Testing Hahnemühle glossy papers.

Hahnemühle glossy paper sample pack.

Tests for the Matte paper sample pack appear here. I concluded that not one of these papers was adequate for high resolution photographic prints, the color and/or texture taking out too much resolution. The heavily textured papers were downright awful.

The Glossy sample pack mysteriously includes two types of canvas paper which I consider totally unsuitable for photographic prints and did not test. Photographs are not faux paintings. They are photographs.

My first reaction on opening the glossy sample pack was one of disappointment. After discarding the two canvas horrors, only one (Baryta FB) of the remaining six papers was a true white, in fact slightly whiter than the HP-banded Premium Glossy paper, with Fine Art Pearl being almost as white. None was anywhere near as glossy as the HP brand, the Photo Rag Satin was anything but Satin (here the HP Premium Satin truly excels) being surpassingly flat and bland. How this can be included in a ‘Glossy Sample Pack’ beats me.

Paper profiles:

Hahnemühle does not provide any paper profiles for these papers when used with the HP DesignJet 30/90/130 dye printers. Accordingly, I used the stock HP Premium Glossy Maximum Detail profile, with colors controlled by Lightroom, not by the printer.

Glossy paper characteristics:

Hahnemühle paper characteristics – glossy sample pack.

Printer settings:

In Lightroom. Note that a matte profile was used for Photo Rag Satin in preference to a glossy one.

In the printer dialog. Note that the Photo Matte setting was used for Photo Rag Satin in preference to a glossy one.

As is always the case when using an HP Glossy profile, the DesignJet will hold onto the printed sheet for a few minutes before ejection, thus allowing the print to dry. It can always be manually ejected, but be aware that the surface is very fragile at this juncture.

One sheet of the whitest glossy paper, Baryta FB, had a small black blemish, maybe 0.5mm long, but enough to destroy a print if it appeared in a light area. Inexcusable.

Results:

My gradings are based on three simple criteria for a glossy print. The paper must be a stark white and the gloss has to be a high gloss or a true satin for papers named ‘Satin’. The third is that colors have to be accurate.

Color fidelity:

This was the best:

• Baryta FB

This paper is extremely heavy at 350gsm, like the matte Museum Etching paper in the earlier matte paper test. Like that paper some color tracks were left in the bottom white margin from the printer’s roller, though strangely none on the printed area. The color rendering is outstanding, identical to HP Premium Glossy, but the finish s more satin than glossy.

I cannot recommend any of the other papers – too yellow, nasty surface finish or just plain yecch! (Canvas).

Fade tests in strong sun:

I will report results for both glossy and matte papers after three months of sun exposure, compared to a control sample stored in a cardboard box.

Conclusions and alternatives:

If my tests of 16 Hahnemühle printing surfaces proves anything it’s that the HP-branded papers are very good indeed. But my remaining supply of some 120 sheets of 18″ x 24″ is dwindling, so a replacement has to be found. HP’s paper avoids ridiculous excess weight, which serves no purpose and can cause roller marks.

There is no true glossy Hahnemühle paper here. The best is the Baryta FB, and it bears more resemblance to HP Premium Satin than to HP Premium Gloss, and Baryta FB’s high weight may result in ink smudges from the feed rollers.

Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl leaves nasty blotches viewed at an angle, and only two paper base colors equal or exceed the whites of HP Premium Glossy – that same Fine Art Pearl (forget it, because of the blotchiness) and Baryta FB whose thickness causes dirt tracks from over-pressured rollers.

All the other papers in this sample pack are too yellow to pass muster for proper color rendering. Some of the finishes belong in a morgue, not on a photographic print.

Bottom line is that there is only one paper in the Hahnemühle mis-named ‘Glossy Sample Pack’ which I can recommend, the Baryta FB with the roller pressure caution mentioned above. And it’s not even glossy.

These tests of Hahnemühle papers have been very dispiriting. Not one of their Matte papers has anything to recommend it compared to HP’s Premium Glossy and Satin offerings and the Glossy ones are anything but.

Accordingly, I did some more research and will soon be testing Moab’s glossy papers. While I originally wrote these off as not suitable for dye inks, a revisit and more careful reading of Moab’s site, spurred by the poor experience with Hahnemühle’s offerings, suggests that their papers are suitable for dye inks, come in the large cut sheet sizes (13″ x 19″, 17″ x 22″ and A2 which is 16.5″ x 23.4″ – click here for paper sizes) which I prefer, and there are even profiles available for the glossy offerings specific to the HP DesignJet 30/90/130 dye printers. That is encouraging. As glossy print appearance and permanence are the very touchstones of the photographer’s craft, it’s worth the effort to find a long-term replacement for HP’s superb but discontinued Premium offerings. And I promise that is the last time I will use the words ‘superb’ and ‘HP’ in the same sentence.

For those photographers who revel in big prints and are trying to get the best print quality using the latest high megapixel sensors, high gloss surfaces are the answer. The quickest way to turn a 36mp sensor into a 6mp one is to use something ghastly like canvas paper.

Fade tests:

As with the matte papers, I will report back in three months on the extent of fading noted after daily all day exposure to bright sun:

Three matte and three glossy test strips in the sun.

Testing Hahnemühle matte and textured papers.

Hahnemuühle matte paper sample pack.

I set forth the background research done to find swellable papers for use in the HP DesignJet 30/90/130 printer here. The goal is to find archival non-HP branded paper replacements as HP paper in cut sheets becomes increasingly hard to find. The paper used must be compatible with dye based printers like the HP, which means it must absorb the inks into its surface and remain archival as regards freedom from fading.

In this article I’ll address results with eight different matte Hahnemühle papers. Glossy paper tests will be reported on in a third piece.

First, some preliminaries.

There is a host of variables when printing an image so whatever can be done to standardize these will help in meaningful critical assessment. Variables include:

• A properly calibrated display to permit accurate soft proofing in Lightroom 4
• A display which has been properly warmed up before use, to allow colors to stabilize
• Constant temperature daylight consonant with the viewing environment
• A reference print on HP paper for comparison, viewed in identical light
• Prints which have had 24 hours to ‘dry’ to stabilize colors
• The use of the correct paper profile from the manufacturer

I calibrate my displays with an EyeOne colorimeter and make sure they are on for at least 30 minutes before soft proofing on the screen. Images are viewed by noon daylight, the same light by which I calibrate my displays. All test prints have dried for 24 hours or more. Reference prints were first made on HP Premium Glossy using the appropriate HP paper profile. I never use aftermarket or continuous flow inks as life is too short to worry about their longevity all for the sake of insignificant savings.

When picking the appropriate Hahnemühle profile for use with each of their papers, things get a bit trickier, as not all of the papers in the sample paper pack have profiles available from Hahnemühle for the DJ 30/90/130 printers. These profiles are available:

Available Hahnemühle paper profiles.

All of these are for matte papers. I have yet to find any glossy paper profiles.

Downloading Hahnemühle paper profiles:

The profiles listed above include some from Hahnemühle’s current site and some which are no longer available but which I downloaded years ago.

The simplest way to install these is to download the file from my server by clicking on the ‘Download’ icon below. I have changed the ASCII names in the profiles from cryptic (as supplied) to English (as above), making recognition much easier when printing without having to refer to lookup tables. Other than the naming changes these profiles are stock.

You can download them by clicking below:

Click to download Hahnemüle paper profiles.

Here is where you want to move the downloaded files on your Mac, using Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion, using drag-and-drop:

Location of additional paper profiles in Snow Leopard and later.
Replace ‘Tigger’ with your username.

Here is how your Mac’s folder/directory should look after you have installed these using drag-and-drop on the location denoted by the red arrow. I do not know where they go in Windows, but the process is the same. Frankly, the very thought of printing using Windows makes a one way ticket to North Korea look like an attractive alternative. I also have other profiles in the folder shown above; take no notice of those for purposes of this article.

Profiles installed on the Mac.

If you cannot see the user directory – a truly moronic Apple ‘enhancement’ in Mountain Lion – go to Finder->Go and hold down the option key. The user Library directory will appear in the drop down Finder list. Click on it then continue navigation to the location shown.

Then go into the LR4 Print module, select the profile drop down list of profiles, click ‘Other….’ at the bottom and check all the profiles you want to see in future when accessing the drop down list, otherwise they will not appear.

Choosing the right paper profile:

If an exact match was not available, I studied the color and texture of the paper and used the profile for the closest match. For example, the Museum Etching paper (no profile available) is very similar in color and texture to the German Etching paper (profile available) so the German Etching profile was used for printing on Museum Etching paper.

Matte paper characteristics:

This table summarizes the characteristics of the eight matte paper samples included in the sampler pack, which comes with two of each, clearly labeled on the rear.

Hahnemühle paper characteristics – matte.

Making the prints:

I chose two images to make test prints for comparison with originals made on HP Glossy paper, the latter revealing the most detail and delivering the greatest dynamic range.

The first has both fine detail in the lettering and a broad color range, with dense blacks and pure whites. Further the neutral gray of the columns of the Ferry Building in the rear poses a stringent test for proper color rendering:

San Francisco trolley.

The second has a face I know well and very deep blacks, something the DesignJet 30/90/130 excel at rendering:

My son Winston.

In fairness, it’s hard to say whether I used the best profile for papers where none is available. But it’s the best I can do short of having a costly custom profile generated by a specialist with uncertain results.

Printer settings:

I previewed results using Soft Proofing in LR4’s Develop module, which allows both the print and the color of the paper to be previewed:

Soft proofing settings.

Note that you have to select the paper profile again when going into the Print module even if already selected in the Develop Soft Proofing step – it is not automatically conformed between the Develop and Print modules.

To apply a profile of choice, we want LR to manage colors, not the printer, so check you see this in the Print Settings dialog in the Print module:

Confirmation that LR is managing colors, not the DesignJet.

Here is how the Print module in LR appears prior to printing:

LR4 Print module settings.

Results:

Here are my subjective opinions based on the prints I made.

Color fidelity:

These were best:

• Photo Rag Ultra Smooth
• Photo Rag Bright White
• German Etching
• Museum Etching

These papers were incapable of rendering neutral greys in the building’s columns, having an easily noticed bluish cast:

• Photo Rag Duo
• Photo Rag
• William Turner

This paper did a very poor job with a blue cast in the column, washed out yellows and over bright skin tones – there has to be a better profile available but I do not particularly like the very warm color of this paper so I will not be doing any further work on it:

• Bamboo

Textures:

Three of these papers have very heavily textured surfaces:

• German Etching – a parchment-like finish
• William Turner – very coarse elongated stippling
• Museum Etching – parchment like finish on a very heavy base

These sort of papers, all very warm colored, give a very dated looking image verging on the pretentious. German Etching, which has a faint parchment-like texture is at least bearable. The other two are really unsuitable for photographic prints unless you are trying to pass them off as some sort of high art. If you are into claiming limited edition status for your snaps and signing them in pencil like you are Seurat using conté crayon, these may be for you.

None of the textures on the others is objectionable, but the only truly white one is Photo Rag Bright White which also does an outstanding job of detail rendering, despite the light texture of the surface.

Ink absorption:

None of the papers emerged wet from the printer, suggesting the dyes inks are being well absorbed. The Photo Rag Duo was slightly damp to the touch, dry after an hour. This paper allows printing on both sides, and is the lightest tested, maybe accounting for this. I did not test double-sided printing.

Freedom from fading:

Based on color rendering, I have cut prints for three of the best papers – Photo Rag Ultra Smooth, Photo Rag Bright White and German Etching – in half. One is placed in a window with full sun exposure for 4 hours a day and daylight exposure for an additional 8 hours a day. This is in CA so lack of sunshine is not what you would call a risk factor. The other is kept in a cardboard box. I will report back in three months to state whether fading is noticeable.

High tech test bench. Direct sun arrives in one hour.
Photo Rag Ultra Smooth, Photo Rag Bright White and German Etching papers.

Feeding the paper through the DesignJet 90:

With the sole exception of the very light Photo Rag Duo, all of these papers are heavier than the 280/286gsm of the HP branded ones. Only one showed any signs of feed issues. The heaviest, Museum Etching at 350gsm, showed minor ink smudges on the lower print border, maybe ink remnants coming off the feed rollers which would be under more pressure than with the lighter papers. I would guess a proper cleaning of the rollers would cure this. All papers were front fed using the HP DJ’s paper tray with only one sheet loaded at a time. Accompanied by the usual clanking from the DesignJet, there were no feed issues.

Dry mounting, fading and why so thick?

I am somewhat mystified why these papers have to be so thick and heavy. While that makes them nice to handle with cotton gloves, any decent print will end up being mounted on board and matted, it’s thickness irrelevant. Even the very light Photo Rag Duo handles just fine.

Maybe it’s some sort of one-upmanship selling feature? Maybe it stops them cockling when ‘hinge mounted’ – a process adopted by some for display, using tacky fold over tabs for adhesion to the display surface. The usual reason given is impermanence when dry mounting is used. If anything the surface area open to attack by pollutants – assuming the use of acid free dry mounting tissue and mounting boards – is halved once dry mounted (meaning heated in a press with dry mounting tissue between the print and mounting board). I have monochrome prints I dry mounted forty years ago and HP DesignJet 90 color prints made 7 years ago, displayed in bright sun, and there is not a hint of yellowing or fading. Wilhelm, the alleged authority on fading (see below) repeats this anti-dry mounting rant in his book, while adding that there is zero empirical evidence for his statement. Frustrating.

Failed logic from Chapter 11 of Wilhelm’s book.

In conclusion, the thickness of these papers makes no sense to me. Further, I encourage you to dry mount your work for the best look, using acid free dry mounting tissue and acid free mounting board. Framing behind UV glass will maximize fade resistance. A properly mounted and framed print is the touchstone of the photographer’s craft.

Do not use aftermarket ink cartridge refills:

Here are data from Wilhelm Research. Self explanatory:

When Wilhelm (arguably the worst home page in web history) tested the HP Vivera dye inks with the HP DesignJet 130 and 90 in June/July, 2005, they used HP-branded papers only, so not of help for our purposes here. I also downloaded Wilhelm’s 600+ page research document and while Hahnemühle is mentioned a few times it is never referred to in connection with the use of HP Vivera dye inks. It is referred to in connection with HP Vivera pigment inks, where the fade life of many of their papers is identical to that of HP-branded pigment ink papers, for what it’s worth.

In Part III I will look at Hahnemühle’s glossy and satin papers sold in their sampler pack.

The problem with matte papers: Not one of these eight papers comes anywhere close to rendering the deep inky black that is par for the course with glossy paper. Nor are any capable of rendering the resolution of glossy, with the textured papers especially poor in this regard. The ‘pop’ which comes with the use of good gear is gone, replaced by Lomography definition. It’s not a subtle difference, it’s painfully obvious when the prints are held side by side. An excellent way, in other words, of turning your high resolution lens and sensor into mush. Photo Rag Bright White is the least bad, but in an A-B comparison it’s still pretty awful. Nor is color depth remotely comparable in any of these to the glossy reference print. My advice is to studiously avoid matte papers and to stick with glossy or, at a pinch, satin.

The results of fade tests appear here.

Swellable choices.

Paper in large cut sheets for the HP DesignJet 30/90/130 dye ink jet printers is becoming increasingly hard to find under the HP brand name. This is hardly surprising, coming from America’s worst run big business. What distinguishes this paper from most current offerings is that the surface swells to absorb the ink dyes used in these printers, in contrast to almost all current ink jet printers which use pigments deposited on the surface. Further, archival life (80 years) is guaranteed with HP’s Vivera dye inks. If you use pigment ink paper with the HP 30/90/130 printers there is no guarantee that the ink will either dry properly or deliver archival life.

As I do not want to buy paper in rolls and have to cut it up manually, a process comparable to a root canal once you get to deal with paper curl, I did some research on large cut sheet supplies from sources other than HP. I write ‘sources’ rather than ‘manufacturers’ as HP never made its printing paper, outsourcing the task like with everything else they ‘make’. The paper boxes state ‘Made in Switzerland’ but I have never been able to determine who the maker is

Moab‘s web site is confused about the meaning of Vivera inks. This has been a trade name which HP has used for both its archival dye and pigment inks. Thus Moab’s statement on its site that ‘Our papers all work with Vivera inks’ is not sufficiently specific to give comfort about use with the DJ 30/90/130 range.

Museo (Crane) specifically states that dye inks are not going to have archival lives used with their papers.

Ilford is hip to dye inks, offering those as a choice in both its regular and commercial sizes. However, the commercial papers come in rolls only and the only one in their regular range which is usable with dye inks is Galerie Prestige Mono Silk which is stated to be for black & white only. I (hardly ever) do black & white, so move on.

Hahnemühle offers hope. They claim to have been making paper since 1584. Hahnemühle is a German company with subsidiaries in England, France, America and China, so it’s unlikely they are the manufacturer of the HP-branded paper. Their largest cut sheets are 17″ x 22″ – a little under the 18″ x 24″ capacity of my DJ90 – but they specifically state that the following papers are suitable for use with dye inks, selling them in sample packs of eight, either matte or glossy:

Papers in the matte sample pack:

• Bamboo 290gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag Duo/Book & Album (Sugar Cane) 220gsm – printable on both sides (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag ultra smooth 305gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag 308gsm (also available in 188gsm and 500gsm) ** (0,1,2,3) (188gsm and 308gsm only; 500gsm comes in 24″ x 30″)
• Photo Rag Bright White 310gsm ** (0,1,2,3)
• German Etching textured 310gsm ** (0,1,2,3)
• William Turner textured 310gsm (also available in 190gsm) ** (0,1,2,3)
• Museum Etching textured 350gsm (0,1,2,3)

Papers in the glossy sample pack:

• Fine Art Pearl 285 gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag Baryta 325gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag Satin 310gsm ** (0,1,2,3)
• Photo Rag Pearl 320gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Fine Art Baryta glossy 325 gsm – for black & white (0,1,2,3)
• Baryta FB Glossy 350gsm (0,1,2,3)
• Daguerre Canvas 410gsm (4)
• Monet Canvas 410gsm (4)

** Denotes that an icc profile is available for download on the Hahnemüle site for the HP DesignJet 30/90/130 printers.

Notes:
0 – Available in 8.5″ x 11″
1 – Available in 11″ x 17″
2 – Available in 13″ x 19″
3 – Available in 17″ x 22″
4 – Available in 11.7″ x 16.5″

Each of these also comes in a variety of larger roll sizes. Weights are shown above as they are of concern. HP-branded Premium Plus Satin weighs in at 280gsm, Premium Plus Glossy at 286gsm. So there is an issue as to whether the HP will handle heavier papers loke those above, which will be thicker.

Hahnemühle (“Ha-ne-mule-er”) still offers downloads of paper profiles for use with the HP DJ 30/90/130 printers and I explain how to install these for Lightroom 2 and 3 users in a five-year old piece here written in anticipation of the day when HP-branded dye ink jet paper would no longer be available. That day is close.

For Lightroom 4 users I will include a downloadable file of paper profiles, in the follow up piece, for a handful of Hahnemühle papers, once I have tested these, together with instructions as to where you need to copy these to so that they show up properly in both the Develop/Soft Proofing and in the Printing modules of Lightroom 4. The enhanced soft proofing (screen preview of the print) capabilities of LR4 really make upgrading a lot of sense if you are still on an older version of LR. The soft proofing in LR4 not only simulates the colors of your finished prints, it also simulates the white color of the paper you tell LR to soft proof to! And the differences are quite easily visible on the display.

Archival HP DJ 30/90/130 profiles appear here on their site. I will include all of these – and more from my archive – in the two follow up articles to this piece.

B&H lists a sample pack including all of the above papers for a modest sum and I have one of each of matte and glossy on order:

I’ll report back after having run some tests. There will be two subsequent pieces – the first dealing with Hahnemühle non-glossy paper surfaces (Matte and Textured), which I suspect most readers here use. The second will deal with glossy Hahnemühle papers (Satin and Glossy), glossy being the surface I use most of the time as it delivers the highest dynamic range and detail.

Matte/textured paper tests appear here.

Glossy paper tests appear here.

Fade tests will be published three months hence when I have the results.

Tiling is the answer.

Background:

Back in 2005 I wrote about making Really Large Prints. That meant 13″ x 19″, a veritable wallet size compared to what I am doing here. We are talking 36″ x 48″ or seven times the area.

On occasion I have regretted buying the 18″ wide HP DesignJet 90 printer, wishing I had instead paid a little more for the 24″ DJ130. But when it came to making a 36″ x 48″ print the other day, neither could have done the trick. At least not in one pass. And making something really huge for my DJ90’s seventh anniversary seemed the right thing to do.

With my DJ in perfect tune after its annual checkup I was all set, comfortable that perfect colors would result following a recent colorimeter profile session.

Why not just delegate the work?

There are so many variables you cannot control in delegating this task that I discounted the idea in seconds. They include:

• Finding a good print shop.
• You have someone making minimum wage, charged out at $100/hr, giving tender loving care to your baby, in between beer and pot breaks. Yes, they will have a jumbo printer which makes this on one sheet. So?
• Getting the colors matched correctly to your calibrated display image – good luck with that.
• Getting the big print home undamaged. USPS/UPS/Fedex? Ha, ha, ha! They will fold it to get it into your mailbox. Don’t laugh – that has happened to me before.
• Longevity. How can you believe the claims made by the print shop for the inks and mounting board? I use original HP Vivera inks which have been tested fade-proof for 80 years by Wilhelm Research. As I’ll be 6 feet under, pushing up the daisies – or maybe fertilizing them – in under half that time, that seems long enough. My mounting board is certified, acid free, Bainbridge Alpha 3/8″ foam core, and will probably outlive King Tut. So there.
• Satisfaction. Sure, it’s a menial task and one you might not want to do daily. But it is satisfying as it gets doing this yourself and doing it to a higher standard than any agent ever will. I despise the saying “If you want a job done well, do it yourself” because it’s asinine in the extreme, but this task makes for an honorable exception. “Printed by the artist”, don’t you know.

Get my point?

Choosing the right image:

I had a large expanse of wall space viewable from the landing on the upper level but had never quite found a picture to fill it. As I started working on my Golden Gate Bridge series one image immediately suggested itself. Taken from the GGB overlook at the site of the old WW2 battlements, the image is simple, surreal and uncluttered. Just the ticket.

Simple, surreal, uncluttered. The ultrawide 20mm lens used adds to the effect.

Tiling application:

Next it was time to shop around for a good tiling app for the Mac. Tiling apps allows a print to be made over any number of abutting sheets of paper, the result being trimmed and joined just so for display. You can do this in Photoshop but it’s a pain. I settled for the inexpensive SplitPrint which had good reviews and indeed proved capable and easy to use. $5.99.

Preparing the file for tiling:

Before you do anything, examine your file square inch by square inch for sensor spots at 1:1 in your photo processing application, looking especially hard in big, continuous tone areas. Nothing will ruin your day more than finding you have missed some blobs once the print(s) are made. Retouching them now will save a lot of heartbreak later. Just about every sensor will accrue dust and oil spots with use, regardless of whether it has a cockamamie ‘sensor cleaner’ built in or not.

Thereafter the process is simple. I exported the image at the original pixel size of the sensor in the Nikon D3x as a TIF file to Photoshop CS5. Then I ‘uprezzed’ the image to the final print size desired, which would be 36″ x 48″, or four sheets of 18″ x 24″ paper through the printer – the largest it will take. Resolution was set to 240dpi, the maximum the DJ30/90/130 series of printers can handle.

Uprez dialog from Photoshop.

The file was then saved to the Desktop as a JPG, highest quality. SplitPrint at this time only accepts JPG files. No matter. The file was some 45MB in size.

Then into SplitPrint and the required settings were made. I created a custom setting for 18″ x 24″ paper in the Print dialog of SplitPrint and told it to spread the image over four panels thus:

The SplitPrint tile settings.

Dry print runs:

Now 18″ x 24″ paper is not cheap and neither are ink supplies, so I first tested SplitPrint making a 16″ x 20″ print on my office monochrome laser printer using four sheets of 8 1/2″ x 11″ plain paper to see if things aligned and that margins were properly handled. You do not want the margins swallowing any content and neither my laser printer nor the DJ90 can make full bleed borderless enlargements. Margins are unavoidable and the inside ones will have to be trimmed off when assembling the four printed panes.

All went well but, ever cautious, I printed the first panel in color to the DJ90 on a test piece of 13″ x 19″ paper to check that everything was as expected and to verify that colors were true.

SplitPrint printer dialog.

This test confirmed good colors with a perfect match to my display thanks to the EyeOne colorimeter, so I loaded up the printer with four sheets of 18″ x 24″ premium glossy, checked that all the cartridges had ink (running out part way through will not make your day ….) and let her rip, telling SplitPrint to print all 4 images after setting it to use HP Glossy paper with bidirectional printing (‘Best’ quality). This takes a while, some 12 minutes a page, so I did the only rational thing possible. I took my assistant, Bert the Border Terrier, for a walk after the first page started coming out.

Tell me all you want about the romantic days of darkrooms, red lights, blackouts and poison chemicals, for me nothing beats the thrill of seeing a full color image emerging from the DesignJet in broad daylight.

The first pane emerges.

The final prints:

Here’s the finished article, with Bert the Border Terrier for size. I will mount these on acid free board, after trimming the borders (SplitPrint permits small overlaps and draws the cut lines on the images though I had no need of these) then attach all four to the wall, ready for a faux wooden frame. SplitPrint did a perfect job of aligning the images on each page. If it’s of interest I will paint the wooden frame in the colors of the Golden Gate Bridge itself! The paint codes appear below.

Bert and the untrimmed print(s).

Trimming and mounting:

Once the print borders are trimmed (carefully!), the prints are tacked to the mounting boards with the matching sides at the edges of the board. I do not own a 24” trimmer so have to remove the borders with a straight edge and Stanley knife. This is by far the riskiest part of the whole operation, rife with opportunities for error and injury. As the boards are very accurately cut this approach confirms that everything has been trimmed squarely. It’s either right or it looks schlocky. You can opt to leave the margins in place and install these as discrete panels on the wall but I find that sort of thing has been done to death and avoid it:

Tacked prints and boards assembled for dry run to check fit. 26″ bike wheel for reference.

Then it’s off to the dry mounting press to permanently heat mount the prints. Once that is done much of the risk of damage to the fragile prints fades.

In the dry mounting press at 200F. Border Terrier at 102F.

It’s at this point that you start thinking that Michelangelo had it easy daubing that ceiling.

The prints are dry mounted and ready for wall installation:

Ready for hanging.

I use glossy paper. Sure, it’s a pain to work with, fragile as heck and demands very high standards of cleanliness for it shows every blemish, but the result is unrivaled among paper prints for detail, resolution and punch.

Golden Gate bridge paint color codes:

Here are the color codes for those of you into the most beautiful bridge in the world; you can have the shade mixed at your local hardware store to paint any wooden frame you decide to install:

Color codes for the paint used in the Golden Gate Bridge. Click the image for details.

Speed:

There really are no shortcuts here. It’s hard manual labor. SplitPrint makes generating the four panes trivial but after that it’s an exercise in concentration and attention to detail. The next time I do this I doubt I’ll shave more than a few minutes off the total production time, which is several hours. Trimming and wall mounting are by far the most time-consuming steps.

How does it look:

In a word, stunning. While the viewer can get no closer than 10 feet to the print from the second floor landing, even at 2 feet resolution and detail rendering are to die for.

Gear:

Camera? Nikon D3x with the 24mp sensor. But, frankly, a 12mp D700 or any number of similar sensors (FF or APS-C) would be just fine for this setting, though the image would show lower resolution at the same ‘nose in print’ distance. There is more undiluted swill written about the need for high pixel count sensors than you could possibly imagine.

The lens? No magic sauce here either. An old 20mm Ai-S 20mm f/3.5 MF Nikkor – that’s the tiny one which fits in a jeans pocket, handheld at f/8. Mine is 1982 vintage and ran me $215. I added a CPU for $29. You spent how much on that plastic AF-S zoom?

Installed. Wooden frame to come. Prints below are 18″ x 24″.
Cotton gloves on the window sill are used to handle the prints.

A little goes a long way.

My HP DesignJet 90, the 18″ carriage model, was commissioned March 14, 2006, so it’s approaching seven years in age. One recent print with a dark black silhouette showed less than perfect blacks and deep, lustrous blacks are one of the many strengths of this excellent printer. Amazingly, B&H still lists the 24″ DJ130 for under $1300 new, and all ink cartridges and printheads remain available on their site, though you may have to hunt about a bit for the special swellable paper which absorbs the ink dyes used by the machine. Regular modern pigment ink papers do not work.

The HP DJ30/90/130 series is blessed with truly outstanding diagnostics and a quick checkout was all it took to find the cause.

First, I dialed up the HP Maintenance Utility which uses online software at HP. For Mac users you have to use OS Snow Leopard or earlier or an even older PPC machine, as HP never updated the software to run on Intel machines. Snow Leopard comes with Rosetta, the PPC emulator software and will run the HP Maintenance Utility fine. Apple recently re-released Snow Leopard on DVD and if you want to run the HP Maintenance Utility on a modern Mac it’s your best choice, though whether it’s even installable on the latest Macs I rather doubt.

I use a decade old iMac which runs Tiger and uses a PPC CPU. Unlike its modern day descendants it does not overheat and refuses to die.

You can run all these print jobs using plain paper in your printer – 8.5″ x 11″. Here’s the Image Quality Diagnostic – this one can unfortunately be run only by using the online software and is the best for determining if a printhead is failing:

No real issues are disclosed here but printhead alignment is called for, judging my some of the colored squares in the center section. The full interpretive section for the above appears here.

Then I ran a printhead alignment which can either be done using the online utility or using the button presses illustrated here:

This did disclose a problem with the black printhead:

The large ‘X’ mark above testifies to a worn or blocked head.

Before deciding on cleaning or replacement of the head I ran the ‘Information Pages’ printout (see above) and got this:

Gaack! The black printhead is 2,534 days old, meaning 6.9 years. It’s the one which came with the printer when I bought it new in 2006! So rather than trying to clean it, I simply replaced it. Pigs get slaughtered.

After replacement of the black printhead – the new one has been on my shelf for ages and is already out of warranty! Some users claim that heads over 30 months old will not work but obviously my experience does not bear this out.

When a printhead is replaced in these machines, they automatically run a printhead alignment which takes some 10 minutes and requires one sheet of plain paper.

Here’s what I got:

All is well.

Finally, out of curiosity, I ran the ‘Paper Usage’ report:

Some advice on older DesignJet printers:

Would I buy one of these used? Only if I could see the Usage Reports and Diagnostics shown above. Many were used by printshops which have beaten the heck out of them. New heads – there are six – run $35 each and cartridges cost a similar amount, so all new heads and supplies total $420. Add $35 for feed tubes. No bargain. Further, if the printer has been unplugged for any period of time, reckon on changing the clogged feed tubes as I had to do when mine went into storage for a few months when I moved a few years back. I explain how to do that here.

Bottom line? I would not pay more than $200-400 for a lightly used HP DJ90/130 (18″/24″) printer, anticipating that some parts will have to be replaced.

Spare parts:

I get mine from Spare Parts Warehouse. The ink feed tube assembly runs $35 and is easy to replace.

Would I buy a new HP printer? Hell NO. I would not buy anything from America’s worst run business whose customer service is a joke. Buy an Epson. The 24″ model runs $3,000 but they will fix it for you when it breaks.

Result:

Success. Perfect blacks were restored.

Here’s the print which was giving me problems:

In the extract, below, you can see a tear sheet of the old print, before the repair, superimposed on the new – night and day:

Printhead failure and analysis:

I have illustrated this before but it bears repeating. Right after the annual checkup, above, the DJ started printing everything with a green cast. This indicates printhead failure as ink levels were fine.

Here is the analysis chart:

I ran the diagnostic report using the online HP utility and this is what I got:

Diagnostic report showing printhead failure.

Comparing with the above chart, you can see that the color patches at A1 (should be magenta), A2 (should be purple) and B2 (should be red) are faulty.

The chart states that A1=M, A2-C+M and B2=Y+M. Note also that the central patch in the left middle section is wrong – it should be magenta. M (magenta) is the common factor to all four error conditions, so I concluded that the Magenta printhead was faulty. $35 to B&H later and it was replaced (a 30 second task) – do insert plain paper when doing this as a printhead alignment chart will be automatically printed when a head is replaced, and the printhead alignment will be performed automatically. It takes some 10 minutes, so be patient. Sure enough, re-running the diagnostic report showed all is well and the DesignJet is back to perfect operating condition.