Thanks for the detailed report.
On quality vs HP: freeglaz doesn't cap it — the profiler is ArgyllCMS, so the
ceiling is Argyll's, not the app's. It can be excellent, but you get there by
choosing the right options, which means some time in the Argyll docs.
Concretely: the Z9's built-in HP profiling is fixed at 464 patches. freeglaz isn't
capped — it's a standard Argyll target, so you pick the patch count and can go
multi-pass. The profile I validated was two-pass and preconditioned: a 400-patch
pass to precondition, then a 2000-patch pass on top — far denser than 464, on a
fully open, documented workflow. And it's measured, not asserted: end-to-end
prediction (soft-proof vs the actual print) against an independent chart came out
at ΔE00 mean 0.775.
The technical reason it can match or beat a vendor result: Argyll aims at a
faithful, standards-strict characterization of the measurements — no proprietary
smoothing or "cooking" baked in the way vendor engines apply it. The
accuracy-vs-smoothness tradeoff is explicit and under your control, and Argyll
reports the profile's own error, so you can verify it instead of trusting a black
box. I haven't done a formal head-to-head with HP's profile, but between higher
patch density and a transparent, measurement-faithful engine, there's no reason it
falls short.
On the Z9 Pro profiling issues: two things here are untested on my side — anything
wider than 24 inches (I only have a 24-inch) and the Z9 Pro itself, which is a
different model. The two failures are also on different code paths. The HP-native
error is likely the more tractable one — it's a pure SOAP exchange, so a quick
Wireshark capture of that step (it's plain HTTP, so it's readable) would probably
show exactly what your Pro objects to, with no test prints needed. The truncated
Argyll chart / scan error is the heavier one and would need a couple of controlled
test runs on your side. One thing that would help me scope it: can you retrieve all
the profiles already installed on your printer, and install other profiles onto it?
If you're up for any of this, let's take it to DM and see whether Z9 Pro
compatibility can be added.
(English isn't my strong suit, so this is AI-translated — apologies for any
awkward phrasing.)
