Best printer for fade resistance?

[keaton87]

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a printer with inks that won't fade?

I have no idea where to start! Do laser printers tend to produce images that don't fade?

Thanks

 

[keaton87]

I should add that I'm going to be printing greeting cards and stationery too.

Thanks!

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

No answers. OK, I'll try. You don't say what you want to print and why, so I'll just give you some generalities.

1. Laser printers are greatly superior for trouble-free, inexpensive performance. Unfortunately, they are not very good for printing pictures.

2. Ink fades. Original manufacturer's ink generally fades the least, and in some cases may last for tens of years with proper care. Unfortunately, it varies in price somewhere between rather expensive and lavishly expensive.

3. Some printers use pigment ink, which generally fades very little or essentially not at all. Unfortunately, it has some disadvantages in terms of (1) price; (2) clogging; (3) color saturation; and (4) gloss. Some printers overcome these problems somewhat.

4. The medium that you print on has a big effect on print longevity, writing paper being the worst by far.

Search this forum and read what you can.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a printer with inks that won't fade?

I have no idea where to start! Do laser printers tend to produce images that don't fade?

Thanks

Welcome to the morass.

So much technology, so many opinions.

I'll throw this out, back at ya: Is permanence your holy grail above all else? Are your prints going to be on a wall or in an album? If the latter, the fact is that dye prints will last in dark storage for several hundred years. OTOH, if you are selling to rubes, they "know" that only pigment inks are worthy. Even if they often pull up short of dye capabilities.

 

[turbguy]

Most Laser printers using Black Toner use carbon based toners, which will effectively outlive the media what you print upon. Think India inks on parchment, which will never "fade" (but may lose adherence to the media with handling and age).

Color is more tricky, since a slight change in one base color vs another may be quite objectionable. Using dye-based inks will essential be the worst choice for fade resistance, no matter what media you use, bettered with respect to fading by a large degree using pigment-based inks.

And, as mentioned prior, the media used is also a variable, as are storage conditions.

The "packaging" used for your work also effects the fade-resistance.

 

[palombian]

No answers. OK, I'll try. You don't say what you want to print and why, so I'll just give you some generalities.

1. Laser printers are greatly superior for trouble-free, inexpensive performance. Unfortunately, they are not very good for printing pictures.

2. Ink fades. Original manufacturer's ink generally fades the least, and in some cases may last for tens of years with proper care. Unfortunately, it varies in price somewhere between rather expensive and lavishly expensive.

3. Some printers use pigment ink, which generally fades very little or essentially not at all. Unfortunately, it has some disadvantages in terms of (1) price; (2) clogging; (3) color saturation; and (4) gloss. Some printers overcome these problems somewhat.

4. The medium that you print on has a big effect on print longevity, writing paper being the worst by far.

Search this forum and read what you can.

Very good overview.
From my own recent experience (and what I learned from this forum):

@1. For B/W yes, color is expensive. I operate a Canon pigment inkjet for 6 years at a much lower price per page than a color laser (with OEM ink).
An inkjet printer needs to be used regularly to be reliable. Since most people do not understand how they work, they dump them (to us refillers).

@2. Not all compatible dye inks are so bad as commonly believed, 1-2 years exposed to light without fading must be possible for private use. It depends on the purpose.

@3. Strange enough OEM pigment ink is cheaper per ml than dye because of the larger cartridges, but compatible pigment inks are 2-3 times more expensive than dyes of equal quality. This reduces the price advantage for refilling pigments (but still 5 times cheaper than OEM, dyes are virtually for free).
Canon pigment printers seldom or never clog.
On good paper pigment inks can give nearly the same color saturation as dyes, also with compatible inks.
I still have to see an amateur or semi-pro pigment printer without any gloss difference. Probably they were originally sold for "Fine Art" dark B/W landscapes (with all respect for the genre). Most if not all matte papers have a low gamut, not usable for all subjects. I stopped using matte, and found glossy (Canon Platinum Pro, the cheap Aldi Sihl) and pearl surface papers (Ilford Smooth Pearl) who accept pigment ink well. Framing behind glass helps too.
I suspect manufacturers try to sell us the illusion we can print at home the same prints as we see on photo exhibitions.

@4. For a refiller the paper costs more than the ink. Top of the bill photo paper is very good (and very expensive), but it is possible to find almost equal quality in special offers, old stocks etc at a fraction of the price.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

@polambian: Nice, even handed comments. Thanks. I've not owned a pigment printer, so my observations are third hand, so to speak.

First, it strikes me that Epson went pigment after the cyan dye fiasco a decade ago. Or was it magenta? Whatever. Since anyone and everyone can easily understand "no fading" vs. "fading," it became a lowest common denominator choice. Even if color suffered, that's lot harder to quantify vs. years.

Second, pigment printers, at least back when, needed matte papers to avoid the classical problems of pigment printers! In the days of the wet darkroom, or early inkjet printing, no one thought of matte as a decent media. Low D-max. (Although I did so love the Kodak Polycontrast II "N" surface way back!)

Third, I can't help but notice that pigment printers keep increasing the number of cartridges. add "gloss optimizers," and the like, and are usually much slower than dye printers. To say nothing of nozzle clogging issues, etc.

 

[incartek]

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a printer with inks that won't fade?

I have no idea where to start! Do laser printers tend to produce images that don't fade?

Thanks