Sun
07
May
2017
Affinity Photo and HP T120
Since I have switched away from the CC to Affinity Photo (v.1.5.1) I have been exploring the best print settings in Affinity Photo for my HP T120. I am sharing my findings below.
Although Affnity (Windows version) does a great job printing, the print dialog needs work. For instance, the preview window is too small and the dialog itself cannot be resized.
To get the best results out of your HP T120 printer, use the HP Click app: see here.
Sun
22
Jan
2017
PURE Pop Midi modification -Tivoli Audio upgrade
A while ago I purchased a PURE Pop Midi Bluetooth as an alarm, kitchen radio and take anywhere mobile radio. It has been great feature wise and I like it's design and ability to take rechargeable batteries (although an optional battery pack is also available). The one big issue I had with it was the sound quality. Most notably the lack of bass and treble. Once unscrewed, it becomes clear why the sound quality is so poor. The speaker it houses is ridiculously cheap. It is a 2 ohm 2 watt cheaply constructed brandless speaker. In a search to find a replacement speaker on Ebay I stumbled upon a Tivoli Audio Music System (full range) 4 ohm 5 watt speaker that has the exact same diameter and sinked screw holes. The only problem was that the Tivoli speaker's depth was double that of the original speaker. I ordered it anyway for EUR 22 including shipping from China. See the Ebay description below.
Tue
18
Oct
2016
T120 print margin errors and clipped images
The print area and margin handling by both the HP T120 printer driver (V4) as the HP Instant Printing application (v. 4.2.1) is horrible. The driver does not seem to be able to auto fit the print to the actual print area (printable area = paper size – margins) of a specified paper format such as roll (610mm) or A2+ sheet (458mmx610mm). Photoshop can do autofitting (the HP Instant Printing app does not) but that will most of the time result in prints that are half printed or miss at least some part of the actual image. This is illustrated in the picture below.
Fri
04
Dec
2015
Lascaux UV Protect 3 review
Given that HP does not produce it's famous - and for dye ink printers much needed - HP Premium Plus swellable papers anymore, I decided to try out some UV protect spray on pigment ink paper HP Instant Dray Satin Photo to test what would happen in the short term and the long term (3 months). I paid EUR 20 for the 400ml Lascaux UV Protect 3 (which is the Satin finish version).
I followed the instructions on the Lascaux UV Protect 3 spray can before applying (shaking for two minutes). Straight off the bat I noticed that after applying the spray, a grey haze started to show on the print. After 20 minutes, the print was completely covered with this grey haze (like tiny dust particles). See the image below.
Thu
03
Dec
2015
HP Premium papers discontinued?
I received a notice from my HP Premium Satin and Gloss paper supplier that on 25 November 2015, HP has discontinued the production of its HP Premium Satin and Glossy swellable photo papers. That is really bad news, as these papers are the only papers I am aware of that provide reasonable colorfast prints with the Designjet dye ink printers such as the HP T120 and the T520 (up to 70 years). I do not understand the decision of HP. Firstly, they have recently introduced the HP Designjet T730, a dye ink printer just as the HP T120 and the T520 are. Secondly, these papers were still selling well, as I understand from my supplier.
If this has something to do with the recent split of HP into Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc., I do not know. Let’s hope that one of these companies re-introduces the papers.
UPDATE
It might well be the case that only the HP Premium Glossy Photo paper has been discontinued. Firstly, because my supplier turned out to be able to order and deliver HP Premium Satin Photo paper to me as usual and secondly, the revised HP T520 Spec Sheet (November 2015) still refers the Satin paper (no Glossy paper reference). This would be very good news!
Sat
21
Nov
2015
Photo papers for the HP T120 and T520
You should choose your photo papers for the T120 / T520 carefully, as only the origional HP Premium and HP Premium Plus papers wil give you colorfastness with the HP 711 dye inks used by these machines. I think the best papers are the HP Premium Plus Satin Photo Paper (which is discontinued and therefore extremely hard to get these days).
Both mentioned papers will give you 70 (or 80 for the Plus version) years colorfastness with the HP T120 inks according to HP (the same as with the Designjet 130).
Sat
21
Nov
2015
How to disable color management in the Canon iP100 print driver for printing with ICC profiles
To print a photo to the iP100 or iP110 with the use of a (custom) ICC profile, you have to make sure that all color management in the iP100 driver dialog is turned off.
You can use Photoshop or any other ICC aware program to then print to the iP100 without any color management introduced by the driver itself and match your screen colors (presumed that your screen is calibrated) to the printer output.
The below illustrations are with a driver in the Dutch language, but I am sure you can make the translation based on the illustrations.
It is important to select the right media type (type of paper) because the driver will adjust the amount of ink used and dry time accordingly. This means that you need to know with what media type an ICC profile is made. I you do not know, you can go with trial and error.