I'm not sure whether the following in fact is new, but I stumbled a
couple of days ago onto a CD-ROM computer training program prepared
by HP specifically for the Designjet 30/130, titled Color Management
in Adobe Photoshop. It's their part number Q6650A, and it's available
from their online store. I thought that a brief description might be
useful to others.
The CD is overpriced at $70, but I see that macconnection/pcconnection
is bundling it with the 130 at no charge. I bought the CD separately,
because I wanted to educate myself about the 130 before taking the
plunge and buying one.
The CD course runs about 30 minutes in length, and divides half way
through into Mac and PC presentations. The course is aimed at
photographers producing final output throught the rgb driver; rip
options are described only briefly. The presentation is very clear,
illustrates using Flash animations every relevant setting in both the
driver and Photoshop, and will certainly be very helpful to anyone who
does not have a lot of experience with color management in Photoshop.
Even some of us who have been there and done that might profit from
the CD's review of all the relevant Photoshop and rgb driver settings.
I do wish that the material were a bit meatier, especially for the
money. For example, the presentation shows how to do a calibration,
but offers no discussion of troubleshooting a failed calibration.
Overall, though, I found the course to be helpful in reassuring me
that, despite the widespread objections to the printer's sparse
documentation, working with the 130 and the rgb driver ought not to be
a completely alien experience.
The two big takeaways from the CD-ROM, at least for me, were (i) when
using the HP-supplied profiles and the rgb driver, make sure to choose
the profile ending in .drv, not the otherwise identically named
profile ending in .rip, and (ii) HP recommends the photo matte paper,
not glossy or satin, for black and white prints.
Two final thoughts. First, I want to join the chorus of voices from a
day or two ago thanking Neil Snape for all his contributions to this
forum. I also found the detailed instructions on his website to be
really well done. I know how much time it takes to prepare that sort
of presentation, and I'm very grateful to him for having done so.
Second, although the HP website is a bit daunting in its organization,
there are a several relatively new (i.e., within the last few months)
papers giving detailed instructions on various 30/130 topics that, to
judge from the posts here that I have been reading, are confusing to
many people. I don't want to bring the wrath of HP's lawyers down on
this group, but I wonder whether they would object if links to those
substantive papers were placed in the links folder for this forum?
Edward Kleinbard
Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPDesignJet_Printers
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