after the stand was attached which required the assistance of my wife. HP's attention to detail really showed as assemply was straight forward and easy.
After running a LAN cable through my attic on Friday afternoon (again thanks to my trooper wife) the machine was hooked up and ready to boot up. Boot up was flawless and the loading of ink cartridges and printheads was uneventful. The only mistake in the instructions comes when it says "while the print heads are being prepared, you can spend the time loading the software". Well, the software will not install, until the print heads have done their thing and the little green ready light comes on the printer control board. Minor misdirection although it did give me a bit of worry as to why the software install was failing. Aftyer the second try...I figured it out and decided to wait at which time all the software installed cleanly.
My next pause for concern was when I decided to update the firmware to the latest as I had read a post or two that cited problems. I can see why someone may have created errors on their machines. After downloading the file from the HP wab site I was ready to install the firmware when I read the notice on the install screen that said to make sure you were installing the unzipped file. I looked at the file again and realized it had no extension. I looked on the HP site on the firmware screen and found a little notice that said "diuring download, the three letter file extension may be stripped off...pleas add .exe to the file name. After doing that and running the exe file, I had a firmware file withe a .frm (I think) extension. The firmware update went smoothly as did updates of the HP Care Center software and new profiles install.
Next was calibrating and profiling two papers (I haven't received my HP Satin or Fine Art papers yet). I used Inkjet Art Micro Ceramic Luster, a paper I have used for my open editio prints on my Epson 2200 for a couple of years, and Premier Art Smooth 325 gsm Fine Art Paper. The calibration and profiling went smoothly as had everything else to this point.
Next was to print the Z3100 test file that everyone had been using with the multiple images including children, strawberries, red telephones and gray scale charts. A small copy of the file has been attached.
The luster paper printed wonderfully including outstanding skin tones, realistic red strawberries, red telephones, fruits candies and and completely neutral black and whites. Impressive.
The one I was worried about was printing the same test file on the Premier Art Fine Art paper. This seemed to be where all the problems were before the last firmware . Well, no worries. The matte paper printed every bit as good as the luster paper with even slightly better definition on the gray scales and a couple of blocks of color on the color test chart. The Premier Art paper is a very warm colored paper as compared to the Luster, so all the lighter grays and whites took on the warm tones of the paper which was quite pleasant. All other colors, red, yellows, purples, greens, skintones, etc looked every bit as good as on the luster paper. Shadow detail was excellent.
Then I proceeded to print two of my more difficult images, one on luster and one on the Premier Art. I have attached both files so you can see them. One is a very vibrant sunset image and the other is a fall foliage image taken in the shade of a canyon with a lot of dark saturated colors. All the Grand Canyon prints have been produced by WCI on a Chromira (similar to a LightJet) digital enlarger. The Blue Mood prints have been produced by WCI on an Epson 9600 on Photo Rag 308.
After making a few color adjustments in both images based on soft proofing with my newly created profiles, and two 8x10 proofs, each image was printed at 11x14 to compare directly with the WCI images. These were printed at best quality with the driver set at 1200 dpi.
The results, I have to say make me very happy. The Grand Canyon image has every bit the vibrance and actually more detail overall especially in the highlight areas. The shadows are every bit as good as the Chromira print. There is no area on the print where the Chromira exceeds the Z3100 print in chroma or detail. And this is printed on my cheap InkJet Art luster paper. I can't wait to see this image on the HP Professional Satin. It might be darn close to an Ilfochrome.
The Blue Mood image was printed on the Premier Art Smooth Fine Art which has a lower gamut than the PhotoRag. Nonetheless, with a bit of tweaking in the soft proof mode, this print reproduced about 98% of the gamut of the 9600 on PhotoRag (this is my guess). The deep red and blue shadows suffered only slightly, but nothing that would jump out at a prospective print buyer. I have a feeling when I print this on the PhotoRag, I will have a hard time telling the difference.
Finally, I will state enthusiastically that I am extremely pleased with this machine. All of my worries over the last six weeks when I was contemplating the purchase of this printer were unfounded. I will post some updates with the HP and HM papers as I can. As a disclaimer, I do not work for or have any professional relationships with HP.
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Jim Cole
www.jimcolephoto.com
