Anyone try digital negs on an HP Z3100?

I'm looking for a larger printer, and for a variety of reasons think the Z3100 may be the right one for me, but I have one requirement that I haven't found an answer to, and that is whether it can play well with films and make suitable digital negatives for pt/pd printing.

Anyone know?

Since it is a 12 ink printer, the 8 ink HP printers may not be a good indication of the suitability of the printer for this task.

I'm hoping that there may be some information out there that I haven't found yet.


Thanks,


---Michael

I'll run some tests in the next few weeks .... will do the same on rhe Canon 6100 when it arrives (expected soon).

Ted Harris said:

I'll run some tests in the next few weeks .... will do the same on rhe Canon 6100 when it arrives (expected soon).

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Hi Ted and Michael,

I'm interested in this printer for digital negatives too. Ted, did you do some tests allready?

kees

still haven't had time and likely won't for at least another two weeks

HP Z3100/Pigment inks and digital negatives

I see this thread has maybe gone the way of the dodo, but I'm still wandering if anyone ever got around to using the HP Z3100 to make digital negatives for Pt/Pd printing etc? If so, what do you think? Any speckling in the highlights? Getting enough density from the HP inks? Most of the threads I find on the internet seem to point at the Epson 3800 being the current printer of choice for digital negatives - but I may be wrong...

Angus.

I 've just made some test with the Z3100 and I get good result, quite similar to what I get with a 7800 Epson.

amphoto said:

I see this thread has maybe gone the way of the dodo, but I'm still wandering if anyone ever got around to using the HP Z3100 to make digital negatives for Pt/Pd printing etc? If so, what do you think? Any speckling in the highlights? Getting enough density from the HP inks? Most of the threads I find on the internet seem to point at the Epson 3800 being the current printer of choice for digital negatives - but I may be wrong...

Angus.

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nze said:

I 've just made some test with the Z3100 and I get good result, quite similar to what I get with a 7800 Epson.

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Any pizza wheel marks with the Z3100, as I hear that is a big problem with a lot of gloss paper as HP were cheap and didn't go for an epson style vacuum roller system?

Assuming no pizza wheel marks the Z3100 (and all other HP's using their Vivera pigment ink) should be good, as Vivera ink has very good UV blocking properties. I get good results with my humble B9180.

James

I had unbelievable trouble with my Z3100. The printer was replaced 5 times.
I had techs out to me almost everyday for months. I even worked with Barcelona to produce a beta roller setup. I also worked with the head of Z3100 support with no luck. The problems occurred on every type of paper, Gloss, Matte, RC and Fiber bases. Even on HP paper! I had pinch roller marks, pizza wheel marks and scoring.

I finally gave up and bought an epson 9880. This was only 4 months ago so i cant believe they have fixed it on every production unit. Remember they have tons of them already made sitting in warehouses around the world.
Some with the problem and some fine.
I did learn from one of the techs that the 44" have this issue almost exclusively. The 24" had very little problems.

In the end, HP did finally apologize to me for my pain and suffering. But as they say, To little to late.
Let the buyer be ware!

Btw, HP did use a vacuum system on most large format printers until this series. My 5500 has one and its great.
This latest incarnation is a serious error in design. Every tech from HP had basically said the same thing to me. None of them could figure out why they did it.

just got the z3100.. had the pizza wheels replaced (it's a known problem, with a hardware solution).. after that, no marks on any substrate (including Harmon Fb Glossy).

I've started calibrating for digital negatives.. ran the first test last night, and got a 2.85 UV density using a green close to what i used with the Epson 7600. The tone of the test strip was very smooth and grain free.. but i'll need to dial in the curve and then print before i can really tell.

using OHP and the stock HP inkset

jimcollum said:

just got the z3100.. had the pizza wheels replaced (it's a known problem, with a hardware solution).. after that, no marks on any substrate (including Harmon Fb Glossy).

I've started calibrating for digital negatives.. ran the first test last night, and got a 2.85 UV density using a green close to what i used with the Epson 7600. The tone of the test strip was very smooth and grain free.. but i'll need to dial in the curve and then print before i can really tell.

using OHP and the stock HP inkset

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That's great news Jim, let us know how things progress. Good to see you post here again!

Don Bryant

Don Bryant said:

That's great news Jim, let us know how things progress. Good to see you post here again!

Don Bryant

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thanks.. i'd taken a bit of a hiatus from 'life'.. have had some back problems, and working overtime at the day job.

i do have a show of platinum over pigment prints in a gallery in Santa Cruz, for anyone local (about 20 11x14 print, and a 16x20)

It's at the Dead Cow Gallery (it's really the name)

http://www.scruzwiki.org/Dead_Cow_Gallery

i tried another color range for testing on the hp z3100. I was able to get a higher dmax (UV).. .3.05

the fill color used was r:229 g:114 b:0

the first sequence (prior to making the curve) produces very smooth tones.. no grain at all from what i can see. (printing ziatypes Pdt 2:1, cot 320, reflective measurement.. .05 dmin, 1.39 dmax)

tonal values pretty much dead neutral until about 0.8 (r:.71, g:.72, b:.75)

to lighter tones at r:.24 g:.29 b:.36)

humidity about 55% in the coating room)

jimcollum said:

thanks.. i'd taken a bit of a hiatus from 'life'.. have had some back problems, and working overtime at the day job.

i do have a show of platinum over pigment prints in a gallery in Santa Cruz, for anyone local (about 20 11x14 print, and a 16x20)

It's at the Dead Cow Gallery (it's really the name)

http://www.scruzwiki.org/Dead_Cow_Gallery

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Ciao Jim,

I heard about your show on KUSP a week or so ago. I'm planning to go check it out when I get up to Santa Cruz. I'm South S.C. County in La Selva. If there is an evening your planning to be there, let me know. I'm pretty green on alt processes and I would enjoy talking with you about your prints.

R Shaffer said:

Ciao Jim,

I heard about your show on KUSP a week or so ago. I'm planning to go check it out when I get up to Santa Cruz. I'm South S.C. County in La Selva. If there is an evening your planning to be there, let me know. I'm pretty green on alt processes and I would enjoy talking with you about your prints.

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other than Friday (going int for a discography.. medievel torture from what i read)... so evening this week is good with me.

how'd you hear about the show?

jimcollum said:

other than Friday (going int for a discography.. medievel torture from what i read)... so evening this week is good with me.

how'd you hear about the show?

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On the local public radio station KUSP. They have a guy on air that talks ( breifly ) about the local art scene. You can take a listen to your spot here:

http://www.kusp.org/shows/astudio.html

Shoot me a PM to rsengineer@cruzio.com and we can pick a time.

Thanks

R Shaffer said:

On the local public radio station KUSP. They have a guy on air that talks ( breifly ) about the local art scene. You can take a listen to your spot here:

http://www.kusp.org/shows/astudio.html

Shoot me a PM to rsengineer@cruzio.com and we can pick a time.

Thanks

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good god.. there are just some things that should never be archived. :rolleyes:


i'll send you an email

jim

jimcollum said:

good god.. there are just some things that should never be archived. :rolleyes:


i'll send you an email

jim

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Thanks for stopping by the gallery. Yours were the first Kallitypes i've seen, very nice examples!

You had said one of the images had been Palladium toned.. were they all toned? Was wondering the original hue was

jim

jimcollum said:

Thanks for stopping by the gallery. Yours were the first Kallitypes i've seen, very nice examples!

You had said one of the images had been Palladium toned.. were they all toned? Was wondering the original hue was

jim

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Ciao Jim,

All the kallitypes were pd toned. I use sodium citrate developer and I don't like the color untoned. There are other developers which give different colors, but the archival properties are suspect.

Your pt over pigment prints are wonderful. I was very impressed with your eye for composition and craft in printing. Beautiful tonal scale and color. Looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future

Rob

i've fine tuned the negatives (curve and color) for the HPz3100 using OHP as the negative material, and ziatype for the print. Produces excellent tones, with no grain

It looks like i can post a pdf psd file, so i'll put the layers into it and tie it to this thread

jim

We'd like to start producing digital negatives with HP Z3100. Are there any documents or How-to's available? Do we need also a densitometer to fine tune the test strips?