Product Description

The ultimate HP 9-ink photo printer designed for the professional, fine art, portrait and serious amateur photographer who wants finished, professional-quality photos up to 13 by 19 inches to sell, exhibit, or admire for generations.1 Photos can last up to 100 years when displayed under glass2 or over 200 years in a photo album.3 The HP Photosmart 8750 produces 9-ink color prints and provides color management controls and remarkable printer flexibility to produce realistic color and true black-and-white photos that are true to your vision.

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Product Details

• Brand: Hewlett-Packard
• Model: Q5747A#ABA
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 16.00" w x 26.00" l, 37.10 pounds

Features

• Inkjet printer offers borderless printing at sizes up to 13 by 19 inches
• Prints at 1200 x 1200 dpi black resolution and 4800 x 1200 dpi optimized color
• Connects to home network via Ethernet; also has USB 2.0 and optional wireless connectivity
• Backed by 1-year warranty
• Device measures 25.3 x 10 x 24 inches (WxHxD)

From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer The ultimate HP 9-ink photo printer designed for the professional, fine art, portrait andserious amateur photographer who wants finished, professional-quality photos up to 13 by 19 inches to sell, exhibit, or admire for generations.¹ Photos can last up to 100 years when displayed under glass² or over 200 years in a photo album.³ The HP Photosmart 8750 produces 9-ink color prints and provides color management controls and remarkable printer flexibility to produce realistic color and true black-and-white photos that are true to your vision.

Features:

• Print photos with rich color, fine detail, and accurate skin tones in 9-ink color with HP Vivera Inks.
• Get black-and-white photos with pure grays, true neutral grays, deep blacks, high contrast, and smooth transitions.
• The extended color palette includes enhanced blue hues for more realistic skies and landscapes.
• HP's 9-ink extended color palette reproduces the rich, realistic colors you envision.
• Quickly print accurate on-the-spot proofs for your own reference or to share with clients.
• Printer controls easily let you apply Photoshop color management tools for true customized prints.
• Expand your options—HP color management tools produce rich colors compatible with Adobe RGB and sRGB.
• Print matte or glossy borderless photos up to 13 by 19 inches using multi-size trays.
• No more waiting to get the photos from the lab! Print professional photos right in your own studio.
• Take advantage of all standard media sizes—from passport, frames, and panorama to gallery-size up to 13 by 19 inches—with or without borders.
• Customized orders—print on different paper types and sizes using multi- size tray and media sensor.
• Print black documents at up to 19 ppm. Print 13-by-19-inch photos as fast as 3.5 minutes and 4-by-6-inch photos as fast as 29 seconds.⁴
• Convenient network printing—share your printer with PCs or MACs or enable wireless printing.
• Quickly print index photo proofing from memory cards for convenient photo referencing.
• Connect to your wired workgroup via the built-in Ethernet port.
• Plug your printer into the Ethernet port of a wireless router for wireless printing benefits (Wi-Fi 802.11b or g wireless with purchase of optional Jetdirect accessory).

Enhanced Blue Hues for Realistic Skies and Landscapes
The HP Blue Photo inkjet print cartridge delivers an extended color palette that includes a richer, enhanced range of blue hues for natural looking landscapes with more realistic sky and water scenes. The Blue Photo cartridge contains specially formulated HP Vivera Inks in light cyan, blue, and light magenta. The new blue ink is designed to peak in chroma (colorfulness) at a lightness higher than the lightness of the blue produced in printers that combine cyan and magenta inks.

The true blue ink used by the HP Photosmart 8750 allows the printer gamut to more closely match the sRGB color space. The blue ink is also brighter than the blue created from blending cyan and magenta inks. Outdoor photography enthusiasts will be especially impressed with the vivid blues in their landscapes, seascapes, and sports photos. While the new blue ink enhances blue tones on any paper, the best results are obtained on HP Premium and Premium Plus photo papers.

8-ink versus 9-ink. Coordinates represent sRGB values of yellow (255,255,0), red (255,0,0), magenta (255,0,255), blue (0,0,255), cyan (0,255,255), and green (0,255,0) printed on HP Premium Plus Photo Paper using default driver settings.

Black and White Prints: True to Your Vision
In the spirit of Ansel Adams' renowned Zone System for optimizing exposure, HP has defined a "Digital Zone" for demonstrating print values (from black to white) for inkjet prints. The Digital Zone divides the dynamic range (DR) of an imaging system into 11 evenly spaced grayscale blocks or zones. The zones represent specific densities, from maximum density (D- max)-the blackest black that an imaging system can produce-to minimum density (D-min)-the whitest white (the paper base). The middle of the scale, Zone V, represents the middle gray tones of the inkjet print.

Professional, Long Lasting Color and Black-and-White Photos
With rich color, fine detail, and accurate skin tones, this versatile printer is ideal for producing portraits, landscapes and other photo assignments. Professional printer controls, an extended color palette, and tools that work seamlessly with Adobe Photoshop make it easy to produce consistent results that are true to your vision. Built-in Ethernet allows printer sharing for small networks, including mixed environments of Macintosh and PCs, plus wireless printing via a wireless router.

What's in the Box
HP Photosmart 8750 Professional Photo printer, HP 97 tri-color inkjet print cartridge (14 ml), HP 101 blue photo inkjet print cartridge (13 ml), HP 102 gray photo inkjet print cartridge (23 ml), HP Image Zone Photo and Imaging software on CD- ROM, Quick Start booklet, user's guide, power supply, power cord, media sampler, media bag, setup poster, reference guide, network guide; USB printer cable not included

Notes: (1) Preliminary estimate of 108 years using the HP 97 Tricolor, the HP 101 Blue Photo, and the HP 102 Gray Photo Inkjet Print Cartridges on HP Premium Plus Photo Papers. Based on Wilhelm-Research.com light-fade testing under glass for similar systems (as of November 2004). For more information on additional permanence testing factors, visit http://hp.com/go/premiumplusphoto. (2) Up to 108 years using the HP 97 Tricolor, the HP 101 Blue Photo, and the HP 102 Gray Photo Inkjet print cartridges on HP Premium photo papers. Based on Wilhelm-Research.com light-fade under glass for similar systems. For more information on additional permanence testing factors, visit http://hp.com/go/premiumplusphoto. (3) Using the HP 97 Tricolor, the HP 101 Blue Photo, and the HP 102 Gray Photo Inkjet print cartridges on HP Premium Plus photo papers. Based on Wilhelm-Research.com room-temperature degradation (dark fade) testing for similar systems. For more information on additional permanence testing factors, visit http://hp.com/go/premiumplusphoto. (4) Dependent upon type, print mode, and approximate figures. Exact speed will vary depending on the system configuration, software program, and document complexity.

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Customer Reviews

Superb printer - expensive inks and papers
I upgraded to this printer from the Epson Stylus Photo 2000p, which was an excellent printer. I have now had the opportunity to print many dozens of large format high quality prints with the HP 8750.

My first print out of the machine won overall top honors in a photo competition, and I have had many other prizewinning prints from the HP 8750 in the 6 months I have owned it.

I have had superb results from this printer right out of the box. The color gradations and photo detail are as close to flawless and I have seen from any inkjet. Speed is excellent for normal size text or text plus graphic printing, and good for large format highest quality photo printing. 11 by 17 inch prints take about 4 minutes, which way better than the 20-30 minutes the Epson 2000p took.

Color calibration is not absolutely necessary, since right out of the box my colors were excellent at default settings. To fully realize the enormous potential of this printer, it is necessary to calibrate your monitor.

"Borderless" and "borderless auto-fit" print settings produce unpredicatable results, sometimes leaving the images cut off at the edges or printing a bit off -center. When you are printing large images, I recommend you print a cheap proof on plain paper first to avoid wasting ink, paper, time, and money. The HP 8750 allows this with the "fast proof" print setting that will crank out a proof in seconds flat.

I found the the printer uses a lot of #102 (photo grey) ink cartridges at 30 bucks a pop. All of the ink carts are expensive and undersized for a large format printer, which is a shame and a source of significant expense to the user. Naturally, best results are expected with Premium photo papers from HP, which are also "trez cher" at about $1.50 a page for the 11 by 17's.

If you get this printer, get ready to exchange your gold coins for gold-medal-winning prints!

great printer but HP is not up front as usual
(revised 1/8/07)
I've been using this as a commercial printer now for 6 months doing prototype and production work on HP and MOAB papers in multiple sizes.

This printer tends to recognize only HP paper as photo paper and everything else as plain paper with the auto image sensor so you will have to use manual paper selection. This isn't difficult and if you care about your images is what you really should do anyway. There are also a limited number of paper sizes that it recognizes so you will have an extra step to override paper size selection telling the printer that it is OK to print on the "wrong size paper."

This is built better than the smaller hp printers, feels solid, does not have that ready to break feel common to so many hp printers. It prints with authority, not fast but solidly. Images are very accurate, and I have never seen any banding provided print heads are kept clean. However, the cogs that pull the paper through do leave a faint impression on the paper spaced about 3 inches apart. This is not in the ink. This is more pronounced on the back side of the paper. If you do two sided printing, it WILL be noticeable on paper that has an image already printed on it (ie. The back side if the back is a solid graphic image)

To really get full use of this printer you'll have to put your images on a CF memory card or other memory device. These days HP puts very little memory in their printers and claims you can print at 1200 dpi input resolution. That's BS. You can only really do that if you add memory by putting the image on a memory card and slipping that into the printers memory slot. That said, when you do, you can print hi res uncompressed tiff images that are over a gigabyte (the size of an uncompressed tiff image, 13x19 inches at 1200 dpi)! And they are beautiful. If you try that through the usb port, expect many drivers to turn them into 300dpi images - SURPRISE! If the driver doesn't do this, expect the image to hang or never print. You can print through printer drivers but testing we did shows the only real way to get you image through is to put it on a CF card and put it in the printer. You eliminate a whole bunch of needless translation software that way. Try it both ways - see for yourself.

The user interface blows. It is just plain bad. But if you supply one image on a CF memory card at a time, or look at the card ahead of time through your PC you'll do just fine. It didn't take long to figure out the interface. It's simple, just not friendly.

This machine creates quite a bit of motion when printing so you definitely don't want it on the same surface as your computer when you print. It is very quiet though. It also finally ships with the normal size ink cartridges. Be aware that ink carts now have region codes and expiration dates (if you are buying them on-line or through eBay) Though this is billed as a 9 ink printer, when the blue or grey cart runs out, the color (95 or 97) car takes over in emulation mode and it runs as a 6 or 3 ink printer. This is a great feature though when running in this mode it SUCKS INK LIKE MAD.

This printer doesn't do the stupid image size manipulation that other hp photo printers do. Other hp photo printers constantly resize your images, this printer doesn't do this to the same extent unless you tell it to print borderless. This seems to be based in hp consumer mentality. Their cameras don't do 4x6 images so their printers "fix" this in all images regardless of size by first enlarging, then cropping. The 8750 engineers didn't seem so obsessed with this thought. Tiff images are the more stable format size wise. For some reason they are resized less than jpg images.

Image enhancement is excellant. The difference between a 600dpi and a 1200dpi image is usually difficult to tell. Image quality is consistant through and through. Printed results often are shown to comments such as "Oh My God" or simply "Wow."

The rear paper feed is problematic. Other reviewers have had good results, I have not. It may just be this unit or the physical setup. When it has worked, the little cog prints on the paper have been reduced, not eliminated. TO be clear though, the cog print issue is VERY faint. You will probably only notice this if you are printing 11x14 or 13x19 images at hi resolution for resale to very picky buyers. Even then you need the right light to notice them.

Dye based printers are getting a bad name these days but check out the reviews and prices on other 13x19 printers. They talk about having to print all the time to avoid constant head cleanings - bad news. On for some of them, you'll have to pay several hundred dollars more than you do for the 8750 as is the case with the new canon. This printer runs well, does the job, doesn't hang or waste paper, prints huge images at high detail, prints on any paper, and is inexpensive. I like getting new heads when I buy ink, It's a good idea, then and now. It is still dye though, so - don't put your photos unprotected in the sun or in your car with all the windows up. In other words, treat them like you treat anything of value and they will last.

My only con beside the user interface is the out put paper platform extension. Just like every printer in the world, it is plastic and could easily get broken off if someone bumps into it. Also I think the input size guide may break some day. Neither will be a tragedy, but why put these cheap parts on an otherwise stellar machine? Also I've noticed that it sometimes kicks a small stack of paper back out of the input stack after printing a few sheets resulting in an "out of paper" indication.

The 8750 comes with a usb and a network port. The net port works well. If you use a wireless setup with a router it is wonderful. You can put your cameras memory card in the printer. Transfer your images through your wireless connect to your PC. The when you want to print, send them back to the memory card all over the wireless connection. To do this, just plug the printer into your wireless router and install the hp software on your pc or laptop. The software does a good job of locating the printer. The downside is that "the software" means the hp image transfer software so you'll have to get used to yet another folder naming convention.

Some of the conventions recommended here might seem a bit picky but they will produce the best images on this and many other printers.

One fnial note - if you are selling prints, spray on some fixative such as winsor and newton fixative. This will seal the image to the paper so that moisture on your hands or from the air won't ruin it. It will also allow people to handle the print without ruining it. With dye based inks this is especially important. It will also keep you out of the embarrasing situation of someone who put your print in a sunny place returning in 6 months with a faded image.

I would buy it again and have no regrets. This is the first hp inkjet printer I can say this about.

HP 8750 used for Digital Photograpy
For professional level results you must use the correct ICC profile for your desired output and workspace. To be fair you should do this with any printer you buy.

You should calibrate your monitor, preferably with a good CRT/LCD calibration tool with software. I recommend that you standardize on a color profile to match all the components in your system (Printer, Inkjet Paper, Monitor, Software (I use Photoshop CS2)and desired results.

I have standardized on AdobeRGB 1998 for my workspace and a matching calibrated monitor profile. If you standardize, the results are simply outstanding for color work.

For black & white photo printing I use the Photoshop AdobeRGB 1998 output and the Printer default: high quality black & white printing.

The black & white printing is the best I have seen from an inkjet or pigment printer.

Do you have to go to these lengths to get outstanding results? Probably not. You do if you want to compete with the best from conventional darkroom photography and the best from digital photography. This goes for just about any inkjet/dye printer.

I am finally packing up my photo enlargers and wet darkroom equipment (except for medium format film processing since I scan medium format film into my PC).

Any cons? Yes, the ink is too expensive for the little bit HP puts in the cartridges and this is really a consumer ripoff.

The fact that they build the nozzle into the cartridge is well thought out and provides consistent results. the three-ink cartridge is OK because of the nozzle (but again, too little ink). Would I buy this printer knowing what I know now? Absolutely, for the great prints. I might change my mind after I look back at the cost of ink over a period of time.