I'm having so much problem with the driver, and the worst thing this the custom size issue and the orientation. I've already talked to the HP tech support and they have no clue at all. Also I've realized the Black in HP does not linear enough to produce a good B&W image, specially in the shadow part.
I'm using the ProfileMaker 5 to generate the ICC profile.
For both Color and B&W I do not see the advantage of using the Wasatch Softrip. I have the last, version 6.2 and never use it. First of all I have yet to see a print made with the Wasatch SoftRip that uses a UCR or GCR level of composite grey replacement that the HP normal driver has. If you put a greyscale step wedge made in color mode under a microscope you will still see a lot of CMY and even RGB color dots up to 60 or 70 % grey patches, above that it is the K that dominates. With the three Wasatch provided media presets + profiles and some custom ones made by them on my request after my complaints. I couldn't create anything better either. Make a similar print with the HP driver in color mode and you will hardly see any color dots appear in any of the patches. Considering color constancy with different illuminations (for the purists I will not call that metamerism :-), that's not a good thing, both in Color and B&W. The same for fade resistance and as a last con the amount of ink used will be higher than with HP's driver, possibly dotgain issues may even decrease print quality. The one pro I could think of is a slightly wider gamut in darker colors. Bit more Epson style versus what the Z3100 delivered. HP changed Z3200 driver already somewhat into that direction if compared to the Z3100 so the gamut shifted more to Epson style color, it is not just the new Red ink but the gamma has changed. I think there is a relation between that and the non linearity of the Z3200 B&W where the Z3100 has perfect B&W linearity after calibration with most media presets.
While I can drive the Z3200 with the Wasatch SoftRip 6.2 and the Z3100 driver of it there will be a later version that includes Z3200 support. I do not think that anything substantially is changed. There is no B&W mode like ABW or HP's equivalent that uses the grey inks only, 4 or 3 of them, instead you get black only. Calibration/Linearisation is done using HP's method. There is no control on the partitioning of the grey inks and no linearisation possible over a partioned 4-3 grey ink set, like possible in QTR with pré 9900 Epson models. It must have been more than 5 years ago that I asked Wasatch to add B&W control in the RIP like possible with QTR (for the Epsons I had then). They considered it outside the scope of this RIP.
The alternative RGB-device mode possible in the Wasatch SoftRip to overcome N-color or CMYK profiling is no longer recommended by Wasatch itself despite being still aboard. I have tried to create black generation there in HP driver style but failed and as written above I would like to see any positive result done by someone else.
B&W mode output when linear is easier to control. Slight deviations are not that problematic too. A custom QTR profile made after calibration of a Z's output can convert your B&W images with say a 2.2 gamma profile to the non linear output. With the Z3100's almost always linear output that goes perfectly. With the Z3200 I see that more papers/paper presets have a very difficult shadow tone range and strange Dmax cuts on the calibration strips when measured. I doubt that can be corrected with QTR profiling. The ink limitation possible in custom media preset creation is more a gamma control than actual linear ink limation at the 0-100% ink supply, I thought otherwise in the beginning.
The Z3100 still is the champion in B&W mode. Use QTR profiling and control is excellent + the Dmax stays high. As I have one I use that one then. For color I prefer the Z3200 and I print B&W on that one in color mode.
Considering the HP Large Format Photo Negatives method and media preset it should be possible to have a B&W driver mode (or command line application) that comes close to QTR's features. At the introduction of the Z3100 now 4 years ago I discussed that addition with HP on the Photokina but it didn't get a follow up. The Z3100 already so linear fullfilled in practice what I needed so I let it rest. I reported the Z3200 quirks in B&W mode to HP after I discovered them. A review of the Z3200 + the B&W apect is on my website.
With Qimage and Vista (64) + the HP drivers and a 4 year knowledge of Z driver excentricity I can do my work perfectly.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
spectral plots of +100 inkjet papers:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm