Last update: EDT

Last year, I got one of HP's brand new B9180 printers. Some of you have read my long page of experiences and my conclusion that the B9180 wasn't up to snuff, at least not for printing stuff for my clients. The banding issues and wheel marks drove me nuts, although I was able to fix the wheelmarks (see the B9180 page for an explanation of how). Gloss differential and bronzing were also unacceptable.

Towards the end of my B9180 experiences, HP released the new Z-series of printers. I was very excited and ordered a set of sample prints from HP. Imagine my disappointment when the sample prints showed wheel marks and banding! GD and bronzing were well controlled, but I couldn't sell prints with lines of pinpricks running down them. While I was able to patch the B9180, I wasn't sure I could pull off the same thing on the Z and wasn't willing to risk $4,000 to find out.

Fast forward to September 2007: I've kept watch on the Z printers, seeing many people extol their virtues. What caught my eye was a comment that HP had redesigned the wheel assembly (twice) and people were reporting no wheel marks.

Also, I had just finished evaluating the new Canon iPF6100 and was very disappointed in the output quality, really bad GD and bronzing. Plus lots of reading on the net seemed to show that Canon has a history of wretched documentation, printer failures, warranty weaseling, and really bad support. They might buck their past on their new printers, but I'm not willing to bet $3,000 on it when the output wasn't that great. I might also add that Wilhelm Imaging began testing the lifespan of Canon's Lucia inks in the beginning of 2006 and still haven't released the results. Were the results that bad? Contrast that with Z3100 results, which were out within a few months.

So I ordered another set of sample prints from HP (same images as last time) and wow! No marks, no banding, extremely minor GD and bronzing.

So, I've decided to take the plunge. HP's $1,000 rebate also helps, although I wish they still had the $500 worth of paper offer. This, like the B9180 page, will be an informal diary of my experiences. Remember, I'm not a professional reviewer, take any and all comments with a large grain of salt. Including that one, I suppose ...

Oct 2
Exactly 375 days after my B9180 adventure started, I placed an order for a Z3100 from Color HQ. I could have saved a few bucks elsewhere. I was also tempted to go ahead and spend a few more bucks and get it from NewEgg, who I've always had great service from. However, Brian Schoff at Color HQ had been really helpful with checking out the iPF6100. He even ran some of my own images off on their floor model and mailed them to me. I really appreciate that kind of service.

According to Brian, it should be shipped out tonight and be here by Friday. It kinda stings to spend $4,000 at one shot, although hopefully I'll be spending $10,000 on a pair of new Nikon D3 bodies next month.
I was told that, if I ordered the printer before 12:30 that they'd ship it today. And that I'd get an email with tracking information. I placed the order over the phone with Brian, who was supposed to walk it over to the warehouse. However, it's now 10pm and no tracking info yet ...

Oct 3
After some telephone tag, Brian confirmed that my printer shipped, but not until this morning. I'm a little peeved about that, given that I was rushed to get the order in early yesterday. Buy he says that it will still be here by Friday. At least I have a FedEx Freight tracking number, although it doesn't appear to be in the system yet.

I'm in a bit of a quandary about what papers to order. I went through this last year with the B9180, but the stakes are a little higher now since a roll of 24" paper is considerably more expensive than a box of 8-1/2 x 11.

I like the look of HP's Professional Satin, but I wish it had a bit more of a texture, seems a bit dull. Crane Museo Silver Rag is very nice, but the texture's a bit extreme and it's very expensive. Canon makes a very nice Heavyweight Satin that's inexpensive but I've not heard anything about anyone using it for the Z3100. In the beginning, I'll probably stick with an HP paper, perhaps just their Premium Instant Dry Satin.
Woo-hoo! Tracking ID shows the printer on its way, picked up at 2:42 this afternoon (not this morning), left Illinois at 8:12 this evening. Estimated delivery is Oct 5. Package weight of 225 pounds! I'm really starting to regret putting my office upstairs ...
Someone asked what I meant when I said that I'd "hopefully" be spending $10K next month. Nikon is releasing their new D3 camera at $5K a pop. It has absolutely unbelievable low-light capability, which I need for wedding photography. By "hopefully" I mean that I hope I can get one when they come out, I expect them to be a hot item with long wait-times. I'm currently #44 on the list at one of the major Nikon retailers, but I'm not sure that'll be good enough to get in on the first batch.


Oct 4
I must have reloaded the FedEx Freight tracking page 100 times today, watching my printer wend it's way down to me. I didn't realize that Color HQ is about as far north in Illinois as you can get.

I really don't care much for FedEx Freight's tracking. When a package arrives at an intermediate point, apparently they only make one entry for that place. For example, when the printer arrived in Bowling Green KY at 5:20am there was an entry for it. But later the time changed to 7am and the original 5:20 entry diappeared. Each entry just says "In transit". At each waypoint there's only one entry. Right now I see a 6:13 entry for Valdosta GA but I don't know if it arrived or left at that time. I much prefer UPS's system where you see various entries for arrival, departure, etc. Of course, I also prefer UPS, period. I've had lots of "issues" with FedEX drivers refusing to enter our property and just leaving a note. Or, better yet, leaving boxes with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment sitting on the gate post. Of course, the best one is where they left it lying on the ground and some dogs tore it to shreds.


Oct 5
Turns out that the printer sat in Valdosta until 2:05 this morning and arrived in Jacksonville at 3:55. Delivery is scheduled today, supposedly between 10am and 2pm. It's going to be interesting getting it off the truck, since there's no way they're going to get an 18-wheeler in my driveway. They're going to have to park on the road.

The plan is to cut the box off the pallet and put it into the front-end loader of my tractor. Lord, I hope this works. It rained almost all day yesterday, hopefully it will slack off today.
9am: Just got a call from the delivery driver. Says he'll be here in an hour or two! Just a little scattered rain in the area, looking good ...
 
The neighbors were all watching as an 18-wheeler parked in front of our property. The driver was really nice and helpful with unloading.

There was another HP printer on the truck, being delivered to the local FAA center up the road. Wow, what a monster! The box was about 10 feet long, three feet deep, and 5 feet tall!

Getting the printer off the truck proved to be fairly easy. Of course, when you have a tractor and front-end loader handy, it makes the task a might easier ...



We brought it in though the deck doors, since each door is 4 feet wide. The shipping carton is about 57x30x25 and sits on a 4" pallet. My stepson and I were easily able to carry it in, the box has these really nice handles embedded into the cardboard. But there's no way this thing weighs 225 lbs, 150 is more like it. Here's the box minus pallet just inside my living room:


I had been praying that the rain would hold off until we got the printer in. Just a few seconds later, it started to rain. 18 stairsteps (and one sweaty wife) later, it sits in my hastily rearranged upstairs office:



And now the fun begins. Well, a little later, I have some work to do and playing will have to wait until later ...
I spent my lunch hour starting out and assembling the stand. But now I'm hungry ...

First step: take off the top

Of course we grab the directions first.



I like the way they're laid out. But be aware that the pictures seem to be for the 44" model. For example, here's the step "Remove the paper"



The actual paper's only two feet long and weighs maybe two pounds, certainly doesn't take two people.

Also, the directions tell you to remove the outer part of the main box:


Don't do it! You'll see why later. I happened to skip this step and it turned out to be very useful later.

So, we've now removed all the top layer stuff and arranged it on the floor.



I really like the way HP designed the packaging. All very securely stored yet easy to get it all out. And now, the moment we've all been waiting for, the first look at my new toy.


Oh yeah, baby! Back to the directions, which says to open the stand box.


And, right there on top is (you guessed it) another set of directions! This set is strictly for the stand. What kills me is step one of these directions ...


That's right, Open the box. Think back now, where did we find these directions?

OK, onward. HP includes these nifty cardboard triangles to hold the crossbrace while you assemble the stand.



Makes it easier than holding it yourself, although HP should include a first aid kit for your head wound. More on that later ...

HP also includes this really cool-looking "screwdriver" to help you assemble the stand.



However, actually using it is extremely clumsy. Helpfully, this device is imprinted with "T-25" which tells me it's actually a #25 Torx driver. A quick trip to the shop and I have my own slightly easier to use "screwdriver"


This is waaaay easier to use than the one supplied. For $4,000 I think HP ought to include one. The stand legs slide onto the crossbrace and attach with four screws.

OK, pay attention, 'cause here's where your potential head wound comes into play. While the cardboard brace holders are very helpful in attaching the first leg, at this point the entire thing becomes kinda top-heavy. By the time you slide the second leg onto the brace, it's become downright unstable. While attaching the second leg's screws, it would be really easy for it to flip over and, you guessed it, wonk you in the head. I found it much easier to sit on the floor cross-legged and finish tightening the screws with the entire thing cradled in my lap.

Next step: attach the feet. Again, you're supposed to do this with the stand balanced precariously on the cardboard triangles. But, since I left the main box intact earlier, I discovered that it makes an excellent foot-assembly-stand-holder


Note that the feet need to be turned the same way, because the catch-apron holders need to be on the same side of the printer. Helpfully, HP has keyed the feet so they only go on one way


The screws end up being recessed quite deeply into the bottom of the foot, so you'll need an extender on your power Torx driver


Tighten them up and that's it, one fully assembled printer stand. Notice the little plastic knobs on the top, one round yellow and one square green. Those are more keys to ensure you put the printer on the right way.


Back to my real job, see you this evening!
I was looking over the directions for mounting the printer to the stand and realized that the two different sets of instructions contradict each other.

The main printer instructions tell you to flip the printer over, attach the stand, and then flip the whole thing back over again. Whereas the stand directions tell you to remove the printer from the box and set it on the stand, then put in the screws.

I don't like the idea of flipping the printer over with attached stand, it sounds clumsy. On the other hand, having the printer sit on the stand without being attached makes me very nervous. Hmm, I'll have to think about this one.
After thinking it over a bit, I decided to go with the flip-attach-flip method, since that's what's in the main printer directions.

Box sides removed and flaps laid down, then flipped

 

You then have to remove two little sections of the styrofoam to expose the stand mounting points. You also have to remove the biggest honkin' bag of dessicant I've ever seen.

 

After four screws and one very nerve-wracking flip, we're all assembled and ready to go.


Note that you have to be very careful of the wheel position when you flip the printer. The wheels naturally hang with the lock tab down and they'd probably break off when you tilted the printer up. It helps to have a third person to hold the wheels up until they hit the floor.

Next, we start prepping the printer itself. First step is to remove the internal bits that hold all the moving parts from moving. There's one cardboard brace that's easy to remove, but this one was really tough

a


The main reason that it's tough is that the directions tell you to pull the part that's wrapped in light blue paper. I don't know about you, but I don't see any light blue paper on that thing. If the diagram didn't show you where to pull, I'd have been lost.

Next step says to connect the included network cable and use the included clip to secure it. All I see is a USB cable, which isn't a "network" cable in my mind. As for the clip, who knows? I'm using Ethernet, so I don't really care.


At least the connector was easy to reach, it was a real bear on the B9180.

There we go, all hooked up to a UPS, catch apron installed, and all those protective films removed. Drives me nuts when people leave those on.

Ah, power up time. Takes maybe two minutes to boot


And then we're told the printer has no ink carts


So, remove the tape and open the right-hand door. Speaking of tape, one thing I liked about the B9180 packaging was that the tape always had one end doubled over so it was easy to grasp. On the Z3100, you have to pick at the corner of the tape quite a bit to get it loose. Anyhow, here's the empty ink bin


Shake each cartridge 10 seconds and peel it open, then insert the cart into proper slot. The printer will give a reassuring little beep and turn that cartidge slot black on the display. Each cart has a unique set of keys on the top



so it's impossible to insert the cartidges into the wrong slot or upside down.

Right side all loaded


Same procedure for the left side. Once the last cart is in, the printer proceeds to prime the ink system, then eventually asks you to open the top. You're supposed to see a blue lever and, this time, it's actually blue


This opens the head bay.

The display is now showing "Remove setup printheads and dispose of them". This really confused me, at first I thought this was a generic message that refered to any printhead previously set up. But the directions cleared it up: what it means by "setup printheads" are just some disposable orange plastic caps where the printheads connect to the ink lines. The message should have been a little clearer.

When removing these caps, be aware that you have to pull pretty hard.

Now, you proceed to shake each head a few times, then open the package. You're warned not to touch any gold contacts, but watch out: the contacts are not under any kind of cover and in the place I'd most likely grab. But my experiences with the B9180 last year had me watching out for it. Remove the two orange covers. Here's a poor shot of the contacts and you can see one of the orange covers:



Also like the B9180, there's a moist swab that you use to swipe the nozzles a few times. However, the setup directions don't tell you to use it. But the directions in the head package do, so I did. It was odd that one of the cartridges didn't have the swab. I presumed it was just left out and used the other side of one from another head.

After all the heads are installed, relatch the top with the blue lever. The printer then starts prepping the new heads, telling you that it may take as long as 40 minutes. It very nicely gives you a countdown timer. I was busy writing all this stuff, so I didn't notice how long it took. But I don't think it was 40 minutes, maybe 20?

When the printer finished, it beeped and told me what IP address had been assigned, as well as a URL of http://NPI0040CA9849B7! It now wants paper for a head alignment.

I'm supposed to remove two orange stoppers from the roll paper holder. One came right out, can't see how to remove the other.

Ah, I see, the blue spindle slides over out of the way and the orange stopper pops right out like the other one.

Loading the first roll was quite a trial, it took about 5 minutes. The sample roll of Instant Dry Glossy has a wicked curl to it. At first the Z3100 kept telling me it couldn't detect the roll and I thought I had a printer with the dreaded malfunctioning paper detector. But it eventually loaded, adjusted its skew, and is now happily printing test patterns as my wife and I stare at the print head going back and forth. Curse HP for putting a transparent cover on this thing!

OK, the printer has stopped and looks like it's ready to go. The funky URL it gave didn't work, but the IP address did. This is really cool, I like all this info. The cartridges are showing between 55 and 62ml left of their original 69ml. Carts and printheads are all reporting as in-warranty. And I see I'm already running the latest firmware.

Well, all seems well now. It's 10:45, way past my bedtime. I'll tackle drivers and such in the morning.

Oct 6

Woke up at 4am, may as well get going.

First step today is to change some network settings. I'm a computer guy by training, so I like stuff a certain way.

I used the web interface to change the printer's IP address and hostname. Using DHCP is convenient, but it means the printer will get different addresses on different days and I don't want to keep changing the URL I use. So I updated the address to a fixed private network and assigned the hostname z3100.addy.com (I'm so creative). Couple of notes. First, you have to be running the domain's DNS servers to make up a hostname that works, just changing the "host name" setting on the z3100 won't do the trick. Second, when I used the web interface to set the IP, it didn't completely work. The IP changed, but the subnet mask didn't get set correctly, had to set it from the printer's control panel.

If the previous paragraph made no sense to you, don't worry about it. Most people will not bother doing this.
Running setup from the CD now. Sure takes a long time starting up ...

Ah, there it is. Asking what kind of connection I'm using. It actually has a FILE port choice, that's odd. Good if you're using sneakernet, I guess.

It's now searching for printers. Slowly, I might add.

Hmmm, I just realized the dialog box is saying "Setup has stopped searching for printers. Click restart to start again". Why did it stop? Don't know, clicking "Restart".

OK, took it about 5 seconds to find it. Now it wants to know if I'd like to do a full installation. On the B9180 a "full" installation was 600 megs, so I'm a little hesitant. Luckily, it offers a "Details" button that tells me a full installation is only 80 megs. On a side note, I remember my first computer's hard drive was a whopping 1 meg. That's not a typo. 1, one, uno, single, that's all folks. I remember thinking it was huge. I also remember paying $900 for it.

And we're now installing software ... Not bad, just 5 minutes. Have to reboot now.
Reboot went fine. I'm a little lost on what to do next. The instruction booklet just ends, no "what to do now".

Decided to do a color callibration, just because the front panel has it marked as "recommended" under the paper menu. It printed the test pattern and is now letting it dry (with a countdown timer, thank you). Just a little nit: It knows that it has 24" paper, why not print the test pattern all the way across instead of vertically? It would have used a lot less paper.

It's now scanning the test pattern. Kinda cool, as the head moves the spectro appears to be hitting the paper with various colors of light. Looks like a disco in there.

The printer has finished callibrating. Looking at the pattern, I see what looks like blobby tracks, like some kind of soft roller wheels are leaving marks that show up as a gloss differential.

I'm really a bit irritated at this point. I don't know where to go from here. Do I have to profile the ID Gloss paper or does it already have profiles for the HP papers that are good enough? The setup instructions and the Quick Start Guide don't address that or tell you where the detailed manual's at.

OK, I'm just gonna fire up Photoshop and try printing something. Set up a recent portrait shot using the ID Glossy with GE. It spooled up quickly and the Z is now printing it. I really like the way it gives you the document name and a completion estimate



although it doesn't seem real accurate. I noticed the timer dropping 2-3 seconds, sometimes more, each second.

First print's done. Unfortunately, the accounting system doesn't tell you how long the print took, but I'm sure that it's way under the original estimate of ~7 minutes. The printer's saying it used 2.62ml of ink on an 11x17 print, that's roughly $1.50 or $1.16 per sf.

I asked for a borderless 11x17 print and the Z appears to have taken the print and scaled it up just a bit. The image printed at 17-3/16" wide and 11-1/16" tall. The printer then trimmed off a little over 1/16" off the bottom so that the print ended up just a hair under 11"


Generally I would think it wouldn't matter, but something to keep in mind if you're printing something that needs to be exactly to scale or a very precise crop. Also, be aware that, apparently, if you do borderless prints, the Z will trim your print then advance the paper about three inches and cut it off again.



I guess this is because cutting it off any smaller would let that sliver of paper perhaps fall into the printer or otherwise cause a problem.

If you want your image to print as you want it on roll paper, you have to select a paper size of "Oversize/Margins" and select "Oversize" under Layout Options. This will pad the print with 1/4-5/16" of whitespace and you can then trim by hand for borderless. I generally leave space anyway, makes mounting/framing easier.

Now, about the print itself: I'm not overly thrilled with it. It doesn't have those odd marks like the callibration print did, but the bronzing and GD seem kinda bad. I'll have to do some more experimenting later, perhaps I'm not getting the printer to use the Gloss Enhancer even though I selected the "with GE" profile.

Oct 8
Sorry there was no update lately. Sat was rather frustrating, trying to figure out a message that the printer driver was giving me.

Basically, everytime I printed something, I would see a message that I needed to "synchronize" my local profiles with the printer using the HP Easy Printer Care utility (EPC). I presume it was because I had re-callibrated with the HP ID Glossy paper. But when I looked in EPC there was nothing there that I could use to accomplish such a task.

After some more digging, it seemed that I was supposed to use the "Color Center" tab in EPC. Problem: there was no such tab in EPC.

I then spent a couple of hours wandering about HP's website, trying to find out what the deal was. It was a very frustrating experience, I kept encountering pages that simply didn't work. For example, trying to use their Live Chat system, it told me that there was no support available for my printer, even though the Z3100 was clearly listed on a previous page. Another lovely page spent 5 minutes scanning my system only to tell me that I have no HP printers, even though I have three!

Gathering bit and pieces in various forums, it seems that HP took the Color Center out of EPC but it was going to reappear in a later version. There is a newer version shown on the HP website, but once again I hit a problem. You get in a few pages to the "choose your language" page, but clicking Next just takes you back to that same page. I finally gave up in disgust.

Sunday is probably my busiest day. My wife and I teach a 3rd grade girls Sunday School class, then help run Salvation Station, our children's church for 2-5th grade. Lunch with friends, watch the Jaguars game, Sunday afternoon teachers meeting, and evening service means no touching the printer for a day.

One of the few pages that worked on the HP site was to send a message to tech support. I got an answer during lunch today. They basically told me I must not have installed Color Center. Which should be impossible, since I told it to do a full install. I restarted the driver install from the CD and found that there is no way to not install Color Center. When you select Custom Install instead of Full, your only choices are the drivers, EPC, and the paper profiles. Color Center is not an independent choice.

Anyhow, I found the Color Center utility as a download on the HP site (and it actually let me download it). I installed and voila! the Color Center tab has now appeared in EPC, along with "Job Accounting" and "Settings" tabs.


Oct 9
Busy busy busy: Since getting the printer, I've been getting bombarded by brides seeking information about 2008 weddings. Funny, I don't recall that being a feature listed on the HP site. Or maybe the ladies just prefer photographers with big printers :)
I placed an order for some Canon Heavyweight Professional Satin paper this morning. I had gotten some sample prints off a Canon iPF6100 on that paper and really liked the look and feel. This ability to pretty much use any paper is what really sold me on the Z.

I also got a Bienfang D-Roller to tame the curl of roll paper. I know many people think it's nuts to spend $250 on something so simple, but my attempts at a homemade solution weren't working so well. And I normally bill out my time at $100 an hour, so it wouldn't take much experimentation to waste more time than it was worth. However, I may revisit the idea later and maybe come up with my own alternative and make some money.

BTW, if you're in the market for paper or a printer, I highly recommend Shades of Paper. They give incredible customer service, super helpful and great prices to boot. I didn't realize they're now carrying the Z-series (it's not on their website) or I probably would have bought it from them. Tell them I sent you (maybe they'll give me a discount).

Oct 11
What an insanely busy week. I spend $4,000 for a new printer and I have no time to use it.

I can tell you that the Z3100's self-cleaning cycles are loud at 3am. I'm not sure if it does it on a strict 24-hour schedule like the B9180 does, it seems more like when it thinks it needs it.
My package from Shades of Paper arrived today. It seemed a little light. I was very disappointed when I opened it, only the D-Roller was in it. I don't know why the Canon Heavyweight Satin wasn't, I'll have to call SOP in the morning and find out if it's being shipped separately, backordered, or just they just plain forgot it.
Oct 15
I heard back from Shades of Paper, it seems that the Canon paper is backordered and they forgot to tell me about that. Just when I tell you how great they are, they mess up.

Oct 16
I was tying up some loose wires and getting the printer into its final position when I noticed that there are rubber feet on the bottom. So if your studio has table space you'd rather use than floor space with the stand, it's made to do that. Just keep in mind that you'll still need to access the back of the printer to load roll paper, it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to do from the front.
It's been 11 days since getting my printer. And I've not printed a single real print. Just no time, been so very busy. We're totally rearranging our office area with some new storage stuff and furniture to help get us organized, so most of my spare time has been spent assembling furniture, rearranging files, running to the dump, etc. But it's looking so nice up here!

Oct 20
I've been dreading changing the paper in the Z because the first time loading the Instant Dry Glossy (the roll that came with it) because it was such a hassle. However, loading a roll of Professional Satin was a piece of cake. The hardest part of the whole process was getting the roll inserts out of the old roll and into the new. The roll holder is not motorized, so I don't understand why they're so doggone tight.

I've seen other comments that people were irked because HP secured the end of the paper with a piece of tape, essentially ruining the first foot or so of the paper. Apparently HP has heard the complaints, because my roll was secured with a 2" wide strip of paper wound around the roll several times and that was taped.

After getting the roll onto the inserts, I used the menu to tell the Z that I was loading a roll of HP Pro Satin. It told me to insert the paper into the feed opening. I pressed it in and felt the Z grab it and slowly start feeding it in. It pulled it in, used a red light in the head to check the alignment and skew, then trimmed off a three inch strip and pronounced itself ready to go.


Oct 22
I've been printing several copies of an image for some D-Roller testing. One thing that I was happy to see was that the Z is much quicker in printing subsequent prints. I've been printing the occasional print separated by several hours or days and the "wind-up" time between the printing waking up and actually starting to print was quite long. I didn't time it, but it was perhaps a minute or more? However, doing several prints in a row dropped the time to maybe 5-10 seconds. I presume the delay would be the same if the contents were different.

Oct 23
Major headaches with the print driver and custom papers. I wanted to define some custom paper sizes so that I could print, for example, a 22x14 without wasting a lot of paper on a much larger size.

So I set up a 24x15 custom paper size and all seemed well. Except that a) the print driver showed the paper oriented the opposite of what it should be, e.g. printing vertically and wasting 9 inches of paper on the side and b) no matter which way I chose stuff in the printer dialogs, I would get just a portion of my image stretched out to fill the print area.

Finally, after some more reading, it seems the driver has real issues with custom sizes and is apparently limited to only five without eventually having problems. It's best to bypass the driver altogether when defining custom sizes.

Open up "Printers and Faxes" on the Start menu. Highlight (don't open) the Z3100 and click on "File" then "Server Properties". Now click the "Create a new form" checkbox and define your new paper size. I've been defining 24x8, 24x12, etc, so that I can tightly control what paper length I'm using. Photoshop and Qimage have been working with this setup fine so far.
D-Roller tests: I tried out my new $250 Bienfang D-Roller on some prints. I bought it mainly based on the glowing recommendation from Michael Reichman on Luminous Landscape. In his little video, he shows it completely removing the curl from a print in just a few seconds.

He mentions that he's using it on a fine-art rag paper and it may not be as effective on other paper types. A better description might have been "almost completley ineffective" on some other paper types.

Specifically, I tried it on HP's Professional Satin. I printed out a set of 24"x6" prints and kept them in the D-Roller for various amounts of time. The table below shows how long the print was D-Rolled, the amount of curl immediately after removing, and the amount of curl after 24 hours. Curl was measured by the height of the print off the table in the center.

Time in D-Roller After Removal After 24 hours
0 Min
7/8"
7/8"
1 min
11/16"
13/16"
5 min
Almost flat
3/4"
10 min
Flat
9/16"
30 min
Reverse Curled
3/8"

As you can see, even holding the print in the D-Roller for 1/2 hour doesn't cure it's curl. I'm trying it out now by holding for an hour, but realistically nothing over 10-15 minutes would be workable. Shades of Paper tells me that the Canon Heavyweight Satin works well with the D-Roller, we'll see. Speaking of which, they finally shipped it yesterday (and forgot to tell me they shipped it).

Oct 25
An update on the D-Roller tests: I left two prints in the D-Roller for an hour and it did a fair job of flattening them. I did both prints at the same time with no apparent damage, keeping in mind that they're the same size. They came out with a strong reverse curl and laid out flat within 5 minutes. After 24 hours, they're still flat with a bit of original curl at the edges.

Speaking of the prints, they seem quite nice. Good color and bronzing/GD were well controlled but still apparent.

Looking forward to getting my new Canon Heavyweight Satin paper this evening.

Oct 26
Busy day today.

I finally had a chance to run out some larger prints. I tried out a 22x16 print of a very lovely girl I shot for her senior portaits yesterday. The print was B/W with lots of widely spread gradations.

Within seconds of putting the print onto my work table, I saw my worst fear: banding. In several sections of the print that had large areas of middle-grays were these very prominent bands where the gray was slightly lighter on one side. Also, the entire print had gloss banding.

Boy, was I ticked.

Looking though HP documentation, they recommend setting the driver to "more passes" to counteract banding. I had been using the "Standard Options" where you have a slider that goes from "Speed" to "Quality", with the slider all the way over to Quality.

So I instead selected "Custom Options" where you can select various settings. You can select a Quality Level of Fast, Normal, or Best. You can also crank the printer's rendering resolution from the standard 600 dpi to 1200 dpi and you can also set "more passes" which HP says causes the printer to slow down but not use more ink. One other option is to select the level of Gloss Enhancer (Off, EconoMode, or Full Page).

Quite a few test prints later, I came to the conclusion that the setting the Standard Options slider all the way to "Quality" is nowhere near maximum quality. I don't know what settings it chooses, but I found that using the Custom Options and just setting the quality level to Best solved all the banding problems. No need for Max DPI or More Passes. I even left the Gloss Enhancer on EconoMode. Print looks beautiful, if there's any bronzing or gloss differential I can't see it.
I got to try out the new Canon Heavyweight Satin today. I really like this paper. It's 300 gsm and has a real quality feel. The surface looks identical to Kodak Endura, which is a definite plus in matching what my clients "expect" a print to look like. The texture completely hides any starwheel marks. And a 24"x100' roll is only $71.20 including shipping from ColorHQ.

Anyone want to buy an almost full roll of HP Professional Satin?
Other notes on the Canon paper: It comes on a 2" core, so I'm a bit worried about curl toward the end. However, my first prints responded to the D-Roller very nicely, keeping them in for just 10 minutes de-curled them better than an hour did with HP Professional Satin. One more plus for the Canon paper.

And speaking of cores, removing the 3" core adapters from the HP paper was ridiculously hard. The roll holders only project about 1/2" from the core, so there's almost no way to get a good hold on them. I had to flip the entire thing on end and bang the end of the rod on a table to drive the holders out. As I noted before, the roll holder is free-spinning, no motor, so there's just no reason for the adapters to be so tight.

Oct 28
HP has released new firmware for the Z3100, which I downloaded and installed this morning. Download took a bit, as the file is 350 megs. Installing was very easy and straightforward. It took 45 seconds to upload it to the printer, 5 minutes to "process" the file, and then 11 minutes to reboot the printer. During the reboot, the Z displayed a percentage of progress. I'm assuming that "processing" really means that the Z is validating the firmware, then the percentage is shown while actually copying the firmware from the hard drive to the flash RAM.

I don't know what this firmware upgrade is supposed to fix, as HP has yet to release any notes on that.

Nov 2
Printed quite a few large shots from a basketball league ealier this year. And discovered an issue with the Canon paper. I found that, while earlier prints were practially free of GD & bronzing (especially B/W) these particular prints had horrible problems with very light and dark blues.

As a side note, I've seen a goodly increase in ink usage since the firmware update. I was seeing around 1 ml/sf in all types of prints, since the upgrade it's more like 1.4 ml/sf. However, don't read a whole lot into that, it's not like I was printing up the same images again. Although I might try that later ...
2008

Jan 3
Well, I've finally found some paper I really like. Kodak Professional Lustre, $85 for a 24"x100' roll from B&H Photo. They also have 16"x100' and 10"x100' rolls.

The Kodak paper has the E-type lustre finish I was looking for. And while it still exhibits the bronzing on blue/purple tones, it's less than I've seen on any other paper except HP Professional Satin. And while it bronzes worse than Pro Satin, it has a far more durable surface than the "delicate" surface of Pro Satin.

The only real drawback is that I wish it was a stiffer paper. At 250 gsm, it's not really all that light, but I really preferred the "heft" of the Canon and HP papers, which I think are 300gsm. Perhaps the Kodak paper isn't really lighter, just less stiff? In that case, it would be less prone to retain its curl and easier to de-curl, especially since it comes on a 3" core. I'll let you know what I find, I've just gotten my first roll (my testing was on a 25-sheet flat pack).
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