HP Revolutionises Colour Experience for Graphics Professionals with New HP Designjet Z Photo Printer Series (Designjet Z2100 & Z3100)

26 September 2006 - 12:29

BOEBLINGEN, Germany, September 26, 2006 – HP today announced it is changing the way graphics professionals create large-format images with the unveiling of the new HP Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 Series Photo Printers. Continuing to expand its professional printing portfolio, HP is leveraging its pigment ink technologies developed for the HP Photosmart Pro B9180 to create the first large-format printers employing HP’s Scalable Printing Technology.

The HP Designjet Z Series printers are designed to deliver intuitive, dependable and repeatable colour accuracy for 24- and 44-inch museum-quality prints with 200 years’ photo permanence.¹ “The HP Designjet Z Series Photo Printers enable photographers, graphic designers and artists to print their vision accurately and consistently,” said Enrique Lores, vice president and general manager, Inkjet Commercial Division, HP. ”With our breakthrough colour management features, graphics professionals can now leverage a truly intuitive and automated printing process that expands both their business opportunities and their creative boundaries.”

Experience simple and intuitive colour management

The HP Designjet Z Series employs the industry’s first embedded spectrophotometer, utilising i1 Colour Technology from X-Rite. Mounted on the printer carriage with completely self-contained optics and electronics, the embedded spectrophotometer greatly simplifies accurate colour-matching, enabling automated ICC profiling and HP Advanced Closed-Loop Colour Calibration. The result means the user can create colour profiles in minutes rather than hours and expect exact colour matches throughout the printing process.

Leading brands in the creative community, including Adobe, Colourbyte, EFI, GMG and X-Rite, have worked closely with HP to develop solutions optimised specifically for the HP Designjet Z Series to fully address the needs of key markets, such as graphic design, professional photography, prepress and digital fine arts. From X-Rites’s i1 Colour Technology to the use of Adobe’s Lightroom calibration application, these solutions further streamline workflow and provide users a simple, reliable printing experience.

The HP Z Series Photo Printer colour management partner tools include:

• The embedded spectrophotometer, built on X-Rite’s leading i1 colour technology.
• HP’s Advanced Profiling Solution² co-developed with X-Rite that provides additional options for profiling and calibration. Integrated with the HP embedded spectrophotometer, this solution includes a monitor calibrator and profiler with editing capabilities to offer an end-to-end colour-managed workflow.
• EFI’s RIP Designer Edition 5.12 developed with HP-specific inputs. New photo features and an improved user interface give graphic designers full control over digital proofing needs, saving users time and money.
• Imageprint v.6 photo RIP from Colourbyte and ColourProof v.4 prepress RIP from GMG, developed with HP-specific inputs. The Imageprint v.6 is optimised for use by prosumers and professional photographers. The ColourProof v.4 works directly with the embedded spectrophotometer for print verification, radically shortening workflow.
• The HP ProPrint Plug-in and the “Calibrate Printer” button in Adobe Lightroom, co-developed with Adobe. Print expected colours on the first try from Adobe Photoshop with the free HP ProPrint Plug-in, and use the Adobe Lightroom “Calibrate Printer” button to launch the colour management tools directly from within the application.

Create and customise ICC profiles with HP Advanced Profiling Solution

The HP Designjet Z2100 GP and HP Designjet Z3100 GP editions contain the HP Advanced Profiling Solution developed by HP and X-Rite (formerly GretagMacbeth). The HP Advanced Profiling Solution is an end-to-end colour management system developed specifically for the most demanding graphics professionals. It works seamlessly with the embedded spectrophotometer to easily create and edit ICC profiles, saving you the time and expense of outsourcing the ICC creation expertise. It also includes a screen calibration device powered by i1 technology.

• Create ICC profiles for specific lighting conditions (such as a gallery)
• Work with CMYK ICC profiles to preserve maximum colour consistency from digital proof to offset press
• Easily edit ICC profiles created for any HP or third-party media
• Make sure the colours on your screen are printed accurately and consistently - print after print - and on a wide range of different media.

New ink and media for exquisite museum quality that lasts 200 years¹

The HP Designjet Z2100 features an eight-colour HP Vivera pigment ink system, including both matte black and photo black inks, providing a broad colour gamut on matte fine art papers and glossy photo papers for photographic and creative design applications.

The HP Designjet Z3100 uses a 12-ink HP Vivera pigment ink system, including the HP 70 Gloss Enhancer and HP Quad-Black Inks to create beautiful black and white prints and achieve truly neutral greys under different lighting conditions. This also provides continuous tones, uniform gloss and rich blacks, making the HP Designjet Z3100 ideal for high-quality art reproduction, photography and proofing applications.

Both models deliver the industry’s best photo permanence on a wide variety of HP media up to 24- or 44-inches wide.

“With the Z Series Printers, we have colour prints which are as good as, and in some cases, superior to traditional media and normal colour C-prints, and they’ll last for 200 years¹. It’s a win-win situation for us,” said Thomas Hoepker, Magnum Photographers. “We have better colour, we have a wider gamut we have total control over it and we don’t have to send it out to a dark room specialist. We do it at home and we have this long lifespan.

”With the HP Designjet Z Series, graphics professionals have the ability to print beyond the limits of traditional papers using the widest range of media options on the market. With 36 new media offerings, users have the flexibility to choose from a vast range of media options within HP’s media portfolio.

Pricing and Availability³

HP Designjet Z2100 24-inch Photo Printer: €2,700, Available September 26, 2006

HP Designjet Z2100 GP 24-inch Photo Printer: €3,300, Available September 26, 2006

HP Designjet Z2100 44-inch Photo Printer: €5,700, Available September 26, 2006

HP Designjet Z3100 24-inch Photo Printer: €4,100, Available December 2006

HP Designjet Z3100 GP 24-inch Photo Printer: €4,800, Available December 2006

HP Designjet Z3100 44-inch Photo Printer: €6,900, Available December 2006

1 Display permanence rating by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. on a range of HP creative and specialty media.

2 Available as an optional accessory.

3 The price stated is EMEA Manufacturer’s Recommended Selling Price (MRSP) and is subject to change – actual price may vary by country.