Hp z3200 printing hicups

[Phil Indeblanc]

So I profile the HP Contract Proofing High gloss abd I did a smaller test print before I print on the large sheet of Metallic paper(this was the best match up I thought of).
And it looked great! Much better than when I hadt matched up the Metallic with the Everyday Gloss.  this had the depth and contrast punch I needed.

So I setup the large sheet, and I thought I would go to bed while it went to print and in the morning I would get a nice surprise...
So I sent it off, and I thought the job is transferred to the printer HDD. SO I put my system/PC to sleep mode, and was getting ready for bed....

It too me a bit as came back to take a peek at it....It was stuck with 54 seconds to go, about a inch left to print and it was just doing some small movement with carraige atop the service station making small moves within the spot. The printer had froze up! So i started pressing OK, back and such(not X), and it starts printing...But just a little bit and it ends with a little less than an inch blank!

That was annoying! I only have a few sheets of this stuff!  So I'm wondering....Since I notice the end was cut off with sollid ink and clean line...was this the printer having a fit and a laugh at me, or the Qimage sending out with a bad format?
(Print to fit not to page, and the top and siddes are all printed, just the last bit!

Anyone expereince the printer just hang like that?! gnight!

[Mark Lindquist]

Yup - had the same thing yesterday myself.  I'm eligible for a free upgrade in Qimage- going to try that and see if the next version fixes it.

Couldn't believe it.  I'm in the same boat, Phil.

[Phil Indeblanc]

So you think it is Qimage that messed up?

I'm tempted to send off the job again, but what's to say it won't happen this time.
Maybe I should go straight from LR.

[Mark Lindquist]

You could always send the job with an inexpensive paper and see if works...

I'm going to upgrade and see what happens.

Print from LR if you have to work immediately - yes probably best.

[Phil Indeblanc]

So a nice conversation with Mark today, and I think we can both agree that even with bit of an unknown cloud over the problem, there is some understanding that the Qimage software can get stuck in a Fit to Page or Fit to Print definition regardless of changing that setting, even if you change to custom and define the size, it reverts to the preset before (Win7x64). 

This may have been the cause of why my print was not complete. It finished the GEnhance over the whole page.
Hard to explain why the printer did this pause dance(at 54seconds left to finish the print) over the service station also, but, I hope I can be more aware, and if possible prevent from happening again. Also the countdown from 54 didn't resume to count. It just continued to print. I think it resumed with just printing the GE, so this I'm not too sure of, but I know it was odd to see no fade in ink when it was paused, which suggests that it had completed, and this was more of a Qimage issue. That's what I'm concluding.

Mark, when this happened to you, was it always via Qimage? I forgot to ask you that.

[Mark Lindquist]

Just finished a print from Qimage - version 2015.112 -

The printer finished the print from start to finish, no problem.

It had been going 7/8 of the way through and stopping, making clicking noises, then after a few minutes resumed and finished printing out of Photoshop CC2014 ever since I installed the new drivers.  Didn't hurt anything, just inconvenient.

I'm liking Qimage better, but finding it a little tricky of a learning curve.

Nice chatting with you today  -

[Phil Indeblanc]

That is good to hear.

When we spoke, I was using Qiv2...112(latest)

I too now see the print preview. Not sure if its due to my uninstall both PS and PCL3 drivers of HP, and reinstalling, or the update to Qi.

One thing I am getting is 2 Preview pop ups from Qi. So I do see them. I get one with the image, and another blank Preview pop up.

I say this as I still don't see the Preview image LR Print panel. It too generates to Preview popups?!!

Is this due to having a PS driver and the PCL3 driver installed?

PS driver is the only one that has all the other profiles bundled with it, but it looks like we have the option to install just the profiles. Ther eis an uncheck option for either the driver or profiles.

Still not sure what causes multiple popups of preview.

[Mark Lindquist]

OK - you really shoud only be using the PLC3 driver, Phil, as it is the right one for the Z3200.  As you know, the ps driver is for the post script model (Z3200ps).

If you run the driver installer, just choose custom install and then install the profiles and you should be good to go.


The preview panel is generated witin the IE Browser.  Geraldo clued me into this:

Update the IE browser to the latest version and make sure to enable pop ups.

That helped me a lot.

As for where the preview is located in Qimage, look under features in print setup dialog.  Check enable preview, and once Qimage renders the image with the percent bar, when it gets to the end, it should bring up the browser window with the preview of your image with the option to print.

BTW - when you download the ICC profiles in the driver installer, go to the color center in HP Utility, an d find manage paper presets then synchronize paper presets.  That will install and synchronize the prests equally on the printer and your hard drive library and you're good to go.

[Phil Indeblanc]

Good point Mark. That would help reduce some possible future headaches.

I have been selecting the PLC3 driver, but having them both installed maybe causing a problem. Its not uncommon to have multiple drivers for a single printer as they have different sets of options. I had to use 3 for my past 24" It needed the EFI RIP the PS and the basic. But, it would help reduce the variables. :-)

[Mark Lindquist]

Check the additional info I added to above post. 

You don't need the ps driver- it can only confuse things.

[Phil Indeblanc]

I took the Mark Lindquist z3200 crash course "Printing 103", and I think I Aced!

That was pretty special to step me though the process. I printed the same image as we had, and the difference was pretty much indistinguishable.
I printed a B&W and the profile I made the way you stepped me through (making sure I got the right one).....

That one was just beautiful. So then I thought what had I been missing without the quad, so I ran the HP profile, and while it looked decent, there was much more punch to the print and profile we custom made!
Then I thought we used "Color" in the printer setting, with "Best in the Details of Custom print quality (not more passes).

I used the same setting for all, but a question came to mind....
How different would the ink settings be if I selected to print in Grayscale only mode?
(Maybe I'll just try it)

I emailed the side by side tomorrow!

[Mark Lindquist]

Yes, the custom profile is best, agreed.  Glad that all helped.

Thanks for your help today with Qimage - It's working - I now have to just lighten the mid tones a tad, and it's good to go.

I tell you what, FaceTime on iPhones is awesome - good call (pun intended).   :-)

Mark

[Phil Indeblanc]

Funny I logged on to see this, as I'm running a few more different images to see how More  Ink looks against the HP provided profile.
So far I can see it makes the image more comfortable to look at. The ink isn't so condensed / compressed. This is a visual observation and measurable.
I think I understand why much better after you explained how the Custom moreInk uses all 4 sets vs the HP provided uses the one MK.

There is the theoretical obvious advantage to to take a single solid black that is a unique inkset from a zero coverage all the way to the max black point. This is a single linear scale.
Vs, taking all 4 blacks into the equation in the inks to place on the page.

And doing the test does show a easily noticable difference.
I can see, or at least interpret how the "workload" of the one MK ink divided between the full set of 4 inks gains in the way the digital info is calculated across them all, and falling into optimal placement.
Visually it is easy to see the print that is more pleasing and comfortable to view with more "dynamic range"(if I can use the term)  being the custom setup.

So I am loving Realistic Litho even more now! You split the hairs on this Mark, but I found it to make that much more a difference! Thank you!

[Phil Indeblanc]

One thing I did want to clarify for myself was the difference of using Color setting vs Grayscale. Maybe I should be picking one over the other. Perhaps the driver goes to the quad blacks when it doesn't detect color, but as soon as it sees some, it can load more ink. I say this as I did a print with slight sepia in the file, and it looked a significant amount darker overall.(?)

It was interesting to also see that a color print with very little blacks in the file showed 99.9% same result between profiles.

[Mark Lindquist]

Fine Art More Ink is extremely powerful.  Any paper that can handle the ink will benefit from it.  In the case of HP Matte Litho Realistic, I definitely prefer a custom profile based on Fine Art More Ink because of the quad inkset.
More punch, much more snap and the paper can take it.  Overall a warmer, more approachable image as well.

Any color image will not suffer because the quad inks won't become involved, noticeably.

Recently having used Canson Aquarelle and BFK Rives, with the More Ink Quad settings, I am seeing the deepest blacks I have ever seen on any other printer or inkset, bar none.  No comparison.  Epson is excellent but this blows it away.

Take a heavy paper that can take a load and it dumps the ink on there, and wow wow wow.  The canned profile has it's place of course with HP Matte Litho, but I would choose FA More Ink 85-90% of the time.

Glad this is working for you.