I have just examined prints of my files made on the Z3100 compared to my Canon Pro9000 dye printer on super glossy paper. These pigment ink prints appear to be the equal of my inkjet dye based prints in blacks and vivid colors. I was told by a, so called, Canon expert that no pigment printer could do this. Maybe not Canon/Epson but the HP can.
I have just ordered my (self profiling) 24" printer and am looking forward to big prints and new paper types including B&W (4 black cartridges). My LA area dealer is really expert with wide format printers (all they sell), ink and papers. They are also giving me great delivery and after sale service.
HP has a $1000 rebate thru 31 Jan so the delivered and set up price is just under $3000. More later.
With Gloss Enhancer the Z printers can rival dye printers in every way except the deepest of blacks. Yet the overall usability and permanence of the pigments take dye printers out of the game for true sellable prints.
Good luck and have fun with it. See my site for a review (pre- frm v6).
I was wondering about ink clogs and ink usage to clear clogs. I have a DJ 130 and it sips ink, goes long periods of inactivity and no clogs. Will the new pigments be similar, worse or bad in this respect?
All the recent pigment printers are much better at clog free printing. As good as dye? No if you leave a pigment printer off for many months you will probably have to some cleaning.
The 130 is the most frugal printer ever made. There is no comparison in pigment printers.
HP have the best technology in terms of print head maintenance. The ink usage is less than 0,05ml per ink per day for routine maintenance, and something like 3 drops per 5 print jobs (surface area dependant).
Clogged nozzles are automatically detected, and fixed with the Z hence an assurance of clog free always ready printing. It's been over a year the printers are out, and so far the track record looks good as far as clogs go.
I have been using an Epson R 1800 for glossy prints, and I thought they were fabulous. I just reprinted with my new HP Z3100 and the improvement was amazing . The bronzing ( none) was the same , but the color, detail ( especially in shadow areas was much much better with the HP. Also I trashed the R1800 because of clogging. I was going broke with nozzle cleaning( I moved to Arizona with no humidity), and finally I couldn't take it anymore
I have the HP Z2100 printer and absolutely love it. I've put my prints up to those a friend had printed at a so called large print photo lab and either my post work and printing is better or theirs is just horrible.
Really there is nothing bad to say about the results I've had from this printer.
Question about doing smaller prints... Without sending prints out, this printer will be my only way to make smaller prints (mostly 8x10s and maybe some 5x7 and 4x6s), will I be able to do those on this printer? I can just print them in a row and cut them myself, right?
neil snape wrote:
Yet you could batch print and cut off custom page sizes larger whatever you have.
Yeah, I was thinking that I could print rows of 4x6s (or which ever size), the printer would cut each row off, I would then just snip the columns my self. Is this something the software is capable of?
There is a Postscript version with a hardware Adobe PS renderer with nesting capabilities. That is the Zx100 PS version. I don't recommend it for photographers though. The best solution is Qimage, otherwise Photoshop photo packages.
With roll media you select remove blank areas, which effectively would reduce the trailing and leading edges to a minimum, and cut off the 4" prints just after the inked area.
That's exactly how I printed a ton of test strips while testing the Z printers.
