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 HP 7960 - ProSumer Printer for Digital Darkrooms
Ernest Lilley 04/11/04
Model: HP 7960
Product Website / Spec/PR / Availability: Fall 2003
MSRP: $299 Amazon Price$299
Though it was released last year in the fall, I saw the HP 7960 for the first time at PMA 2004 this January, shortly after it received
its phenomenal archival print rating of up to 115 years (Wilhelm
Imaging Research, Inc.).
That, coupled with the
choice of an optional "photo gray" ink, make the 7960 a serious contender
for serious digital photographers, whether they're consumers or
professionals. At less than half the price of an Epson 2200, you can have
both print quality and longevity that should equal the Epson, and in the
case of black and white, possibly surpass it.
My preliminary finding is
that this is indeed a pro-quality printer at consumer prices, bringing the
pro-sumer gallery quality printing at a very affordable price.
For once I paid attention
to the setup instructions carefully placed on top of the HP 7960. Though
I'm tempted to just plug everything in and see what happens, that's a bad
idea with printers, or anything else that comes with a new driver, as I've
learned from experience. This time I did everything they asked, carefully
unpacking, powering, and loading the three ink cartridges before using the
CD to install the unit, plugging in the USB cable (not included) only
after being prompted. This is the first unit we've reviewed with its own
monitor, a 2.5 inch LCD, and you get to set the language and country as
well. I was surprised that it didn't want to know what time it was. CD
installation went quickly, and we had no problems with our Windows XP Home
Edition test system.
Then, patience exhausted, I pulled up my most recent directory of shots,
taken with a Nikon D70 set to "normal" and printed out a page of four 3x5
prints directly from the file manager's photo wizard. Selecting the
printer's higher saturation option, the print popped out almost exactly 60
seconds later, looking very respectable…though I hadn't stopped to put
photo paper.
Next I pulled up an image of a barn I had shot the day before which I
wanted to convert to black and white. Black and White conversion can be
tricky, because you tend to lose a lot of depth if you just de saturate
the image in Photoshop. There are a number of techniques for dealing with
this, so that you can get the rich BW experience favored by film
photographers, and I'm working on an article about the whole process, but
the HP 7960 has its own conversion routine that I wanted to try. I've
been assured by their engineers that it's more than just losing the color,
so to test it, I went into Photoshop and did just that, by using the
desaturation control.
Printing both saturated and desaturated images from Photoshop, using the
printer's maximum setting and HP's Glossy Premium Plus Photo Paper, with
Photo Gray ink cartridge installed took considerably longer than the 400
dpi "good " setting for my first test. I set it to print in grayscale,
using both the full color and desaturated images, but couldn't tell them
apart.
The full 8.5x11 borderless print took a few seconds less than 12 minutes
to roll out of the printer, and made me wish I could travel back in time
to show my photography teacher back in the 70s what a print from a
computer could look like. He'd just never have believed that it wasn't RC
paper from a darkroom.
I like to print weird sizes of paper, and the 7960 accommodated me fairly
well, with a custom settable range of sizes from 3-8.5 wide and 5-14 long.
You do have to turn off the automatic type and size selection if you're
printing non-standard sizes, but otherwise it worked fine.
Though some of the photographic papers I tried with the printer gave me
the neutral blacks I expected, I actually got warmer results than I wanted
from HP's own Premium Photo Plus, though a little work may in the color
channels may correct that. Color printing was terrific, as expected.
(You should also take a
look at David Em's review of this printer in Byte.com
Byte.com 04/12/04:
HP Builds a Better Printer)
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