Hopefully Ernst will chime in since he's our local HP Z* wizard.    In the mean time, I assume you clicked the "Properties" button on the Printers and Settings tab to open the driver and tried to select your media from inside the actual driver?  I ask because HP doesn't always communicate all the media types to Windows so they may not show in the drop down list directly on the Printers and Settings tab; sometimes you have to go into the driver to select the media type, particularly if you are using custom media types.

Regards,
Mike

I just noticed there is a very recent update for their Z3200 PCL 3 driver (Sept 4).  Sometimes Windows updates cause issues with printers and this update may resolve some issues:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-designjet-z3200-photo-printer-series/3737540

Unless you've already tried that new driver, I would recommend installing that PCL 3 driver to see if it resolves any of the problems.

Regards,
Mike

Kelly,  real color issues I have not experienced with different drivers, where they occured it was either hardware issues or when QU's interface to the driver was not correct on the HP media preset shown and actually used in the driver. I have asked Mike to add a short cut to reset only the HP driver to its default (that is now shift + click on the driver icon in QU) while keeping the QU settings for the rest. I often repeat jobs from the interactive log file so at least the QU settings stay as archived and the driver is reset to the default and I change the driver settings for a job only in the driver itself. If the QU windows show other driver settings than what I did in the driver I ignore that ( I rather see them greyed out for HP drivers but that is not in my hands ;-). Second thing is that I modify the default driver settings through Windows Configuration menu that the default becomes Application Color Management where it normally is Driver Color Management (one of the other things that can cause color shifts). Write this from memory so the exact terms are not used. I also set the print quality on high so 600PPI is asked by the printer and I set it to a glossy paper + the Gloss Enhancer used over the entire print area. That becomes the default while I usually take a matte paper and a lower resolution print quality. That is for me the most consistent workflow now.

I archived HP W10 driver + Printer Utility versions in 2016 and 2017 while I still used W7 then.  I have a simple complot theory:  HP marketing dictates HP driver upgrade policy ;-), so a device no longer sold gets another treatment. W7 system + HP drivers are still better so there is a W7 comp. kept in reserve. On my W10 system I installed the 2017 driver + PU at the end of 2019. Then synchronised the media presets stored on the printer with PU which brings back all the custom media presets + custom profiles stored on the printer. I think some features of Color Center are lost in that upgrade, smaller target sizes for profile making etc. I can still access the W7 system for the larger ones I think. Old profiles are excellent though and calibrating the media presets I do from the printer panel. Not much new media used here.

Latest issues were very slow transfer of the printer data to the printer. I do not know precisely what causes that. Emptied the printer harddisk of old jobs. Could be W10 security issues, I have to dig further.

I can send you the drivers etc that I use if you like that. PM me.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst Dinkla

https://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken

Kelly,

2. We are writing about printing to the Z3200 from Qimage Ultimate, consider the last as your application and have color management settings correct there. Let us limit the topic to HP media present in the HP driver choices and still available on the market. For example the HP ID Premium Satin Paper 260 gr/m². Shift+click on the driver icon (not the top one in QU but the one in my reply at 5.). Select that paper in the driver, have the driver default setting already on Application Color Management (but check here) + Roll or Sheet (manual) + image quality setting (requesting 300 or 600PPI) + the printing page say A3 + landscape or portrait. O.K. there. Then go to QU's color management, select Application Color Management there + the HP ID Premium Satin Paper printer profile + Relative Color rendering + BPC. O.K. there. Do not alter settings like print page size, media choice or landscape/portrait after that in Qimage Ultimate's menu!!

Images you print should have a color space assigned, that is done in Capture One when you process from RAW to Tiff or JPG to the Output map. Use AdobeRGB as the color space for example. Take your Tiffs or Jpegs from that C1 Output map with the QU menu thumbs page of that map. Check Display Image Info of one of the thumbs (right click) and look for the AdobeRGB presence in that file. If not there, no AdobeRGB was assigned/saved for that file in C1. The default color space replacement for non-assigned images is sRGB by Qimage if it can not find other clues in the file's EXIF. There can be a color shift if you edited a file with AdobeRGB set as the color space in the image editing application and it gets sRGB attached somewhere on its route to the print. It could be that printer color management (as you describe giving better color) just guessed better what color space you used in C1 or another image editing application. Or you knew what you used in C1 and selected that for the printer driver CM, two choices for RGB files processing there (PCL3 raster photo driver): AdobeRGB or sRGB. Printer profile is in the black box there so no access to it.

3.  You absolutely have to get the default HP paper profiles installed in the Windows system for QU's color management to function. Normally a Synchronise Paper Presets does that. Media Presets and the linked Printer Profiles are taken from the printer harddisk and so distributed to one or more systems that have access to the printer. Try to get the Printer Utility working for that task. Calibration is not needed at that point and will not help in distributing the profiles. Calibration is meant to keep the color fundament to a certain standard, over time for the printer hardware (heads mainly) and small changes between paper production batches can alter the color fundament. With calibration keeping that standard you do not need to make new profiles, the fundament remains the same for the profiles made in the past. Your color issues right now are not related to that, normally these shifts are hardly noticeable.

4. Check minimum sheet sizes you can load on a HP Z3200/3100. Roll width minimum is 30cm, length of a sheet (paper transport direction) should be similar, width of a sheet at least 21cm.
Set print page preview in the HP driver to check whether the image is turned before the printing start. You can cancel it then. Do not alter the landscape/portrait mode from the QU menu, do it in the printer driver as already written in 2. There are issues with HP drivers integration with QU. A letter size paper sheet will have a printable area of roughly 205x262mm. Do not lock the rotation of a landscape image when printed on a portrait printpage. Make sure the image is not printed over several sheets, there will be a QU warning anyway. Find your way in the QU settings is best I can write.

5. I come back to that, Lunch is served.
Edit: Shift/Click on the Properties text as shown in this screengrab.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst Dinkla

https://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken

Ernst,

Based your feedback, I made some progress tonight but still not quite reaching the end goal.

2. Application manager color:

    •   "Display Image Info" in QU shows the test file I'm using has a “Adobe RGB 91998” ICC profile

    •   I tried multiple setting combinations in the driver and QU as shown below,

     a)  Driver: Application manage color + HP Hahnemuhle smooth fine art paper + Best print quality + Letter + Portrait.  QU: Printer profile is “OFF” + HP Hahnemuhle smooth fine art paper + 600PPI + Letter + Portrait.  Result: test print showed a lack of colors, not even close to quality if “printer manage color” was chosen.
     
     b)  Same as above except in QU: Printer profile is set to “Hahnemuhle photo rag ultra smooth (customer profile that I’ve created)”.  Result: test print closer to “printer manage color” quality, but the image is about half a stop too dark.
     
     c)  Same as above except in the printer driver under Color Management/Advance, I changed the Device Profile from “System default (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)” to “Hahnemuhle photo rag ultra smooth (customer profile I’ve created)”.  Result: same as point (b) above (test print closer to “printer manage color” quality, but the image is about half a stop too dark.)

Seems "Application manage color" ought to be a better option than "printer manage color" with respect to print quality, what am I doing wrong?

3. Synchronize Paper Presets in HP Utility:

I’ve done a couple hours of research on the internet, the only thing that make some sense is that when “Synchronize Paper Presets” is grayed out, it means there is no paper presets in the system.  I promptly created a new paper preset to see if it would activate the “Synchronize Paper Presets” option.  Unfortunately, it is still grayed out.  I feel I'm reaching a dead end here.

4. Not able to print in the correct orientation with letter size paper:

I fixed it!!  The problem is in the driver’s rotation setting.  The default setting is “Auto-rotate”.  The problem was solved when I changed it to “Rotate by 0 degree”.  However, there was no print preview even after I turned on the “Print Preview” option in the driver.

5. shift + click on the driver icon in Qimage:  Got it.

Thanks Ernst for your patience and the thorough explanations!!  I’ve learned a lot and I feel that I’m very close to resolving the printing issues that I’m having with your help.

Best Regards,
Kelly

Mike,

Thank you for setting me straight on Qimage's "Printer Profile" to "OFF" setting, I now understand that is not what I wanted. 

By the way, I just noticed a typo in point (b) and point (c) in my last response, where I wrote "(customer profile that I’ve created)".  It's actually "custom profile" and not "customer profile" that I meant to say.

Thanks,
Kelly