rddelliott

JD:

 

Dan has good advise. The kit lens is excellent stopped down a couple of stops. See what focal lengths you use the most with the kit lens and add better lenses later after you get some experience. Remember, bodies come and go, but good glass is forever.

If you are shooting in a studio, are you doing a custom white balance under the same lighting as your subject by shooting a gray or white card and setting your camera's white balance accordingly? Then, make your individual color adjustments in PS via a selective color adjustment layer.

Phil:

 

Post your specific problem in the forum. There are lots of people using the HP 130.

Phil:

 

You might want to post in the Designjet forum on Yahoo where they deal specifically with Designjet problems. You will need to register.

 

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HPDesignJet_Printers/

Mary Beth:

 

You might want to visit the shows and find out what the show photographers are using. I am planing on doing some rodeo later this year and got some great advice on equipment from the rodeo pros.

Mary Beth:

 

Did you look at the 70-200 f/4 and f/4 IS. Very light compaired to the f/2.8 and very sharp.

Peter:

 

Try this:

 

1. Make a copy of the background layer.

2. Filter > Blur > Average

3. Invert (Command or Control I)

4. Mode > Color

5. Reduce the Opacity until you get a good color balance

6. Make a new Hue/Saturation Layer and adjust the Saturation as needed.

I had a 1DS II and traded for a 5D with no regrets. The 1DS II was a brick to carry and for landscapes that I like to shoot, I cannot see much difference in image quality. If it was me, I would not hesitate to buy the 5D unless you need the 1DS features previously discussed. With the 5D you are purchasing a new camera with a warranty and if something goes wrong with the 1DS, you have a friend to deal with.

Daniel:

 

Currently you will have more paper choices with the Epson 2400 but the paper suppliers are adding profiles for the HP B9180 so the gap is narrowing. I am using Hahnemuhle's William Turner and Photo Rag, InkJetArt's Premium Duo Matte and Moab's Entrada Fine Art Natural with good success.

Hahnemuhle William Turner, Moab's Entrada and InkJetArt's Premium Duo Brite Matte in price order.

 

You might want to check the Yahoo HP 9100 forum for other suggestions.

Hahhemuhle William Turner and Moab Entrada Fine Art Natural and Fine Art White.

Ernie:

 

Nels is correct on his paper choices. Also, Hahnemuhle William Turner is excellent for B/W, deep rich blacks and excellent detail.

Ernie:

 

If you are serious about your printing, you should upgrade your Photoshop. CS3 is due out in April. You can download a trial of CS2 I believe from Adobe. With the later software and using the printer to manage color, you should get great B/W. I have tried both having the printer manage color or having Photoshop manage color with a profile for B/W and get great results with either. No color casts. You might also want to join the 9180 Yahoo forum for lots of information.

Ernie:

 

Are you using the printer driver and not the Photoshop driver for B/W? Then select greyscale and grey inks only. That produces great B/W's for me. Also, I like the look of matte papers better for B/W.

I have owned both printers. I sold the Epson 2400 shortly after purchasing the HP B9180. The quality of photos from these printers is similar. I had experienced cloging with the Epson 2400 that I do not with the B9180. I also like the fact that with the HP you do not have to switch inks between color and black and white prints and the HP is self calibrating to factory standards.

ED:

 

I have the macro extender for sale at $175 in mint condition. e-mail me if interested.

The first thing I would do is take a class at the local community college to get started. They usually give you the basics. I found my local community college spent time on the graphics arts portion of Photoshop which was not of interest to me, but also covered the photography basics. I also purchased a set of CD's by Julianne Kost that were excellent. They are visual and very well done, concentrating on photography. Photoshop is a slow learning process that takes time as there are usually three ways to complete a task. Just keep working at it and suddenly it will all make sense. I would also join NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) which has excellent visual tutorials and a great help desk that will respond promptly via e-mail to your questions.

Scott:

 

I have found that with my 8750, the profiles provided by HP do not work as well as the profiles I create with my Pulse system which are specific to my printer. What I ment by consumer printer is that there is no means with the 8750 to calibrate it to a factory standard as there is with my B9180. I think the 8750 has more variance from one printer to another which leads to a variance in how well the HP profile will work. I agree, your experience may differ.

Jesse:

 

Slade Z was nice enough to provide me with this process to print B/W with the 8750.

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=19435602&q=sladez&qf=m

Jesse:

 

I would consider my HP 8750 a consumer grade printer. It does not have a means to calibrate itself to a known standard as does the B9180. You can try a profile created for a printer other than your own which may or may not work. Again, I would suggest you get a custom profile made for your own printer which will take into consideration the variances of your individual printer. It is a small investment compaired to the wasted paper and ink of trial and error.

I have found that the HP profiles for the HP 8750 are not very accurate if that is what you are using. If you are not using a custom profile made for your printer, you really need to invest in one specificially for your printer, paper and ink combination to produce accurate color. I would suggest you invest in a custom profile from InkJetArt or one of the other people who provide custom profiles.

Take a look at Adobe's Lightroom for processing RAW images into b/w images. Easy with great results.

I think what is being said here is that the printer will up the resolution to some sort of "native" resolution. I was told that at least with the HP B9180, the printer will up-rez your file to the "nearest neighbor" resolution (180, 240, 300 and 360ppi). So if I have a file at 230ppi, the printer will up-rez the file to 240ppi. Anyone know if this is correct?

I did not find any problem with my copy of the XTi. A friend of mine just bought a new XTi and had the same concerns. We took his XTi, my XTi, a 5D and a Sekonic 308 meter and metered a grey card. All read the same at ISO 100 from the grey card. If you have a meter that is not working correctly, I would send the body to Canon Service for calibration.

I have had the B9180 for about a month now and it is a great printer for both b/w and color. The thing I really like is you do not have to change inks between b/w and color as on the Epson 2400 which it replaced.