Digital BW, The Print

Neow that postings are appearing discussing these new printers, its time to 
talk about their features, compared to Epson and Canon printers, though we 
can't officially talk about them compared to wider format HPs yet.

Here's a list of comments for starters:

Three blacks, but thats a gloss black, a matte black, and one gray; its not a 
two gray system.
There is visible metamerism on B&W prints on photo papers.
Matte K can't be used on slick media, so its a one black/one gray system for 
these papers.

So none of the above compare to the new Canon iPF5000 (though thats a 17 inch 
printer, not a 13 inch one, so is in a different category). This set of 
limitations alone may be enough to turn some users to other brands. I'll need to do 
some side-by-side comparisons (hopefully at Photokina) to know how much of a 
practical limitation this is.

Also, the HP claims to be the only printer in its class with closed loop 
autocalibration; the Canon iPF5000 has this, but is in a different category.

A positive note: the new HP driver(s?) allow driver level color management 
with custom media settings and custom ICC profiles. Handy, but depending on how 
applications tag data, and assumptions of source space for untagged data, this 
can be a carriage without a horse in front. Serious color managed printing is 
done at the application level, but its interesting to see this alternative 
resurface.

There are some interesting network related features (most significantly a 
built in JetDirect card); but I find   network printing to inkjets to be a mixed 
blessing; they aren't the network workhorse that color lasers are, but some 
users find this very useful. Personally, having someone in another room print 
their MapQuest maps out on my expensive fine art paper is not my idea of a good 
thing...

I'll be interested to see what the cost per print for grayscale images is; 
previous HP desktop solutions were impossibly expensive for this type of 
printing. This printer claims to have larger carts than others in its class; if that 
translates into lower costs, thats a significant factor.

I guess thats enough to get things going...

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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