Digital BW, The Print

Hi all. New member here...you all sound very enlightened about 
printing black & white digitally so I thought I jump right in... 

I have 25+ years printing in a darkroom and only about 3 years into 
digital printing...so bear with me, please.  I have a business 
printing commercially from historical black & white negatives for 
commercial interiors and am ready to purchase a large format 
printer. Needs are not larger than 24" and prints must be long 
lasting (20+) but not 100 years.  I have been looking at the new HP 
Designjet 130.  Price is right and sounds good.  Anyone know 
anything about this printer??  Thanks!

Digital printing of B&W has many potential pitfalls, there are many
competing approaches, none that have become the gold standard and 100%
problem free. For someone like you with so much traditional
experience, it could be very frustrating to nail the process to your
satisfaction.
HPs are certainly not printers widely used for fine B&W and I doubt
many on this list will be able to give you much input. This is one
area where price is definitely not the primary consideration
particularly for a production environment, since some systems don't
work at all.
I would highly advise you to get samples of B&W output from that
printer, on a few different surfaces, before making a decision. It
would be good to know, if you see results you like, exactly how it was
done. Was it done "out of the box", or were additional expensive
options (a RIP?) utilized?
Also try to find some current users, ask about issues like banding and
metamerism. There are many systems that, despite decent color output,
can't print good B&W at all.
Perhaps there is an HP.
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com,
"historicalphotographs" <historicalphotographs@y...> wrote:

> Hi all. New member here...you all sound very enlightened about 
> printing black & white digitally so I thought I jump right in... 
> 
> I have 25+ years printing in a darkroom and only about 3 years into 
> digital printing...so bear with me, please.  I have a business 
> printing commercially from historical black & white negatives for 
> commercial interiors and am ready to purchase a large format 
> printer. Needs are not larger than 24" and prints must be long 
> lasting (20+) but not 100 years.  I have been looking at the new HP 
> Designjet 130.  Price is right and sounds good.  Anyone know 
> anything about this printer??  Thanks!

I have had a Designjet 10PS since they came out.  It's one generation older, but quite similar.  It is capable of good color prints on HP media.  But, I found it rather impossible to get a neutral b&w print.  I don't know if there are any third party inks for the HP30/130 printers.  But, even if there are, you'd really be in a crap shoot using them for photo work.
 
Even if you need "only" 20+ years from you prints, I wouldn't trust the HP.  Wilhelm is apparently rating some of the HP paper/ink combinations in lifetimes that would work for you.  But, why not just go for the Epson 4000 or 7600?  Those printers will certainly provide you with a wider range of 'acceptable' paper/ink combinations.  And, the support you can get from some of the members of this forum is pretty remarkable.
 
Tom Baker

historicalphotographs <historicalphotographs@...> wrote:
Hi all. New member here...you all sound very enlightened about 
printing black & white digitally so I thought I jump right in... 

I have 25+ years printing in a darkroom and only about 3 years into 
digital printing...so bear with me, please. I have a business 
printing commercially from historical black & white negatives for 
commercial interiors and am ready to purchase a large format 
printer. Needs are not larger than 24" and prints must be long 
lasting (20+) but not 100 years. I have been looking at the new HP 
Designjet 130. Price is right and sounds good. Anyone know 
anything about this printer?? Thanks!





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This was a reply I sent earlier this month on this printer:

I was at a photography workshop in Carmel about 2 weeks ago and photographer
Charles
Cramer had one there. He likes it very much with one exception - the technology
HP uses
for advancing the paper leaves a trail of parallel roller marks in the paper.
Not obvious
when you just look at a print but if you turn it slightly, there they are. HP
are aware of this
and supposedly working on it. Cramer said this occured in both 130's that he
used. The
printer itself is not built like a truck, which you wouldn't expect based on
the low price.
How it will hold up is anyone's guess. Cramer did some beauttiful prints with
it and what
he marvels at are the blacks. His claim is Ultrachrome has an L* of 10,
LightJet an L* of
about 5 and the 130 inks an L* of 2. I must confess looking at 2 prints, one
using
Ultrachrome and one using the HP 130 inks, made it very apparent the blacks were
much
more punchy and black in the HP print. If they can get things fixed AND you can
live with
the slim paper choice it might be a good one.

Since then I checked with Charlie and he said he can get good prints at 8x10 and 11x14.  
For larger prints the scene needs to be "busy" in order to hide the tracks.  He feels it will 
be a long time before this is fixed.

Angelo