HP Z3100 Matte Black

[alanmcf]

Beyond LL one of my reasons for buying the Z was a beautiful test color image HP sent me printed on Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art paper of a woman laying on a matress. I just scanned that printed image, set the blacks to 0,0,0 and the whites to 255,255,255... and printed it on HSFA. I used the HP HSFA profile on the calibrated printer with PS managing the colors (set both in PS and the driver) with Relative Colormetric and Black Point Compensation. I am using firmware 5.0.0.4 and latest driver.

Comparing my print to HP's test image the blacks are a night and day difference. The test image blacks are black... meaning Rembrandt would be impressed. The blacks on my image in comparison seem dull rather than crisp.

My three thoughts are that 1) HP used a RIP that greatly changes things, 2) Somehow the Relative Colormetric mapping is screwing up, or 3) that something is just plain wrong with my printer and/or my procedures (like the issue I reported having with reds). Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks, Alan

Edit: BTW, the main black I am looking at is the white lettering on the all white background, however the woman hair is also amazingly black.

[neil snape]

Try it on perceptual too.
The black point is often fooled in reading the diffuse scattering of light by the spectro. I know that with most FA mattes the Z prints darker on perceptual than relative, but the changes or graduations are more abrupt.