HP Photosmart Pro9180 problems

Until last week I had been using an HP 3210 3-in-1 printer for my photos. The colors were "acceptable" but I suspected that a better printer would give me better prints. I also wanted the option of making larger prints. I did my research and narrowed the options down to an Epson or the HP 9180. As many of you know, the Epson requires that you switch black cartridges when you want to print B&W and, in doing so, waste ink and time by clearing the ink path. That didn't sound so "green" to me and since both the Epson (sorry, don't recall which model) and the HP were pretty much rated on most sites as equal, I bought the one with much less muss and fuss. Soo, last week my new HP Photosmart ProB9180 arrived. 3 shades of black/grey, five shades of RGB. Huge machine. Took an hour to set it up, load the software 3 times and print test pages. Everything finally talked to each other and I printed my first 8x10. Unfortunately, when compared to prints produced by my old 3-in-1, the new print was very muddy. Printed a few more just to be sure that the ink was flowing properly and they prints did improve but still weren't better than the 3-in-1. FYI, I religiously use a Huey colimeter device, I'm set up with Elements 6 and have a flat screen monitor with a 1 yr old Dell Inspiron computer with lots of memory. The photos look perfect on the screen, just a bit darker on the 3-in-1 printer and a lot darker on the new HP monster. I've been taking photos with mhy XTi in sRGB but recently read in Uwe Steinmueller's Fine Art Printing and my Elements 6 manual that I should use the wider gamut Adobe RGB. Sooo, I converted the files to Adobe RGB, re-printed w/same results. Also took new photos in Adobe RGB, set Elements to Adobe RGB and selected same for the HP monster. Still same output: dark, colors aren't as bright as I expected from a $600 printer. At this point, I wonder if I made a mistake in buying the HP or whether I'm missing a crucial step in the processing/printing process. Any help? Please be patient with my responses to your responses: I don't have consistent dial up speeds at home so I have to run into town to find a wi-fi link. Thanks for any advice.

From your description, it sounds like the only change you made was the printer. The most immediate thing that comes to mind are paper profiles. Some questions:

When you installed the software, did you install everything or do a custom install?

What paper are you using?

Are there profiles available for your paper and printer combination? Check the HP website and the manufacturer's website for profiles.

What are your Photoshop settings? The most likely ones would be letting Photoshop manage color, what paper profile are you using and are the printer paper settings correct? PS might be picking up the defaults from your old printer and using that or reverting back to defaults for the presence of the new printer. You want PS to manage color.

Could you go through and list all of the printer/printing settings for us? This includes the settings in PS and the Windows default printer settings. Simply going through this exercise might find the problem, or we'll find it. Having gone through a couple of printers myself, it is real easy to overlook something.

The problem should not be with Elements - that program will handle the printer fine.

Uwe's book is a great resource for learning digital printing. I've been printing for about 6 years now and have come real close to buying it anyway as a reference.

Thanks for the response, Dan. Oddly enough, the paper profiles that came with the printer are not as exacting as I had expected. I'm writing this from my laptop in a wi-fi zone: my "real" computer is at home connected to the HP printer so I can't immediately quote the several steps I go through to print. However, the printer's profiles list only generic HP "photo paper plus" or something like that, not profiles unique to "glossy", "semi gloss", etc. Thought that was odd for a new printer. Next, I let Elements manage the color. I've deleted the driver for my HP 3-in-one so I would imagine that Elements isn't picking up old defaults. Aside from that, I don't have perfect recollection of each step w/the new printer process. Any other possibilities?

Actually Don, I would not expect anything generic like "glossy" or "semi gloss". Every paper profile should be unique to that exact paper - so I'd expect to see things like "HP Photo Paper Plus 185" or whatever it is. The one's you list (glossy, semi-gloss, etc) sound like the type of settings they might give you in case you're using some generic or unknown paper.

Are you sure the profiles are installed properly on your computer? In Elements, what profiles are available in the drop-down menu for paper profiles? Finally, once you have Elements set-up with the proper profile, you might have to pick the correct generic paper type setting in the printer driver as well. (I think the Epson's work this way - not sure about the HP.)

No, I'm not completely sure that the profiles installed w/the HP software are installed properly. The installation instructions for the software/driver implied provided information about successive attempts to install, which to me implied that they knew others had had problems installing the software. At any rate, the instructions state that if the printer doesn't print after installation, to reverse the installation process, recap the printer heads, go through the hour-long set up process again and THEN print the test photos. Had hoped to avoid that lengthy process but will try it if no one else seems to have had the same problem with this model printer. Siiigh, nothing's as simple as it's supposed to be. As far as the Elements drop down menus, I do go through each sub menu to ensure the proper paper orientation, choose the paper description closest to what I'm using, ensure I'm in Adobe RGB, and choose "perceptual." Can't immdiately think of the other options in the 5-6 step process. I referenced the "glossy" and "semi-glossy" settings because those were the options given with the 3-in-one machine. I was a bit disappointed/surprised to see that there weren't similar options with the new monster. Actually, the paper profiles with the 9180 seem fairly generic though they do list them all as "HP gloss" or "Hannemeuhl gloss" or some such thing - not as specific as the 3-in-1 listings. Should I obtain specific profiles from HP?

I'd look on the HP website to see what is there for profiles, especially if you are at the wi-fi station. Some paper manufacturers also provide profiles specific to their paper and a particular printer. It won't hurt to look.

Thanks,Dan. I'll check it out. May also try to re-install the HP software.

The HP software probably came with profiles for the typical HP photo papers. And these probably installed when you installed the printer software. But maybe they didn't so it's worth looking into. The profile files should be in :

C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers\Color

Also, does Elements 6 have any soft-proofing features?

No, not that I'm aware of. And none of the help books list it in the Table of Contents. Thanks for the tip, Dave, I'll check it when I get home.

No, not that I'm aware of. And none of the help books list it in the Table of Contents. Thanks for the tip, Dave, I'll check it when I get home.

You can find some good info. in this lengthy review of your printer at Luminous Landscape.
In particular, the 'Plug-In Driver' section discusses the handling of printing within PS or HP. If you set Printer Managed as the color handling option, the print driver should automatically select the correct profile based on your paper selection.
Might make some difference. Not sure if this is applicable with Elements, though.
Also, have you used the Color Calibration feature in the Utility section?
Finally, I suspect that your screen may be too bright. Almost all LCD monitors come shipped with the Brightness set way too high for photographers, though it can thrill folks who otherwise don't need to print images to exacting standards (most users).
Does your hardware calibrator allow you to adjust screen luminance in your graphics card? Mine is set at 120 cd/m2, which is optimum for a monitor/print match for me.

Don,
Don't feel alone....I bought that printer as a back-up some time ago, and I had problems with the installation. As I recall, I stayed up most of the night fooling around with it. I ended up calling the HP help number, and I was mad as hell when the guy said I had to purchase a "Support " package before he would talk with me because I was hooking the printer up to an older HP computer that was out of warranty!!! Believe me, the computer WAS NOT the problem.
I finally got it working by myself, and no, I can't remember what I did, but I probably had to go through that process you referred through. I still am NOT happy with what it produces because it seems to be so picky about what paper it works with. It's does great on "Advanced" HP photo paper, and it does have theprofile for that. I know they specifically designed it to work with that paper for long lasting, essentially waterproof prints, but it seems awfully picky about everything else.
Unfortunately, I haven't spent nearly enough time with it as I primarily use my other printer ( an HP Designjet). I will happily watch this thread and see what I can learn from it, though! I will offer any help that I can.
I don't have Uwe's book; I guess I ought to get it. I have another book on printing, but I definitely still need more education! Anyway, just know that you're not the only one who's had trouble with this printer. I believe that HP can make good quality equipment; the Designjet is a great printer and they make good computing equipment. On the other hand, dealing with HP's tech support will make you learn new curse words...... I guess I should amend that to say that there is a huge difference between their "regular" tech support and the CarePak support people, who I have found to be both knowledgable and helpful.

Thanks all for your input and suggestions. I apologize for the delayed response, I live up in the woods in NH: we have only dial-up service so I have to rely on the local library's wi-fi system (when it works) to get into the real world. Soooo, I uninstlled and reinstalled the printer software FOUR times before the printer would finally acknowledge my existence. Now my problem is that the prints from my old HP 3200 3-in-1 printer are far superior in quality and color than what's coming out of the new 9180 monster. Seems that the only way to get near WYSIWYG results is to allow the printer to manage the color and then continue to tweak the colors (and print multiple trial photos) from the printer menu. I've tried a gazillion different ways to manage the printer colors/output from my Elements 6 program but the results are consistently muddy and dark. Printing the exact same file to my old 3-in-1 gives me a near screen-like photo. But I bought the 9180 so I could print larger and more vivid photos. John, I've just surfed the HP website and will go home to do a printer head and color calibration test on the new monster. Thanks for the suggestion. I thought about the "brightness" issue but then wouldn't be getting near screen-like prints from my 3-in-1 if that were the issue. Genny, thanks for the wet shoulder. I haven't tried calling HP yet; had hoped someone "out there" would have had the same experience and could provide exactly the right anwswer. I've been using the HP "Premier" paper and happy with that on my 3-in-1 but will try the Advanced and see if that changes anything. Still, the issue is inability to color manage from Elements 6. Thanks again for everyone's input. Don

Don,

I think you will find a major difference when you use the Advanced paper. The inks used in the B9180 are pigment based, and are not designed for "swellable" paper that your other printer is using. This was a major issue when the printer first came out even HP themselves ( their support staff) didn't spot this. There will be drying issues with the premier range as well as marks on the paper.

The B9180 is good for a select set of papers which includes a lot of good matt papers. Try this wiki for a good view of this -

http://int.shadowbrush.org/wiki/index.php?title=B9180Papers

Mark

Thanks, Mark! Really good reference. Unfortunately, I just "blind" ordered Ilford and HP paper from B&H before I checked onto NPN. Your link will be a big help. I'm a bit confused with the HP papers, though. The "premier" paper series is rated with 5 stars: the "Advanced" series with only 4 stars. I've run both papers through the 9180 with only mediocre results. My old HP 3-in-1 still prints a better result on premier papers than the 9180. Still, I guess it takes time to tweak new gear to make it perform right. I've never downloaded/applied ICC profiles before. I can get profiles easily enough from the web. Can you recommend a site with instructions pertaining to the 9180? Thanks again for your input. Don

Don - Some of this will be stuff you already know, but I like this overview of printing on NSN for describing what the workflow and settings should be like, including color management.

Also, if you want to read more about color management and ICC profiles in general, you could try Dry Creek Photo's Color Management Introduction, which gets into printing a some as well.

Don,

There are a couple more sites you might want to visit.

This Yahoo site has a lot of discussion around various issues that come up, and profiles are a frequent one. You will have to register, but no cost. I am sure you will find other folks with similar issues and hopefully answers, if you search for "paper profile", or "dark prints".

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hp9100Series/

There's another forum on photo-i which I have found useful (no registration)

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewforum.php?f=39&sid=74eb1efb8f44089044cd038e6570987a

As far as your experience with premier and advanced paper is concerned, I am surprised with your results from advanced. I am sure that the printer was designed around that paper, and that is what you should use to calibrate the printer with. If you have 4 sheets of it, you can do a re-calibrate.

If you use any other paper, you will need to use an appropriate paper profile in with the driver. Some people double check the driver as they go to print, as the profile gets "lost" somehow.

I doubt very much if premier has a profile for the 9180.

Some people have a bunch of issues with this printer, others are off and running and using all sorts of canavas/panoramic/bamboo papers with reported great results.

Good Luck.

Mark

Quick update - this post spefically mentions dark prints on early use of the printer, and the need to download and update the latest version of the firmware -

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=5364

could be worth a go.

Mark

Mark and David, I finally broke down and called HP to ask for "directions." Spent 1.5 hrs on the phone with a fairly knowledgeable techie who spent a lot of time researching her techie manuals to help me through the process. Once we walked through all of the other usual suspects (calibrate colors, calibrate heads, etc) she introduced me to the secret HP recalibration check process (hold in on/off button, push "OK" button four times rapidly, immediately push "X" button 9 times rapidly) and the printer finally produced something close to what my 3-in-1 can print. Why the heck doesn't HP provide a more complete user's manual with the machine or - at the very least - provide a more complete one w/complete fixes to known problems on line so we can down load? Geez, common sense just isn't so common. At any rate, I'll spend the weekend tweaking the color output, trying different papers, etc. Thanks to both of you for the links: I've downloaded the info and will read over it tonight. Good to know others have had similar problems. Bad to know others have had similar problems and HP hasn't deemed it necessary to include it in the user's manual. Thanks again to all who have contributed. Don