Professional and fine art photographers have a new choice in the large format printer market. HP showcased its latest Designjets at this week?s Photokina show, unveiling the Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 Series Photo Printers for the first time. The new models are the first to make use of HP?s Scalable Printing Technology and feature pigment inks, enhanced permanence and the industry?s first embedded spectrophotometer. The HP Designjet Z2100 features an eight-color HP Vivera pigment ink system, while the HP Designjet Z3100 uses a 12-ink HP Vivera pigment ink system with HP 70 Gloss Enhancer and HP Quad-Black Inks.

PRESS RELEASE
HP Revolutionises Colour Experience for Graphics Professionals with New HP Designjet Z Photo Printer Series

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.

?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 years
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.

HP also announced today a strategic alliance with Hahnemühle FineArt – the 400-year-old pioneer in developing and producing digital fine art paper. In addition to co-developing three fine art papers, HP Hahnemühle Smooth Fine Art Paper, HP Hahnemühle Textured Fine Art Paper and HP Hahnemühle Watercolour Paper, Hahnemühle?s entire portfolio of digital fine art media types is compatible with the HP Designjet Z2100/3100, providing customers a complete and reliable printing solution with the ultimate media choice and flexibility. Profiles of Hahnemühle?s 21 fine art papers are available at www.hahnemuehle.com

In addition, the HP Designjet Z Series? automated colour management features have opened doors to more media options. Leveraging relationships with strong brands like Hahnemühle, the HP Designjet Z Series can quickly create ICC profiles for the most relevant commercially available media.

New tools and services make printing even more painless
Backing the HP Designjet Z Series? superior colour experience are a variety of HP services and support options that give users greater confidence in their printing. Users can rely on the HP Colour Centre tool for step-by-step instruction on colour management and HP Colour Expert Service for a single point of contact for remote live assistance to resolve colour issues in the workflow.
From setup to media profiling, fine-tuning to finishing tips, HP ensures a flawless, straightforward printing experience for novices to professionals every step of the way.