December 29, 2009...........................................................................HOME................................"Color Management ... Take Away the Pain"
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Technical specifications
• Embedded in this HP Designjet Photo Printer is an I1 spectrophotometer from Xrite. Close collaboration between HP and Xrite
ensures a reliable solution that has been thoroughly tested to meet customer demands for ease, quality and dependability.
• Twelve-ink printing with HP Vivera pigment inks, including HP 70 130-ml Ink Cartridges (available in matte black, photo black,
gray, light gray, magenta, light magenta, light cyan, blue, green and yellow), the HP 73 130-ml Chromatic Red Ink Cartridge and
the HP 70 130-ml Gloss Enhancer Ink(8)
• Up to 2400 x 1200 optimized dots per inch (dpi)
• HP and Nikon have worked together to create a capture-to-print end-to-end solution delivered by a special edition of ErgoSoft’s
StudioPrint RIP software, which works with the Nikon D3 camera and the HP Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer, leveraging HP Artist
Software – all to help creative professionals produce high-quality fine art reproductions without requiring advanced
color management skills.
• Print speeds:
Up to 12.4 minutes per page for an A1/D color image on glossy paper in best print mode; up to 2 minutes per page for an A1/D
color image on coated paper in draft mode.
• Dimensions:
HP Designjet Z3200 24-inch model: 49.7 x 27.2 x 41.2 inches (1262 x 690 x 1047 millimeters [mm])
Pricing
The estimated U.S. street price for the HP Designjet Z3200 24-inch model is $3,395
Disclosures by a speaker at the beginning of a presentation (or by a writer at the end of an article) seem to be a popular hurdle these days for establishing credibility. So let me make one right up front, and save two for the fine print at the end:
(1) I'm male and have a genetic predisposition toward big, expensive toys, especially computers or items that attach to computers.
WIth that deep, dark secret off my shoulders (whew!), let me forge ahead guilt free and share something that may help some of you avoid pain. I don't think the words pain and photography should ever be in the same sentence. But pain and color management, now there's a match made in heaven, or at least some photo industry marketing guy's idea of heaven. For the rest of us concerned about the color and quality of our prints, color management is the long way to spell H-E-L-L. Looking at great images on your monitor and then making ink jet prints that bear little to no resemblance is a painful and potentially expensive experience.
Let's fast forward to the bottom line. If you are serious about your photography and want to make critical, beautiful prints, sooner or later it is going to cost you money. You can (a) work in an uncontrolled color environment and make multiple prints until one finally looks good, (b) invest time learning about ICC color profiles and develop a relationship with a print lab to make your prints for you, or (c) obtain equipment that provides a color managed environment and print happily ever after. Options A and B hide the expenses by spreading them out over time, but also to some extent perpetually hamstring your creativity. If you go for 'trial and error' printing (I did it too until I learned better), every print is an experiment. You'll never master printing because there is no consistency in your workflow. Letting someone else do your printing may be an answer, but how often do you think you'll try anything creative when you're paying full retail to try spreading your wings? Not to mention that most of us want to see our print 5 minutes ago, not pick it up in a few days or wait for the UPS man (Uninterested Photographic Service).
Some who are already suffering the throes of color management pain are asking, "WHEN is he going to take the pain away?!"
Here is the deal. NO WAY am I going to dive into the quagmire of color management in this blog post. I want to keep you as future readers. Instead, let me tell you the honest truth. I don't worry much about color management, because I don't have any problems. And it's not because I'm a color management guru. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's because a guardian photo angel watching out for me intervened on two separate occasions to bring hardware into my life that just makes color management so embarrassingly easy I can live in blissful ignorance (and still get amazing print quality).
The answers are an i1 spectrophotometer from X-rite and a "Z" series printer from Hewlett-Packard (HP).
X-rite is one of the most respected names in color management. HP is a giant in the printing industry. Imagine if they got in the same room and talked... well, they did. The result was the Z series printers, which have the X-rite spectrophotometer built into the printer. This means I hang the X-rite i1 device on my monitor and run the automatic profiling software (calibrate with about three mouse clicks, that easy). Then I go to the HP Z series printer and press the "custom profile paper" menu choice. The printer says "come back in 20 minutes" and prints, dries, and then X-rite analyzes the calibration/profiling test swatches, saving a premium quality custom profile for your printer-paper combination on its hard drive (yep, the printer has a hard drive). Since your monitor and printer have used the exact same technology to color calibrate themselves and profile the paper you'll print on, you are in color management heaven.
It will set you back some $ up front, but this is one of 'those you get what you pay for' situations. And you won't be keeping this printer in the living room unless you're getting rid of the wife's piano... they are not small. But a major upside is that the HP printers are very efficient with ink, one of the most expensive links in your color printing chain. So you'll go a lot farther between ink cartridge replacement than with the other big printer manufacturers (I once read that if you extrapolate the cost of ink found in the small cartridges we so casually buy to feed our printers, the ink would cost about $30,000 per gallon). The 24" Z series printer is about $3,300 retail, but think about what you spent on your 12-24 megapixel DSLR and the 70-200 2.8 VR lens. Is it unreasonable to think you'd pay in the same ball park for a machine that makes 200 year archival prints 24 inches x 50 feet? And your jaw will drop when you begin to see your images printed 24x36. You can't imagine the quality that lurks in your image files until you see them large on your wall.
Now that disclosure fine print at the end:
(2) I did work with Hewlett-Packard several years ago and they gave me one of these printers to use... and I never returned it
(3) I did speak for X-Rite several years ago and they gave me an i1 to use... and I never returned it
But I'm not under contract with either company. I could use any printer or color profiling device out there. But I don't. I'm not aware of any other solutions that so effectively combine available technology to make my life blissful ignorance.
Did I just write a post saying I'm ignorant? Wonders never cease.
Mark Alberhasky is a Nikon Mentor for the Mentor Series Worldwide Photo Treks.
Join him as he travels and share his enthusiasm for photography and learning.
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