Z3100 color brilliance

[Charlie B]

I am thinking about replacing my Epson 7600 with the Z3100. Can anyone compare the brilliance of it's colors as compared to the older ultachrome ink used in the 7600/9600 Epson series, the Epson K3 ink or the new Cannons.

Thanks

Charlie B

[Chris_Brown]

I am thinking about replacing my Epson 7600 with the Z3100. Can anyone compare the brilliance of it's colors as compared to the older ultachrome ink used in the 7600/9600 Epson series, the Epson K3 ink or the new Cannons.

Charlie,

You can get free samples of HP Z3100 output here. You can choose up to three different samples.

I inquired to my reseller about getting samples and he sent me a couple.

(Even with all these sample prints in front of me, the decision between the HP or Canon wasn't easy. I had been using an Epson 9600 for four years and was ready to upgrade, so I knew I would go with either the Canon or HP.)

Another way to evaulate "color brilliance" is to compare each printer's color gamut for a specific paper. At the moment I don't have access to any ICC profiles for comparison. Perhaps another member might post something.

[Charlie B]

Charlie,

You can get free samples of HP Z3100 output here. You can choose up to three different samples.

I inquired to my reseller about getting samples and he sent me a couple

(Even with all these sample prints in front of me, the decision between the HP or Canon wasn't easy. I had been using an Epson 9600 for four years and was ready to upgrade, so I knew I would go with either the Canon or HP.)

Another way to evaulate "color brilliance" is to compare each printer's color gamut for a specific paper. At the moment I don't have access to any ICC profiles for comparison. Perhaps another member might post something.
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Thanks Chris,

Prior to my 7600, I used an Epson 7500 but found the colors muted compared the 7600. Now I'm ready to upgrade again and just want to make sure the colors are as bright or alive as what I've been printing on the 7600.

What decision did you make between the HP and the Cannon?

Charlie

[Chris_Brown]

What decision did you make between the HP and the Canon?

I chose the Canon for several reasons.

• For a couple of months I played with an HP Deskjet 9800 and a Canon i9900 printer. I found I really liked the ease and functionality of the Canon printer driver. I use all Mac computers and with HP, Canon and Epson, they really fine tune their Windows drivers but leave the Mac drivers something to be desired. I figured if the Canon driver for the $450 i9900 printer was as good as it was, the driver for the iPF8000 should be even better. I didn't like the HP printer driver and combined with the fact that it's written by a third party software vendor, I didn't want to deal with it.
• The Canon 16-bit printer plug-in intrigued me. It's good and if this is a first generation plug-in, I'm expecting better and better functionality in future releases.
• The HP comes with a built-in spectrophotometer but I didn't need ICC profile-making capabilities. I've made profiles in the past with an X-rite DTP-41 and Profiler Pro and was successful with those tools, but don't use many different papers (I'm not a service bureau). I've decided to have my profiles done by professionals and I've been looking at Cathy's Profiles and the Digital Dog for that service.
• I didn't care about the "gloss enhancer" that the HP printer uses. When I print big, I print 40"x60" and then laminate the prints. When I print small, I use uncoated fine art papers and the Canon switches easily between matte black and photo black.

I don't know how large the Z3100 is, but if you go the Canon route prepare yourself for a heavy, physically large printer. I had an Epson 9600 and it was easy for just myself and a female assistant to unpack and carry the main pieces into the printer room for assembly. The Canon, on the other hand, required four men to heft the printer head from the loading dock into the printer room. The shipping manifest gave the pallet a gross weight of 556 lbs. It was a huge box that required the use of a pallet jack to move from the dock to a better location for unpacking. The weight of the printer & stand, without any paper is spec'd at 313 lbs.

The other nit I have with the Canon is paper loading. Unlike the Epson, the paper roll is mounted under the print head area and fed up into the beast. It requires the use of cotton gloves and more care is needed when handling the paper than with the Epson paper path.

Overall, I'm very pleased. I've run only a few yards of paper through it while I wait for profiles, but the simple tests I've run show considerably richer colors than my ol' Epson 9600.

[eronald]

My gut feeling is that anyone who wants to print glossy mainly should go to Canon, anyone who does matte on a regular basis should go to Epson, and anyone who wants a simple life with frequent paper changes would do best to buy the new HP printers.

Edmund

[rdonson]

Edmund, could you elaborate more on your gut feelings?  Perhaps some reasoning behind the selections.  What are your feelings if you print mainly matte and canvas?

[eronald]

Matte and canvas fine art has, as far as I know been a sector *owned* by Epson over the last few years - and Epson have regularly improved their product. Epson also has been supplying decent if not stellar media, I believe, and third party vendors supply decent canned profiles for Epson printers with their media.

In other words, Epson have a good product which they keep updating and improving, while Canon and HP are playing catchup. So anyone who prints matte and wants to use a printer other than Epson should know exactly why they are doing so. As an example a need for frequent painless change of media would give HP's self-profiling solution a big advantage. Price or a service contract via a dealer, could also be an argument - all of the big three make usable hardware, it just has different areas of application.

As a sidenote, ther are other industrial solvent-based solutions with much wider gamuts available from other vendors (eg. Mimaki) which produce spectacular prints, but these should not be used in indoors office environments.

Edmund

Edmund, could you elaborate more on your gut feelings?  Perhaps some reasoning behind the selections.  What are your feelings if you print mainly matte and canvas?
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[rdonson]

Thanks, Edmund!!!

[ternst]

Actually the HP z3100s are the very best at glossy prints by far - that is unless you want all that gloss differential. I own Epson, Canon, and HP, and the Epson and Canon are no longer being used for gloss/luster, only the z3100. For fine art paper with matte ink all three are just wonderful. But for gloss/luster, the HP wins hands down. No gut feelings - just the facts...