It ’s a rare event when a society comes out of the blue with a ware that is so well think out and so perfectly integrated with the Mac that you wonder how you know without it . Hewlett - Packard has done just that with the Photosmart Pro B9180 , a $ 700 photo inkjet printer that bring the characteristic set and print quality of $ 2,000 printer to the desktop of any serious digital photographer or graphic artist .
HP has been the dominant presence in the consumer and business printing machine market , but it has n’t been as successful in the mellow - closing photograph market , which has more postulate drug user . Photographers , graphic creative person , and imaging specialists want coherent color , print longevity , efficient ink usance , and support for many unlike types of papers , and Epson has long been the food market leader in this class .
This year , however , Canon and HP have each decided to make a streak at Epson ’s control . canyon has focused on the higher end , with its imagePROGRAF iPF5000 ( ) , a $ 2,195 , 12 - ink printer that is targeting Epson ’s Stylus Pro 4800 . HP has opt to compete on multiple levels , let go of three printer : the entry - level B9180 , which goes head - to - head against Epson ’s $ 850 Stylus Photo R2400 , and two broad - data format printer , the Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 photo printer , which are comparable with Epson offer .
Built to print
The Photosmart Pro B9180 is substantially built , and has a heft and experience that transmit the seriousness of its design . The turnout tray , for example , is made of metallic element , which is almost unheard of in this eld of flimsy plastic designs . It is a great social unit , however , weighing closely 40 pounds ; while printing , it can agitate a less - than - sturdy mesa or fend .
typeset it up is a walkover — you’re able to be printing 30 min after pay back it out of the box . You add the print cartridge and mark heads , stop up the printing machine in , let it do its initial calibration , and knock off it to your Mac directly via a USB cable’s length . you could optionally utilise the B9180 ’s Ethernet port to stop up it into your connection and select it via Bonjour in the Print Setup utility .
The pressman can handle paper from 3 - by-5 - inch index cards up to 13 - by-19 - column inch bed sheet , and it supports borderless printing for all paper types and sizes . It has two paper path — a paper tray that holds about 100 sheets of exposure paper ( or 200 sheets of unmixed paper ) , and a manual - feed , neat - through route for treat medium types up to 1.5 mm thick . The manual provender time slot is a simple tray that turn up down from the front of the pressman , and include silk - screened guide for align the newspaper .
True color
The B9180 has two features under the hood that will appeal to photographer and artist who are serious about their printed look-alike : a colour calibrator and paint - found ink .
The most important of the two features is the printer ’s closed - iteration standardization system . This is a simple densitometer progress into the printhead chemical mechanism that measure the color values of a self - printed prey . This outgrowth takes more or less 15 minutes : as it print , the densitometer compares the newly print target with the original colour economic value , which were stored in the printing machine at the factory . If it observe any differences , the printer automatically recalibrates . What this means is that you ’ll get predictable , consistent colour from print to impress . Epson has been providing this for years in their eminent - end photo printer , but this is a first for a pressman under $ 1,000 .
To produce those calibrated images , the Photosmart Pro B9180 utilizes eight paint ink — cyan , light cyan , Battle of Magenta , light Battle of Magenta , yellow , light grey , and flatness and picture Negroid — each with its own dedicated cartridge . Like most paint - based printers , the B9180 uses one less ink color when printing . For papers with glossy and semi - gloss finish , the B9180 automatically habituate the photo black ink ; when printing on non - glossy and o.k. - art paper , it switch to the matte black ink . gratefully , you do n’t have to trade the mat and photo black ink cartridges out of the B9180 when you deepen paper type ; doing so wastes valuable ink .
Strong software
HP has supplemented the B9180 hardware with an excellent suite of printing process and maintenance software tools . At the top of the listing is a male plug - in for printing directly from within Adobe Photoshop . The fireplug - in offers a tangible - fourth dimension trailer of your persona and let you choose paper eccentric , color profile , mark size , borderless options , and more from within a undivided windowpane . ( Canon bid a similar plug - in with the imagePROGRAF iPF5000 , but HP ’s is easier to employ . ) This is the means exposure printingshouldbe , and it ’s a joy to employ .
In addition to the plug - in , HP includes an program , HP Printer Utility , that is the dashboard for interact with the printer . The syllabus includes realistic indicators of persist ink capacity and useful help screens , as well as facilities for cleaning the printheads ( which we never needed ) , printing trial run Sir Frederick Handley Page , and give the shut - loop calibration test .
The HP Printer Utility also lets you install custom paper profile directly into the driver . While being able-bodied to use custom semblance profile for a specific theme type is nothing novel , HP takes most of the enigma out of it and reach it well-fixed , countenance you add your new visibility directly to the theme - type menu .
There is also an program for printing photograph , HP Photosmart Edit , but , given the B9180 ’s target audience , we think most hoi polloi will be using Photoshop ( ) , Aperture ( ) , or iPhoto ( ) to print . One dainty lineament of the program , however , is for converting colour look-alike to grayscale — it offer a set of calamitous - and - white transformations that mimic traditional camera filter . Photoshop ’s Channel Mixer has a much more sophisticated set of peter for this operation , but we got good results with Photosmart Edit .
HP ’s manual of arms is very instructive in helping you get the near out of the printing machine , discussing profile , mark types , and how to use the print number one wood ’s built - in colour feature as fight down to using Photoshop ’s color features . Anyone young to pigment - ink printers or looking to expand their Photoshop print knowledge will regain the manual very helpful .
How’s the output?
HP ’s effort would n’t amount to much if the turnout was n’t big , and here the company succeeds . The prints we got from the Photosmart Pro B9180 were the good we ’ve ever seen out of an HP printer . In addition to allow for an excellent tonic range , it was extremely punishing to see any dots on most print , and even then they were only visible with sure paper types and under close scrutiny with a loupe . And for photographers interest in fatal - and - white image , the B9180 ’s prints were neutral in coming into court , without any grounds of segmental failure ( gloss spew seeable under different lighting weather condition ) .
When comparing colour and bootleg - and - white photographic print from the B9180 , imagePROGRAF iPF5000 , Stylus Photo R2400 , and Stylus Pro 4800 , it was hard for most observers to tell the difference between the print . When pressed , we remember Epson has a slight edge in photographic print lineament and colour fidelity over both HP and Canon , but this is a immanent judgment , and the reality is that you could get a bully print out of any one of these newer printers .
Performance and ink efficiency
The B9180 ’s print speeds were comparable to those of Epson and Canon under similar consideration . A 4 - by-6 - inch image printed in 1 min , 23 bit ; an 8 - by-10 column inch in 3 minutes , 11 seconds ; and a 13 - by-19 - inch photographic print took 6 minutes , 51 seconds to derive out of the printer . All of these clock time were done in theBestmode , although there is aMaximum DPIsetting that was n’t really needed for most of the image we print ; it only have more time and used up extra ink .
Ink usage was quite effective . At approximately $ 32 per ink magazine , it costs almost a third of the printer ’s price to make full it with ink , but that said , we were very impressed with the efficiency of the B9180 . Our light gray-haired ink ran out after 107 prints of varying size ( all letter of the alphabet - size of it or larger ) , and we were doing quite a bit of monochromatic printing . We did n’t need to replace any other ink cartridges until after 200 prints ran through the printer , and even then , it was a single ink colouring material . At 240 prints , we had replaced four of the eight ink , and one of them was the light gray ink again . This was quite a bit more ink life than we got out of the B9180 ’s primary competitor , the Stylus Photo R2400 , which has smaller ink cartridges , but a slightly blue cost per milliliter of ink .
Macworld’s buying advice
Try as we might , we could n’t come up with any significant defects in the Photosmart Pro B9180 . The only thing we did n’t wish is how the printer can sometimes crape one end of very loggerheaded newspaper when fed through the manual - provender slot . While we imagine there are definite reasons for purchasing some of the higher - priced Epson and Canon printer — gyre backup , larger paper sizes , in high spirits - production print runs — the B9180 sit at an awesome price point in time for what you get . Combine the great print quality with any two of its standout features — close - loop calibration , stalwart construction , smartly designed software , unsubtle media support , efficient ink life , archival mark quality — and you ’d have a very good pressman , indeed . But when you wrap them all up into the bundle that is the B9180 , you have a great professional - quality photo printer that ’s priced under $ 1,000 .
[ Rick LePage isMacworld ’s editor program - at - large . ]
