Justin, Hey Justin. There are some very sophisticated members here, from whom you will get some advanced answers. I'll take a simple bent and share an experience I had recently which shows how easy it was for me to miss a basic step and end up with output that was off the mark, despite the best intentions and attention to detail.
Like yourself I was getting prints that were not bad, just not right. I was using a Z3100, was calibrating / profiling and getting lovely strips of color patches along the way. Sure I was doing everything right, and considering all the usual steps (application managed colors, right paper profile, etc.) I finally contacted HP for their assistance. I know from experience that sometimes an observer can objectively see something you just don't notice or think of, no matter how experienced you consider yourself. At any rate after he and I established that I was executing the correct workflow choices in the dialog boxes, but still not getting the desired output, he asked the fateful question, "Are you sure you're picking the custom profile you created? You are given the option to rename the profile during the process before saving it..." Suddenly a bulb went on. I had renamed the profile, leaving off only the "HP" at the beginning to see that it was not the OEM profile for the paper. BUT, the effect of the name change was the culprit. The custom profile name began "Z3100...". SInce profile names are listed in the profile list alphabetically, and the list can be very long, I hadn't thought through that the "Z" in the name was going to force my profile all the way to the end of the list, instead of grouping it with the other HP media choices. When I scrolled down past dozens of unrelated manufacturer profiles (way past the HP listings), there at the very end of the list was the actual profile I had created. Needless to say, choosing the "real" custom profile made the difference and output cleaned up considerably. I've also seen a significant difference in output over the course of just a few weeks as the seasonal temperature changed in my area. The environmental influence (temp, humidity, etc) made a visible color shift that cleaned up with a new calibration / profile. In summary, solving the paper profile issue may be more important than splitting hairs with monitor calibration. But the naming convention oversight was an eye opener. Heaven help me as I navigate the cortical deterioration of the next quarter century! Good luck, Mark IMAGEMA Mark Alberhasky Photography Bowling Green, KY www.imagema.com Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPDesignJet_Printers Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPDesignJet_Printers/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPDesignJet_Printers/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
