thechrisproject photography

I’ve been shooting pictures on and off for about a decade now. I have always gotten my prints done by someone else. After getting a little more serious about color and purchasing a monitor calibration device, I got some prints made by a shop in town. The color sucked. I wrote a big long email asking about their color management and never received a reply. I also tried an internet printing company that seemed reputable. Bad color and unneccesary cropping. Recently, after reading a few key reviews of the HP B9180 printer, I decided to take the plunge and take printing into my own hands.

I went to CompUSA (I pronounce it “comp-ooo-sa”) to see the printer in action. Out of all the photography stores and big box electronics retailers in town, CompUSA was the only one carrying this printer. When I got there, their display model was broken. I chatted about it with what I thought was a CompUSA employee (more on that later) and asked him a lot of questions about it. He didn’t have all the answers, but he knew enough and showed me a portfolio book of 13×19 prints that were made with a B9180. Holy shit were those prints gorgeous. I knew that I wanted one right then. I asked him a question that he had to go look up the answer to, so I had a little time to mull things over by myself.

Until an Epson rep walked up to me. This is something I didn’t know: CompUSA will have non-CompUSA people in semi-official sales capacities in their store. These people actually work for a marketing company that represents manufacturers. So the Epson lady talked up the Epson R2400 a lot. She was nice, and has been a photographer for some time, so we talked for a while. She didn’t really know her competition so well, though, and I corrected her a number of times.

Feeling a little weirded out by the whole rep-in-store-selling thing, I decided to go home and think it over for a while.

The next day I went back and bought it. At the recommendation of the HP rep (who I had initially thought was a CompUSA employee), I bought some HP Premium Plus photo paper. I also bought the 2 year CompUSA replacement warranty for $60. For a $700 printer, it seemed to make sense.

I got home, installed it, let it calibrate itself, and started making prints. They weren’t good. All the pictures were too dark, but the blacks weren’t dark enough. There were little bands of white dots across the pictures. I was crushed. Maybe I had just set my hopes too high for this. Not having any printing experience, I thought that perhaps printing just wasn’t where I thought it would be by now. But those pictures in the portfolio at the store… they were so amazing! “They lied to you,” the voice in my head said. “Those were made by a big zillion dollar printer.” I didn’t want to believe it. So I started doing research.

A few hours of internet browsing later, I stumbled upon some gold.

From outbackphoto

You need to use micro porous papers for the 9180 and not swellable media.

* HP Premium and Premium Plus papers are swellable media (not the right choice)
* HP Advanced papers are micro porous (this is the right paper)

Be careful because the paper boxes look very much alike. Only select the HP Advanced papers for the 9180.

I got the wrong paper! So I guess the 18 year old HP rep didn’t know his paper so well. I didn’t either. This paper and ink stuff can be complicated. Now I know a little better. But the information from various sources seemed conflicting. PCWorld seems to advocate swellable paper with pigment based inks:

For example, some papers may have unusual descriptions like “swellable” or “cotton rag.” Swellable paper is designed for high-quality photo printing–the coated surface actually swells as it absorbs ink. Cotton rag is ideal for inkjet printers that use pigment-based inks; most low-cost inkjets, on the other hand, use dye-based ink, so you should steer clear of cotton rag in this instance.

The first sentence seems to almost equate cotton rag and swellable paper. When I read it, I thought cotton rag was a subset of swellable. Good for pigment based inks. But not very clear, so I’ll keep hunting. I wonder what the competitors have to say about the issue?

Epson corporate says

Contrary to one-size-fits-all marketing claims made by some manufacturers, the use of a swellable paper produces poor image quality with pigment-based ink because the pigments are not totally absorbed into the swellable ink receptive layer. This type of ink and media mismatch produces prints that not only suffer in image quality, but that rarely dry properly.

The ultimate word is here, in a doc from HP:

HP Premium Plus Photo paper is not recommended for use with pigment inks.

So I went to CompUSA, armed with that document, ready to argue why they should give me a refund on paper that I already used 10% off. Also, I wanted to return my extended warranty. For $20 less I can get a warranty for twice as long from HP. The employee (who had visible facial piercings, long hair, and wrist bands on, which I think is great) at CompUSA didn’t really question my return at all. I got my $90 back and bought some HP Advanced Paper with it.

I got home and tried out my new paper. Viola! The problems were all gone. The prints started looking awesome. They are a little darker than the appear on my screen, but that might be a screen issue. I’ll have to read the instructions on my monitor calibration device again.

The two reviews that convinced me to check this printer out:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/HP-B9180.shtml
http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2006/10/the_new_printer.html

More reviews:
http://www.inkjetart.com/news/archive/IJN_07-27-06.html
http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews_hp_photosmart_pro_b9180.php
http://www.neilsnape.com/HP9180_review.htm

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