HPZ3200 Non repeatable results

[Ernst Dinkla]

I just made two prints with two different profiles and the profiles seem to have changed when I changed them. A big THANK YOU, to Ernst Dinkla for stepping me through this. I would have never thought that the changes I was making in QU were not being transmitted properly to the HP driver. It seems that I can continue to use QU with the HPZ3200.

Nice that you got a grip on that situation.

Actually there should be more warnings on the DDIsoftware.com pages about the use of QU for HP printers and possibly a guide how to cope with the limitations of that combo. On the other hand I already suggested there that QU could have some feedback in its menus when QU detects that an HP printer driver is bound to QU's output. Like I did here: https://ddisoftware.com/tech/index.php?action=profile;u=262;sa=showPosts;start=15 mentioning greyed out entry windows. Or menu entries that could not reach the HP printer driver properly could be made red and if made in the HP printer driver itself they should show green in QU's menu. Job recalls can deliver issues like that too so where the interaction of QU and the HP printer driver can be corrupted just show the specific entries in QU's menus in red. There are some other things that could be changed without much impact on QU when used for other printer brands.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[sharadn]

Nice that you got a grip on that situation.

Actually there should be more warnings on the DDIsoftware.com pages about the use of QU for HP printers and possibly a guide how to cope with the limitations of that combo. On the other hand I already suggested there that QU could have some feedback in its menus when QU detects that an HP printer driver is bound to QU's output. Like I did here: https://ddisoftware.com/tech/index.php?action=profile;u=262;sa=showPosts;start=15 mentioning greyed out entry windows. Or menu entries that could not reach the HP printer driver properly could be made red and if made in the HP printer driver itself they should show green in QU's menu. Job recalls can deliver issues like that too so where the interaction of QU and the HP printer driver can be corrupted just show the specific entries in QU's menus in red. There are some other things that could be changed without much impact on QU when used for other printer brands.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

Yes I agree. I am not at all happy that I had issues related QU and the HPZ3200 that I was unaware for years. I can't tell you how much paper, ink and time was wasted because of this, not to mention the angst that went along with trying to put together matching images for a gallery show. I greatly appreciate your help and knowledge.
Art

[Kyle Jackson]

Does it work with W11, that would be the question for me

The driver? Would probably need to test it I guess unless there's mention somewhere of it working well for someone else (I can't be certain if I've read that somewhere). If Win 11 is similar to Win 10 then it should be relatively easy to test tho. Just uninstall the current HP driver package (in the add/remove programs section) and then install the driver version you want to try. (I did this a lot this year when testing driver versions...) You can actually leave the HP Utility in place because it's a separate software (I'm using the last version they made, 1.17.0.3). I think I usually remove the printer in the printers menu before uninstalling the driver package, just to make it "cleaner", tho I forget if it made any difference. If the test doesn't work out, can just repeat the steps and reinstall the driver package you were using before.

When I did my tests there were some key things I checked. In the Windows printer properties/preferences I made sure that bi-directional communication was enabled by the installation. If it's not, a lot of stuff will be broken, so it's unusable. This is where all the post-2012 drivers I tried tended to fail.

Assuming that's good tho then I check that HP Utility is working okay with that printer. "Bad" drivers are sometimes missing the Settings or Support tabs, and Colour Centre might be missing options or some are greyed out, especially the Paper Preset Management (which opens the separate Colour Centre window).

Then I check the print dialog in my app so make sure the printer is responding to setting changes, etc. But this might be very app-specific, especially since I'm using legacy PS CS5. I mean the drivers are very legacy too lol, but the OS isn't, so that combination is still a wild card.

Note the older drivers have generally been compatible with "all" Win OS versions for a while now. They're from Win 7 or earlier days and still work with 8, 10. Fingers crossed the same holds for 11. At least the drivers up until 2012.  The later HP driver versions ("V3", "V4"), which are "universal" driver packages for a long list of HP printers, are terrible for Z3100 / Z3200 users. They either lack support for all the advanced features like colour profiling, etc, or they simply don't work. So far I haven't found anything newer than 2012 that works (61.12x...), and haven't found anything from the 6-year gap before 2018 ("V3", 61.18x...), which doesn't work.

[sharadn]

for time being my system is working Thank God! So if it aint broke don't fix it!

[Kyle Jackson]

Are you already using the driver version that you sent me? (The 2012 one?) If so then that's good news, we know it works in Win 11.

[sharadn]

I am getting better results now after all the input but I am still have trouble to get the gloss enhancer to work. I created a new paper preset for the Red River Paper Palo Duro Softgloss Rag and the tonality and color print out pretty well but I have bronzing and have setup the GE to print in both the print driver and and at the printer but the GE is still not printing. I cannot seem to adjust it in the preset. See the image. Suggestions?

[JCD]

Do a head cleaning for the GE channel. If a cleaning doesn’t get it back replace the head.

I am getting better results now after all the input but I am still have trouble to get the gloss enhancer to work. I created a new paper preset for the Red River Paper Palo Duro Softgloss Rag and the tonality and color print out pretty well but I have bronzing and have setup the GE to print in both the print driver and and at the print but the GE is still not printing. I cannot seem to adjust it in the preset. See the image. Suggestions?

[sharadn]

I will try that but as shown in the screen shot I cannot adjust it at the preset level. It seems to be off by default and seems to be available in other paper types but I can't get it to load a new preset with a type that allows GE.

Do a head cleaning for the GE channel. If a cleaning doesn’t get it back replace the head.

[Kyle Jackson]

Hi, which paper preset did you choose when you created your new paper type for that Red River paper? Each preset has different hard-coded settings (they're in the printer firmware), so if you use a preset that has gloss enhancer disabled, then I think you can't enable it after. So you need to create your new paper type using a paper preset that has GE enabled.

The list of paper preset settings is available in different HP docs (often called "Working with other commercially available paper"), but for convenience here's one on Mark Lindquist's reference site:
http://z3200.com/Working_with_other%20Papers_HP-Z3100_z3200_Printers.htm
(It changes a bit from version to version, but generally the info is mostly the same.)

Assuming that paper is relatively heavy and can accept higher ink levels, then something like the "Photo Pearl Paper (more ink)" might be one to try? Or the "Photo Gloss / Semi-Gloss / Satin Paper (more ink)"? Both have GE enabled, plus the highest ink limit of the non-matte papers (46.0). The only differences are the carriage and starwheel heights, so you can choose whichever one best suits that media.

[Ernst Dinkla]

I am getting better results now after all the input but I am still have trouble to get the gloss enhancer to work. I created a new paper preset for the Red River Paper Palo Duro Softgloss Rag and the tonality and color print out pretty well but I have bronzing and have setup the GE to print in both the print driver and and at the printer but the GE is still not printing. I cannot seem to adjust it in the preset. See the image. Suggestions?

EDit: it could be that what Kyle wrote before about older HP PCL printer drivers behaving better is also happening here, some years ago I had to change the default printer driver preferences to gloss paper + GE on if I wanted to get GE working. So what follows here is how I have it now while I usually print on matte papers:

Make sure that you have both a glossy paper and the gloss enhancer option on in your default printer driver preferences. For the least bronzing use the gloss enhancer all over the print page, so not economy mode. Bronzing is the least visible with some HP RC papers though, third party papers can show it more. If you want to use economy mode then use a QU print filter that brings the RGB 255 255 255 to 254 255 255. Just enough to get the pure whites in the image also covered with GE. White margins made with QU will not get GE then.

EDit: https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=40521 for a better understanding what has to be done.

Ernst, op de lei getypt.

[sharadn]

I made a copy and renamed the OMS file for the RRP Palo Duro Soft Gloss Rag and imported it again and this time I was able to get the GE to work. Once again I thank everyone for your input. One thing I am still having trouble with is the interface from QU to the print driver. Even if I use shift and left click to access the driver defaults and make changes there it does not translate to the actual driver. When I load the driver from settings it still has the old paper type. It seems that the only way to get this work is to always change paper type from the driver in settings. To date I have really liked QU but these issues with driver interface are causing me a lot of heartburn not to mention wasted paper and ink. I would go to another printing platform but I need the auto file name and path.

[Kyle Jackson]

Ah ok it's an .OMS preset. I wonder what they did with their custom .OMS file compared to one of the generic tunable ones from HP.