My New Epson Stylus Photo 1500w (artisan 1430) !!!

yesterday I thought I wouldn't post another boring scan of my fade targets, but o.k., to illustrate the situation better here is the DL vs. L800 inks target scan:

That's after 4 weeks, both inks are pretty close , barely any change yet, the L800 black is now starting to get lighter, but not by so much yet vs. the DL black. It's more obvious outside in the sunshine , rather rare these days. It's your choice . The Magentas are a different hue, that's up to you to run a profile with the ink of your choice to compensate that. And be aware I'm running both inks not in their original printers - but both in a L300, just with the same driver settings - ICM off to get the same amount of ink onto the paper. Switching inks for the various tests is the easiest for me this way, and leftover ink is printed away pretty quickly.

Thank you for the update. The test is not boring

Now after another week the overall situation has not changed - the L800 inks perform almost as good as the Fujifilm DL inks in the rare sun these days, the L800 black is getting a little bit lighter vs. last week, and the DL black now shows as well first signs of fading. I'm running a test as well of cyan and black of the Ultrachrome D6 inks vs. the DL inks, there are no changes yet visible, that will need a few more weeks for prelim results.

Let me update you on the fade test L800 vs. DL ink, here is the latest scan of the target print which is out in the sun (whenever) since almost 6 weeks now:


you see some changes but not as clear as I would like. The left half of the sheet was printed with L800 inks, the right half with DL inks, the sheet is folded in the middle, the upper part is exposed to the envrionment, the bottom part is covered up by the top part.

I did one thing, I took the DL ink printout and did a luminance histogram on it

the x-axis runs the luminance from 0-255, the y-axis shows the relative distribution of the luminance of the image pixels, there are 5 spikes, for the black patch, for the cyan, magenta and yellow patch each, and the most right spike shows the luminance of the paper.

doing the same with the L800 ink printout you see this

there are more spikes visible, left a group of three, the left two show the luminance of the unexposed and exposed parts of the black patch, the third one belongs to the cyan ink, followed by two spikes close together, these belong to the exposed and unexposed magenta patch. The next two spikes belong to the exposed and unexposed yellow patch, and the right spike again belongs to the paper .

These histograms show more clearly how all the M and Y L800 inks are shifting to the right when exposed wheras the DL inks do not show those fading effects yet. The cyan spike seems to start moving to the right as well, less than the other but starting. It is as well interesting to see how much of these changes are actually visible just by looking to the color patches on the screen, I don't see much of a change in the yellow, less than what the histogram indicates.
My earlier ranking of the inks does not change by this, the histograms just are a rather simple method to improve the assessment and to see changes earlier.

Again thank you for your work, and time.

Please let me give you a last update on the fade test of the L800 inks vs. the Fujifilm DL inks,


the CMY colors stay pretty much close together, the L800 black is now visibly lighter and weaker than the DL black ink, this after almost 8 weeks. L800 inks are available in small 70ml bottles vs. the Fujifilm DL inks in 200 or 500 ml cartridges which may be a reason to prefer one ink over the other e.g. using the CMY L800 inks in combination with the better DL black.
Some prints with patches from the Epson Ultrachrome D6 inks and DL inks with black and cyan blew away in the last days during a gushing rain and heavy storm, the patches were out for 3 weeks, and visible difference could not be seen yet, I'll pick up that test in spring time again with hope for more sun to expect than today.

Why don’t you reprint your test sheets again and tape them inside on a south facing window and return to them at the end of March 16, that would give you a very good low light UV simulation with a 4 month exposure time..

I'm /I was printing all test sheets with the L300, with different inks but with the same driver settings which define the actual amount of ink ejected onto the paper. An earlier test showed differences with the same ink printed on a L300, and in parallel on a R265 after some time which relates to a different ink amount from other driver settings. Driver settings like 'Photo' or 'extra fine' etc are explanatory only . I printed/preprinted various test sheets some time ago with the DL inks on the L300, and with other inks, but those sheets are used up, and now I have to switch inks again to the DL and then to the D6 inks, one after the other in the next time, and I'll follow up on it.

More about ink fade tests and results here http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/which-pigment-ink-for-epson-1500w.9323/page-18#post-91868

OK, I went back to this printer. I sold my Epson R2000. Anyhow: directly using refillables works, without problems, so I will sell the original cartridges to somebody, who only using original carts.

2 years ago i printed this test photo with Inktec Powerchome k3 ink
after 2 years in my veranda ( top part) i see changes in light cyan and a tiny bit in light magenta
in the other colors i see no changes at all
The paper used is PPD satin pearl 280 gsm
I like the ink and the paper
the black used is the hybrid black from Octoinkjet