Just curious: I downloaded the preset for the new HP Baryte Satin paper, and culdn't find it under the Fine Art Materials group of presets, but it turned out in the Custom Papers group. What would the thinking be behind that? I thought that a custom paper was one in which you "borrowed" the settings from a preexisting HP type of paper, and then generated a profile.

Also, has anybody found a source for this paper, as it was not mentioned on the HP website last I looked, even though the preset is there.

Walter,

I see every paper preset download on the HP site, but not a "Custom papers" group. Can you tell me where you found that?

I do not know when the paper will be available, but hopefully when it is, HP will provide the proper profile for it. I would like to see if the Baryte preset will give me improved profiles on a couple of the other baryta papers than the glossy paper preset does. I've looked for this preset several times since it was listed on one of the HP white papers many months ago, but could never find it.

Thanks,
Jim

I guess I was not very clear. The preset on the HP website was, as far as I remember, in the HP Fine Art Materials. However, after I downloaded it, unzipped it and installed it on the printer, it did not come up under Fine Art Materials, but under Custom...on my Z3100's LCD panel.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll see if I can locate it there.

Edit: I downloaded it and sure enough it ends up as a custom paper type which is selectable in the print driver, but not as a selectable preset when you are trying to add a new paper type. I seem to remember a similar discussion when the Z3100 first came out about this same confusing situation, but I do not remember the details of the discussion. It appears that its only use is for the HP Baryte paper when it comes out. My hopes of using the preset to reprofile some baryta papers are dashed.

I imagine it will be different on the 3200. They have combined the media settings and profile for the 3200 UI into a single file.
IS the Baryte avaialble as a download with the 3200? If so there may be a way of seeing what settings are used, which will be the same for the 3100.

Jim, Neil,
Being the new guy who bought his printer I might be of any help.
I have the new Z3200 now running for three days, and with my unlimited curiosity I did my best to buy and start with the also new CG803A, the HP Baryte Satin Art Paper, of which I could order two rolls.
Please realize that this is my first high quality photo printer, after a history in the B&W darkroom and a 17” Canon i9950 dye printer after I went digital. I might fall in beginners traps and uncertainties.
However, I am up and running. The machine comes with a bundled small roll of paper, a 15 ft long “HP Everyday Pigment Ink Satin Photo Paper GE”. With this paper I started up the printer, calibrated it, and made my first profile. Piece of cake. After a successful first full colour print, nice, but very plastic looking (like the resin coated darkroom papers), I loaded the very heavy roll of BSAP, heavy because of the length (50 ft, 15 m) and the weight per square surface area, 290 g/m2. I was suggested to calibrate again(!) before making a profile, as I did. It turned up in my front panel display as a CUSTOM paper, with the correct paper name in the next menu. To my surprise, TWO profiles were added to the list of profiles in the computer, one with the GE suffix, one without. The colour print results are very beautiful indeed, but black and white cannot do without the GE, the difference with the inked and naked areas is big and more or less visible by change of light direction. With GE I got what I was looking for: a print resembling the baryte darkroom prints.
Question: Why should one look for profiles to download if it is so quick and easy to make your own profiles on your own machine with your own local variables? I have NOT found canned profiles of this paper on any HP site, but again, I do not think I need them, do I?

Hope this is of any help, if not I’m willing to experiment with your requests.

Bas

Bas,

Congrats on getting your new Z3200 up and running. After reading your post, I checked in my list of profiles and lo and behold, the two Baryte profiles were in the list. They obviously installed with the paper preset. I am hoping for great B&W performance from the HP Satin Baryte. You noted that you were happy with the results on B&W. Is there any gloss differential at all with the GE?

As to your question as to "why download profiles from HP?", with the Z3100, the HP profiles for their own papers were a bit better than those made with the base Z3100 printer unless one was using APS. With the Z3200, it seems that the need for APS may be gone. You can download the HP profiles and compare the print output with your own profiles if you wish. I am going to guess that they will be awful close, if not identical. I'm not sure how HP makes their profiles...maybe with APS or possibly with a top of the line Gretag profiling package. It's possible that the profiles without APS on the new Z3200 are so good that HP may use just the base Z3200 to make their profiles for the new machine, in which case your profile and HP's should be the same. I'm just guessing here.

Hope that helps,

Jim

Another reason is that for some papers with the Z3100ps, particularly the HP Fine Art Textured paper and other matte papers, the HP profile allowed more detail and less muddiness in color in the darker tones than my profiling with the HP APS target. Your experience will hopefully be different with the Z3200.

The profiles from HP on their site and delivered with the printers are the non-APS versions. In some cases like matte I found them to be smoother and more reliable.
Even though you rightfully calibrated for each paper, it doesn't say that every individual printer will output exactly the same or consistently with all colours. Head wear, environmental conditions, the storage and age of the paper, all will slightly change the output. By calibrating you bring the printer into a repeatable condition . By profiling, you characterize that condition , describing the exact colours produced. Hence, the most reliable output, and consistent is to do both a calibration, and a profile.

When you make a profile with the built in profiler, it creates two profiles for the same photo media. One and the primary is the settings you select when you print the chart be it with GE or Without. The second profile is assuming a certain density change and builds approximate curves to correct for this. They are quickly build automatically added profiles that can be used in a pinch but you should always profile for the use you will normally perform. If you use both, GE on and Off, then profile for each. I always name the profile so there is no doubt as to whether I used GE or not.

You might want to know that the custom profiles have to be applied as application managed color, as if you use printer manages color, default profiles are used and not your custom profile. This is also why it's good to download as many profiles as you have paper, so they populate the media types and have profiles ready for times you use printer manages color.