UPDATE 5-2-2018: As of firmware AXP2CN1733AR the HP T120 is much better, see here.
Grain is an issue with the HP T120 and I guess the issue applies equally to the HP T520. Especially the lighter colors are affected by visible grain, as the image on left shows (click to enlarge). On A1+ sized prints, the grain is in practice pretty acceptable because of the viewing distance that normally goes with such large prints. The level of grain is clearly unacceptable for me on A4 sized photo prints. In practice, A3+ sized photo prints seem to be the smallest you can go when taking into account the viewing distance that normally goes with A3+ size prints.
Below I provide some examples of grain issues you can expect from your HP T120 photo prints on HP Premium (plus and non-plus) Photo Papers.
BTW: none of this is intended to be scientific at all.
All prints are with the "best" print setting enabled and "max detail" turned on in the printer driver dialog. I have experimented with "best" and "normal" without "max detail" but ended up to prefer the "best + max detail" setting almost all of the time. The max detail setting does produce a little more grain, but the prints and gradients are smoother. Your result and likes may vary.
Ignore the withe stripes visible in the example scan of the above print caused by my old Canon scanner. Click on the image to get a full size preview (600dpi scan). You can easily see the grain in this print (which was A4 size).
The above image is a scan from the color profile print I made for the HP Advanced Photo Paper with my Datatcolor SpyderPrint (get the pofile here). Especially in the lighter colors, you can cleary see the grain.Click the image for a full size scan (600dpi).
This is a smartphone capture of the top left corner of an A3+ sized photo print (sea and sky) printed on HP Premium Plus Satin Photo Paper. The grain is pretty clearly visible. Click on the image to get a full size file.
Get your paper advance setting right!
I learned that for cut sheet media the HP T120 and presumably the HP T520 too, has its paper advance preset all wrong from the start. An automatic paper advance correction, or better a manual correction, per paper type reduced grain for me a lot. But remember, even after the right paper advance corrections, grain in your prints will probably always be there. But, the grain can go from a completely unusable photo print to acceptable and usable (I would say from A3+ size and up). The above examples are all printed on paper for which I have manually adjusted the paper advance to the best possible setting.
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