Digital BW, The Print

Paul and Jon, et al:

I am interested in a comparison of these two ink systems from a descriptive point of view.� I am interested in different points of view but NOT value judgments as to which is superior.

�I do plan to try both and reach my own conclusions as to what works better for what but would enjoy some pointers about design considerations from the masters and inventors first. In the past I have used both Paul Roark and Jon Cone systems in my 2200 and 220 and been equally pleased in different ways with both.

With that in mind: i.e. wanting to switch between the systems and because I am also somewhat reluctant to use a CIS because my day-job takes me away from printing -- sometimes for prolonged periods --� I'm thinking a CIS would not be ideally suited to my intermittant printing habits. Would there be any problem in using re-fillable MIS carts for the Piezo K6 and if small amounts of either ink were left in the carts is there any incompatibility issues between these 2 ink sets?

Thank you both for all you do for all of us.

Michael Vendrell, MD

�

--- On Wed, 10/4/06, CDTobie@... <CDTobie@...> wrote:
From: CDTobie@... <CDTobie@...>
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: New HP Z large format printers (cross posted)
To: CDTobie@aol.com, DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, digital-fineart@yahoogroups.com, EpsonWideFormat@yahoogroups.com, colorvision_group@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, October 4, 2006, 8:30 AM







  


    
            I've been criticized by a couple of people, off-list, for being too easy on 

HP in my post about the Z series printers. These are first-of-kind machines, so 

I think its important to emphasize the potential more than the details, but I 

agree there are other issues worth mentioning. The first is the fact that 

both people contacted me privately; there seems to be a sense of foreboding about 

criticizing HP openly. That seems odd to me: I wrote an absolutely scathing 

review of a much earlier HP wide format model, and received feedback from HP 

reps on three continents within 24 hours. They disagreed with me on some points, 

pointed out workarounds or firmware updates for others, extended my warranty, 

and shipped me new CDs. Overall I'd have to say it was a positive experience, 

and no once did I feel that I was having my arm twisted, as I have with a 

number of other companies over the years. More importantly, virtually every point 

of criticism was addressed in the next generation of HP printers, so my 

complaints were certainly not ignored.



On to the list of "sensitive" issues with the Z series printers. First would 

be profiling time. Its a bit odd, but HP's marketing materials say something 

like "no longer does it take hours to profile your printer". Strange choice of 

angles, as the automatic profiling is easy, convenient, and close to 

idiotproof, but not particularly fast. I can build a profile with any of the current 

handheld spectros faster. I don't understand why HP is sensitive about this, its 

pretty much automatic, so its not that critical how long it takes. Setting up 

a straw man to knock down, when the serious user already knows how long it 

takes to build a profile manually is a poor alternative to emphasising the Z 

series strongpoints.



That leads to the issue of drydown. HP seems to somehow feel that having the 

profiling process clog up our printer for a day makes the magic go away. Well, 

once you load a roll, you are hardly going to unload it, damage some ends, 

and print on another media for 24 hours before reading the patches back in with 

the printer. So HP downlpays the issue that serious profiling is generally 

done with at least several hours of drydown. I can see that once the target is 

out of the printer, putting it back in later is not much more convenient than 

reading by hand, so this would be a touchy issue. But its certainly possible to 

put off most profiling untili the end of the day, print the target, and not 

read it until morning, so this is not a huge problem. And wet results from 

Ultrachrome- type inks are quite reasonable on many media, so this is only an issue 

for some paper types, and for the most demanding users.



Next is patch numbers. HP materials state 500 patches. But when you count 

them, its actually three hundred and some odd. Again, this seems to be a 

sensitive point, and HP reps at Photokina were stating that the linearization patches 

are "sort of" included. These patches certainly assist in improving results, 

but they absolutely cannnot be part of the patches that are used to 

characterize the printer for profiling. So again the marketing spin seems to point out 

that HP is uncomfortable about this. Which is silly, since profiles from patch 

sets in the 300 patch range can be very good. Admittedly the current Z series 

does not offer an alternative with more patches (next step up is typically in 

the 800 patch range) for situations where their lower patch option doesn't do 

the trick. But for most typical media (and certainly all HP media recommended 

for these printers), the current patch number should be fine. Gloss fine art 

papers, non-gessoed canvas and other new media would have to be tested as they 

appear to make sure they are sufficiently linear on the Z printers to profile 

well with the current number of patches.



Last, and very definately least, is HP's gloss optimizer. The GLOP is printed 

in an area outside the image, so signing, numbering and notating gloss/luster 

prints occurs on top of the GLOP. This is a real opportunity for someone to 

create an archival, HP GLOP compatible pen, as I ruined every pen in my 

briefcase writing on Z3100 prints.



So, I hope that covers the issues that it was felt I "glossed over" in my 

previous post...



C. David Tobie

Product Technology Manager

ColorVision Business Unit

Datacolor Inc.

CDTobie@colorvision .com

www.colorvision. com



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