Color Plotter Recommendation

[hdjohnson]

I was wondering if anyone had any recemmendations for a color plotter. We've just started doing renderings and would like to print them out for presentations. I'm mainly interested in getting a fairly "cheap" plotter that has good line quality and color representation. What have you found gives the best color representation that closely matches what you see on the screen?

Any advice/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

[John K.]

HP/COMPAQ DESIGNJET 120NR MULTIFORMAT 2400DPI

http://www.neutroncanada.com/prod.cfm/231187/C7791B%23ABA

A good bit of research went into this. It beats the comparably priced 650 -- also an HP.

NOTE: This is primarily a plotter for pretty pictures, NOT speed. We were willing to sacrifice speed for good, in-house renderings.


John K.
Atlanta, GA.

[hdjohnson]

HP/COMPAQ DESIGNJET 120NR MULTIFORMAT 2400DPI

http://www.neutroncanada.com/prod.cfm/231187/C7791B%23ABA

A good bit of research went into this. It beats the comparably priced 650 -- also an HP.

NOTE: This is primarily a plotter for pretty pictures, NOT speed. We were willing to sacrifice speed for good, in-house renderings.


John K.
Atlanta, GA.

John K.,

Thanks for your response. I was wondering how does it do on colors? Basically, how close can you get the colors on your screen to match the output of the plotter?

[John K.]

Thanks for your response. I was wondering how does it do on colors? Basically, how close can you get the colors on your screen to match the output of the plotter?

Haven't yet done a lot of plotter color calibration: it's a bit of a blindspot with me. However, just ran a quick set of elevations and they are very true to the screen colors with no tweaking -- as of yet. The big advantage of this plotter over the slightly-higher-priced 650 is how smoothly the colors are spread. I.e. they are very even whereas the 650 produced alot of color "banding" or "striping."

[aaronrumple]

Color management is a very separate issue from the brand of printer. All printers need some color management.

Paper uses CYMK for printing <look at the bottom of your cereal box>. Montors use RGB. so the color of projected images can never be exactly the same as relected light.

Also the paper you are printing on will change the color output. A cheap bond paper can soak up only so much ink. So the colors will be more mutted than on the screen. The glossy photo papers hold more ink and will be closer to the true color.

With all that said all the HP's I've ever ued have been great to work with.