Color Matching Between Different HP Designjet Printers

If an image is printed on two different Printer models (for instance, on an HP Designjet 4000 Printer series and an HP Designjet 1000 Printer series), you may find that the colors of the two prints do not match well.

Matching two printing devices that use different ink chemistry, paper chemistry, and Printheads is unlikely to be completely successful. The information provided here is the best way to emulate one Printer with another. Even so, the end result may not be a perfect match.

The situation is that you are printing on each printer using the PostScript driver installed for that printer. In this example, we are using an HP Designjet 4000 Printer series and an HP Designjet 1000 Printer series.

1. Ensure that both printers have been updated with the latest firmware version.

2. Ensure that you have the latest printer driver for both printers. The latest versions can be downloaded from http://www.hp.com/go/designjet.

3. Ensure that Color Calibration is turned on (Setup Menu/Configuration Menu/Color calibration/On).

4. Load both Printers with similar paper types.

5. Ensure that the Paper Type setting on the front panel corresponds to the paper that is loaded.

6. Print the image on the HP Designjet 1000 Printer series using the normal settings.

7. Now prepare to print the same image on the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series.

8. In the application, set the color space of the image to emulate the HP Designjet 1000 Printer series and the specific paper type that you used in that printer. The data sent to the driver must be already converted to this emulation color space, which is a CMYK color space. refer to the application's online help for information on how to do this. In this way, the 4000 series will emulate the colors that the 1000 series can produce when printing on that paper type.

9. In the PostScript driver for the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series, go to the Color Management section and set the CMYK input profile to the same HP Designjet 1000 Printer series color space that was selected in the application (the emulation color space).

10. Set the rendering intent to Relative Colorimetric, or to Absolute Colorimetric if the whiteness of the paper needs to be emulated.

11. Print the image on the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series.

The situation is that you are printing on each printer using the HP-GL/2 driver installed for that printer.

1. Ensure that both printers have been updated with the latest firmware version.

2. Ensure that you have the latest printer driver for both printers. The latest versions can be downloaded from http://www.hp.com/go/designjet.

3. Ensure that Color Calibration is turned on (Setup Menu/Configuration Menu/Color calibration/On).

4. Load both Printers with similar paper types.

5. Ensure that the Paper Type setting on the front panel corresponds to the paper that is loaded.

6. With the HP-GL/2 driver for the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series, select the Color tab, and set the Color Matching Method to sRGB.

7. With the HP-GL/2 driver for the HP Designjet 1000 series, select the Options tab, then Manual Color > Color Control > Match Screen. You should also select the Paper Size tab, then Paper Type, and select an Enhanced Colors paper type.

The situation is that you have produced an HP-GL/2 file (also known as a PLT file) using the HP-GL/2 driver installed for one printer, and you intend to send the same file to both printers.

1. Ensure that both printers have been updated with the latest firmware version.

2. Ensure that Color Calibration is turned on (Setup Menu/Configuration Menu/Color calibration/On).

3. Load both Printers with similar paper types.

4. Ensure that the Paper Type setting on the front panel corresponds to the paper that is loaded.

5. If you have an HP-GL/2 file produced for an HP Designjet 1000 Printer series and you want to print it on an HP Designjet 4000 Printer series, proceed as follows using the Embedded Web Server or the front panel:

For other HP Designjet Printers, set both printers to match the screen colors (sRGB if selectable), as when printing with separate HP-GL/2 drivers.