Can DURABrite printers be used for photo printing?

[Ink stained Fingers]

I printed down the Inktec filled cartridges and refilled them with the pigment ink I'm using in the R800, at this time a mix of 2 Chinese inks, with a photo black 50% of a Lyson K3 HD black and 50% of the Chinese black inks. I'm overprint all prints with pigment ink with a gloss optimizer in a R800 as a 2nd print run.
I'm printing onto the Aldi/Netbit PE glossy photo paper with the matte standard paper setting and get
Lab 3.29 .08 -.29 which is a veery good black level, and as well pretty much neutral, I'm getting as well a gamut wider than any I saw before, about 12 % volume increase to the gamut volume with the same inks on a R800, onto the same paper, and I'm getting
Lab 2.93 .01 -.21 even better with the matte high paper setting, a black level as dark as I never saw before. That is really exceptional performance .
Lab 14.29 7.88 -13-28 is the black level of the composite black with these inks on the Netbit paper with the Ultraglossy standard paper setting.

I'm using a cheap castcoated glossy paper LS180 for this test with the same inks and get
Lab 19.13 .72 -.37 with the matte standard setting, a poor black level but at least neutral, and
Lab 25.11 6.90 -8.89 with the Ultraglossy standard setting which creates a poor composite black with a visible tint in the 4th quadrant of the Lab space. This paper is not usable for decent results with pigment inks. This shows how much the paper can impact the black level. This lightness of 25 compares to L=14 on the Netbit paper under the same driver settings/ink conditions. And I'm doing this comparative test as well with a Epson inkjet paper (matte) which gives
Lab 18.81 1.03 -.03 for the Matte standard paper setting which is not very dark but almost neutral and quite usable.
Lab 27.33 3.54 -12.26 is the same paper with the Ultraglossy standard paper setting, the composite black comes with a visible cast in the 4th quadrant which limits the use with these settings.
I'm not going further and won't compare gamut volumes here.

These evaluations show that a printer like the WF2010W is technically quite well usable for very good photo prints, whith dye inks and with pigment inks both with the matte paper setting, as recommended above, and with a GO overprint for the removal of bronzing effects and gloss differences with pigment inks. This printer is a low end entry point model and performs as such - slow.
And if you use a 2nd refill cartridge with GO you are able to apply such GO overprint as well with this printer, and not with a R800 as I'm doing at this time. There is not much black ink to be flushed away in the black chennel in the printhead, and you can start printing a 'black' page with GO instead of black ink in that cartridge. It is a work around to substitute a R800 like printer, the only A4 pigment ink printer with GO Epson ever made. It is interesting to see how such a little printer can be tuned up to print high quality photos with not too much effort and investment.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I was looking to my ink bottle storage and thought that I should do some cleanup, removing leftovers and inks for which a profile won't pay off anymore. I found several photo pigment blacks which I thought I already mixed together. I took the chance to measure the black level of those before they get actioned away - one way or the other. I'm doing the test as above in the WF2010W, same driver settings matte high as the paper selection, onto the Aldi Netbit paper, all measurements with a i1Pro on a i1iO table for convenience and speed, all covered with a GO overprint in a R800.

Lab 5.27 -.18 -.07 with the OCP K3 photo black
Lab 4.33 -.4 -.32 a Chinese ink which I use in the R800 at this time, see the R800 thread
Lab 3.94 -.05 .19 the precisoncolors K3 HD ink
Lab 3.66 .13 -.08 the Lyson K3 HD /Photochrome ink
Lab 2.93 -.25 -.39 the Conecolor Pro HD photo black as mentioned above already

All colors show a very neutral black, no color cast visible or measurable. I made identical printouts with the OCP and the Conecolor Pro blacks to compare them visibly - a drop of the black level from 5.27 to 2.93 is visible, in direct and careful comparison, under bright light or in the sunshine, but is not visible under normal light conditions and if you can't hold prints directly together, a drop from 4.3 to 2.9 is not visible anymore. Black pigment inks typically show some bronzing effect - more or less - most of that goes away with the GO overprint. Black levels measure higher typically without GO. And I'm not testing all those inks across a selection of different photo papers.

 

[The Hat]

@Ink stained Fingers, the test I started last year on Canon I.S. pigment inks are just about finished, and it will be interesting to see how much or how little theses inks have faded or not at all. !

I included a set of dye inks coated with Glop just to see how they fared out, I reckon the results on the dye ink with be shocking, but my test was concentrated mainly on the pigment inks and the dye test was just a side order.

Another 3 weeks and I’ll have my answer, I haven’t gone near or even glanced at the test sheet since it went up... waiting waiting...

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/fade-test-on-i-s-inks.10844/

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I tested the WF-2010W entry level printer - Durabrite 4 pigment colors - how it performs as a photo printer - it is an entry level printer with 180 bk + 3x59 nozzles, not much and the printing speed reflects that. But print output is very good as reported above - in a non-standard configuration - running photo inks 4 colors -either dye or pigment - and using the matte paper setting, prints are undistinguishable ffrom other photo printers with the bare eye, you may see some differences - dot size etc under the microscope. You may run as well a gloss optimizer with a 2nd cartridge to give your pigment ink prints a GO overprint. This is an A4 printer, I was looking for a similar approach for an A3 printer and got a WF-7110DTW, discounted by 50€ because of some blemishes. The printer came with a full set of setup cartridges, I installed it and did some similar tests as with the WF-2010W.
The Durabrite inks are not well suited for photo print on photo papers, you see bronzing and gloss differences, as well with a GO overprint. The black ink is only usable as a matte black for matt/office papers, the black level of the 3 color mix has a visible tint into the brown/violett range, prints do not look very good like that. All that is not different to the WF-2010W.
I'm running the unit now with a refill cartridge set which let me test various inks - using a photo pigment black together with other pigment inks with the matte paper setting yields as well great looking prints , the gamut is great, the black level is very good (depending on your inks).
The WF-7110 prints with 800 bk + 3x256 color nozzles per spec, the printing speed does not show that , the printer is not much faster with higher quality color prints than the WF2010W with the same driver settings which is a kind of dissappointing. The refill cartridges allow me to swap inks easily - dye or pigment , and as well a gloss optimizer if considered needed.
I got 16 kg of printer hardware for 70€, much more than the 4kg of the WF-2010W for 60€, the printer comes with 2 paper bins for 250 sheets each, can feed A3+ and prints borderless in some predefined standard formats, and the printer has a single sheet feeder at the top rear. Photo papers of various thicknesses feed without problem, the diameter of inner transport wheels is larger than with smaller A4 bottom feed models.
Some of the driver settings are different to the WF-2010W, you have to select and define the paper type - normal - photo - format etc - via the printer front panel, and only can print to the same paper type via the driver. This blocks you print onto the wrong paper if somebody else has reloaded it. The printer comes with USB/LAN and WLAN connections, it is usable as such as a remote printer. Cartridges come as XL version with 10ml per color and about 30ml for black, so it is clear that the main target for this printer are office prints.
This printer performs very good as an entry level A3 photo printer, with some handling peculiarities, very good print quality, very good gamut (depending on your inks), borderless printing and GO option with another cartridge. It is quite a good alternative to the Epson P400/600 actually if you do not need a faster print speed, slightly more gamut or this or that like roll printing, larger cartridges etc.
It took me 3 attempts with the printhead alignment until a shadowy print of small letters could be fixed, but that's not specific to photo printing. So I can confirm the title of this thread that
Durabrite printers can be used very well for photo printing - if they are used in a non-standard setup - printing with the matte paper setting onto glossy papers - with other inks than Durabrite inks - and with icm color printing profiles to get the best color rendering in this setup.
Like with all Epson printers, there is a button to start the head cleaning in the utility menu, nothing special, but when you run the WICReset utility you find lots of head cleaning options -
you can separately clean the black nozzles or the color nozzles or all together, and you can select 4 different intensities from gentle to medium , normal and strong. This is probably reserved for the Epson maintenance utility otherwise and kept away from the normal user,

 

[The Hat]

It sounds like you have another big new friend to play with now..

 

[Hegi]

I would like check the trick with printing matt settings on glossy paper on my WF-7620.
It will be using black ink too? Or printer is using same three colors as on glossy settings, just another way?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The matte paper setting will use the black ink together with the other 3 colors, yes, but please be aware that the regular black Durabrite ink is not made for use on glossy papers. If you would use another 3rd party photo black ink for refill you woulde be better off.

 

[Hegi]

Yes, I have read your post, thank you for reply. Now I am using replacement cartridges and don't know what kind of ink there is. Probably one of China chip ink.

I hope it will increase black level anyway, i hate that violet, is not much but slightly visible. I love dark, low key images, so maby it will be solutions for me. Should i increase density in driver or any other things can i do better with mine printer?

 

[apetitphoto]

I'm playing with a 3260 and do like the results on matte paper. Glossy paper, even with the Red River profiles for Durabrite, can be "odd." Strange thing is that with RR metallic paper is looks pretty good - even the ones that were odd on glossy. Do note that I'm using Precision Colors inks.

 

[mikling]

I'm playing with a 3260 and do like the results on matte paper. Glossy paper, even with the Red River profiles for Durabrite, can be "odd." Strange thing is that with RR metallic paper is looks pretty good - even the ones that were odd on glossy. Do note that I'm using Precision Colors inks.

use the profile i provided before red river profiles are for oem ink.
you should not use coaed paper profiles for matte or plain paper