HP Revolutionizes Colour Experience for Graphics Professionals with New HP Designjet Z Photo Printer Series

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, September 28, 2006 - HP today announced it is changing the way graphics professionals create large-format images with the unveiling of the new HP Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 Series Photo Printers. Continuing to expand its professional printing portfolio, HP is leveraging its pigment ink technologies developed for the HP Photosmart Pro B9180 to create the first large-format printers employing HP's Scalable Printing Technology.

The HP Designjet Z Series printers are designed to deliver intuitive, dependable and repeatable colour accuracy for 24- and 44-inch museum-quality prints with 200 years' photo permanence.¹

Experience simple and intuitive colour management

The HP Designjet Z Series employs the industry's first embedded spectrophotometer, utilizing i1 Colour Technology from X-Rite. Mounted on the printer carriage with completely self-contained optics and electronics, the embedded spectrophotometer greatly simplifies accurate colour-matching, enabling automated ICC profiling and HP Advanced Closed-Loop Colour Calibration. The result means the user can create colour profiles in minutes rather than hours and expect exact colour matches throughout the printing process.

Leading brands in the creative community, including Adobe, Colourbyte, EFI, GMG and X-Rite, have worked closely with HP to develop solutions optimised specifically for the HP Designjet Z Series to fully address the needs of key markets, such as graphic design, professional photography, prepress and digital fine arts. From X-Rites's i1 Colour Technology to the use of Adobe's Lightroom calibration application, these solutions further streamline workflow and provide users a simple, reliable printing experience.

The HP Z Series Photo Printer colour management partner tools include:

The embedded spectrophotometer, built on X-Rite's leading i1 colour technology.

HP's Advanced Profiling Solution² co-developed with X-Rite that provides additional options for profiling and calibration. Integrated with the HP embedded spectrophotometer, this solution includes a monitor calibrator and profiler with editing capabilities to offer an end-to-end colour-managed workflow.

EFI's RIP Designer Edition 5.1² developed with HP-specific inputs. New photo features and an improved user interface give graphic designers full control over digital proofing needs, saving users time and money.

Imageprint v.6 photo RIP from Colourbyte and ColourProof v.4 prepress RIP from GMG, developed with HP-specific inputs. The Imageprint v.6 is optimised for use by prosumers and professional photographers. The ColourProof v.4 works directly with the embedded spectrophotometer for print verification, radically shortening workflow.

The HP ProPrint Plug-in and the "Calibrate Printer" button in Adobe Lightroom, co-developed with Adobe. Print expected colours on the first try from Adobe Photoshop with the free HP ProPrint Plug-in, and use the Adobe Lightroom "Calibrate Printer" button to launch the colour management tools directly from within the application.

Create and customize ICC profiles with HP Advanced Profiling Solution

The HP Designjet Z2100 GP and HP Designjet Z3100 GP editions contain the HP Advanced Profiling Solution developed by HP and X-Rite (formerly GretagMacbeth). The HP Advanced Profiling Solution is an end-to-end colour management system developed specifically for the most demanding graphics professionals. It works seamlessly with the embedded spectrophotometer to easily create and edit ICC profiles, saving you the time and expense of outsourcing the ICC creation expertise. It also includes a screen calibration device powered by i1 technology.

Create ICC profiles for specific lighting conditions (such as a gallery)
Work with CMYK ICC profiles to preserve maximum colour consistency from digital proof to offset press
Easily edit ICC profiles created for any HP or third-party media
Make sure the colours on your screen are printed accurately and consistently - print after print - and on a wide range of different media.

New ink and media for exquisite museum quality that lasts 200 years¹

The HP Designjet Z2100 features an eight-colour HP Vivera pigment ink system, including both matte black and photo black inks, providing a broad colour gamut on matte fine art papers and glossy photo papers for photographic and creative design applications.

The HP Designjet Z3100 uses a 12-ink HP Vivera pigment ink system, including the HP 70 Gloss Enhancer and HP Quad-Black Inks to create beautiful black and white prints and achieve truly neutral grays under different lighting conditions. This also provides continuous tones, uniform gloss and rich blacks, making the HP Designjet Z3100 ideal for high-quality art reproduction, photography and proofing applications.

Both models deliver the industry's best photo permanence on a wide variety of HP media up to 24- or 44-inches wide.

With the HP Designjet Z Series, graphics professionals have the ability to print beyond the limits of traditional papers using the widest range of media options on the market. With 36 new media offerings, users have the flexibility to choose from a vast range of media options within HP's media portfolio.

HP also announced today a strategic alliance with Hahnemhle FineArt the 400-year-old pioneer in developing and producing digital fine art paper. In addition to co-developing three fine art papers, HP Hahnemhle Smooth Fine Art Paper, HP Hahnemhle Textured Fine Art Paper and HP Hahnemhle Watercolour Paper, Hahnemhle's entire portfolio of digital fine art media types is compatible with the HP Designjet Z2100/3100, providing customers a complete and reliable printing solution with the ultimate media choice and flexibility.

Profiles of Hahnemhle's 21 fine art papers are available at www.hahnemuehle.com .

In addition, the HP Designjet Z Series' automated colour management features have opened doors to more media options. Leveraging relationships with strong brands like Hahnemhle, the HP Designjet Z Series can quickly create ICC profiles for the most relevant commercially available media.

New tools and services make printing even more painless

Backing the HP Designjet Z Series' superior colour experience are a variety of HP services and support options that give users greater confidence in their printing. Users can rely on the HP Colour Centre tool for step-by-step instruction on colour management and HP Colour Expert Service for a single point of contact for remote live assistance to resolve colour issues in the workflow.

From setup to media profiling, fine-tuning to finishing tips, HP ensures a flawless, straightforward printing experience for novices to professionals every step of the way.

Supplies Ink Cartridges and Printheads:

HP 70 Pigment Ink Cartridges

HP 70 Matte Black Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Photo Black Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Light Grey Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Cyan Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Magenta Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Yellow Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Light Cyan Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Light Magenta Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Grey Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Red Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Green Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Blue Ink Cartridge with Vivera Ink (130ml)

HP 70 Gloss Enhancer Ink Cartridge

HP 70 Printheads

HP 70 Matte Black and Cyan Printhead

HP 70 Light Magenta and Light Cyan Printhead

HP 70 Magenta and Yellow Printhead

HP 70 Photo Black and Light Grey Printhead

HP 70 Blue and Green Printhead

HP 70 Matte Black and Red Printhead

HP 70 Gloss Enhancer and Grey Printhead

Supplies Media:

HP Photographic Paper:

HP Professional Satin Photo Paper 300 g/m

HP Premium Instant-dry Gloss Photo Paper 260 g/m

HP Premium Instant-dry Satin Photo Paper 260 g/m

HP Advanced Photo Paper, Glossy

HP Advanced Photo Paper, Soft Gloss

HP Universal Instant-dry Gloss Photo Paper 190 g/m

HP Universal Instant-dry Semi-gloss Photo Paper 190 g/m

HP Matte Photo Paper 196 g/m

HP RC Matte Photo Paper 200 g/m

HP Digital Fine Art Media:

HP Collector Satin Canvas 400 g/m

HP Professional Matte Canvas 430 g/m

HP Artist Matte Canvas 380 g/m

HP Universal Matte Canvas 350 g/m

HP Canvas Paper 180 g/m

HP Aquarella Art Paper 240 g/m

HP Hahnemhle Watercolour Paper 210 g/m

HP Hahnemhle Smooth Fine Art Paper (265 g/m & 310g/m)

HP Hahnemhle Textured Fine Art Paper (265 g/m & 310g/m)

HP Matte Litho-realistic Paper 270 g/m

HP Proofing Paper:

HP Professional High-gloss Contract Proofing Paper 200 g/m

HP Professional Semi-gloss Contract Proofing Paper 235 g/m

HP Matte Proofing Paper 146 g/m

HP Specialty Media:

HP Colourlucent Backlit UV 205 g/m

HP Adhesive Vinyl 328 g/m

HP Universal Adhesive Vinyl 290 g/m

HP Opaque Scrim 486 g/m

HP Coated Paper:

HP Universal Heavyweight Coated Paper 120 g/m

HP Heavyweight Coated Paper 130 g/m

HP Super Heavyweight Plus Matte Paper 210 g/m

HP Universal Coated Paper 95 g/m

HP Coated Paper 90 g/m

HP Bond Paper:

HP Universal Bond Paper 80 g/m

HP Bright White Inkjet Paper 90 g/m

Additional Information

For more information, please visit the HP Graphic Arts Portal at www.hp.com/go/graphicarts.

-Ends-

About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $90.0 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

About HP Middle East
HP is the largest technology and solutions provider in the Middle East with 670 employees and subsidiaries in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar, Cairo, Ramallah and Oman servicing the GCC, Egypt and the Levant. HP has been present in the Middle East since 1968 and opened its first regional office in 1994. HP Middle East is the market leader for enterprise, small and medium business and consumer technology products and offers a large portfolio of solutions and services in various business domains.

More information about HP in the Middle East is available at www.hp.com/me

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¹ Display permanence rating by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. on a range of HP creative and specialty media. For details: www.hp.com/go/supplies/printpermanence.

² Available as an optional accessory.

³The price stated is EMEA Manufacturer's Recommended Selling Price (MRSP) and is subject to change - actual price may vary by country.