Dye ink fade test; OCP vs IS vs IR vs fotorite

[3dogs]

Wouldn't bet on that. Try looking at any wedding album over 20 years old, most of the photos will have probably faded to oblivion by now.

Even those made on Crystal Archive, for which Fuji claims 70 years fade resistance. And keep in mind they also claim that their digital labs (using dye inks made by Epson, probably very similar to Claria), match their Crystal Archive in fade resistance...

I am looking at a series of prints of our wedding 32 years ago, hanging on the Lounge wall, we have the same prints in an album, stored in a dark dry place........there is no difference.
On the same wall are a series of prints made in 1973, been on the wall for all of that time too. ALL are matte Dye prints......... no fading there either. I have colour prints made in England in 1967 and Ireland in the same year.......no fading....all are Glossy Dye prints , NON have been treated as other than decoration, certainly not as Museum pieces.

I guess my point is that Some people would feel swindled if they answered an advertisement for a coat hanger and a cigarette lighter for 20 cents and received a nail and a match by return post.

There have always been shonky professional and shamateur photographers selling work that was junk to start with. Same with inks and papers today, sadly MUCH of the Hype and PUFF surrounding product attributes and life is SHONK too!

If you want things to last, buy the good stuff or do as @The Hat and others do. ........enjoy printing

 

[costadinos]

I am looking at a series of prints of our wedding 32 years ago, hanging on the Lounge wall, we have the same prints in an album, stored in a dark dry place........there is no difference.
On the same wall are a series of prints made in 1973, been on the wall for all of that time too. ALL are matte Dye prints......... no fading there either. I have colour prints made in England in 1967 and Ireland in the same year.......no fading....all are Glossy Dye prints , NON have been treated as other than decoration, certainly not as Museum pieces.

You are essentially comparing two prints that probably faded both to the same degree. RA4 prints (at least in my experience), fade over time, be it behind glass or in an album, and signs of fading are always visible after about 20 years. Keep in mind your brain "knows" how the picture should look, so you'd almost probably never notice any changes, especially if those changes occurred over a time span of a few decades. Try placing a freshly printed photo of a similar subject next to it and then look for any differences.
The only type of prints that are essentially unaffected by the passage of time are the traditional B&W prints.

As for the prints on your wall, I am not really sure what type of printer from the 1973 could have produced those "dye" prints. Inkjets weren't even invented at the time as far as I know.


Anyway, bottom line is, I am not claiming that all traditional RA4 or dye inkjet prints are going to fade over time. Some will and some will not. Point is, you can simply use a printer with pigment inks and stop worrying about fading altogether. This is a solution that will COST you the same, give you the ability to produce the same or superior QUALITY prints to any other process, and pretty much guarantee superior FADE RESISTANCE to anything else, on ANY PAPER.
I'll also have to disagree with your last comment. I don't have to buy the "good" stuff if I want things to last anymore; the way my printers are set up, I buy 3rd party pigment inks at a fifth or less the cost of the "good" stuff (Claria inks for example, and even RA4 media), and am able to offer my clients a superior end product...

 

[3dogs]

You are essentially comparing two prints that probably faded both to the same degree. RA4 prints (at least in my experience), fade over time, be it behind glass or in an album, and signs of fading are always visible after about 20 years. Keep in mind your brain "knows" how the picture should look, so you'd almost probably never notice any changes, especially if those changes occurred over a time span of a few decades. Try placing a freshly printed photo of a similar subject next to it and then look for any differences.
The only type of prints that are essentially unaffected by the passage of time are the traditional B&W prints.

As for the prints on your wall, I am not really sure what type of printer from the 1973 could have produced those "dye" prints. Inkjets weren't even invented at the time as far as I know.


Anyway, bottom line is, I am not claiming that all traditional RA4 or dye inkjet prints are going to fade over time. Some will and some will not. Point is, you can simply use a printer with pigment inks and stop worrying about fading altogether. This is a solution that will COST you the same, give you the ability to produce the same or superior QUALITY prints to any other process, and pretty much guarantee superior FADE RESISTANCE to anything else, on ANY PAPER.
I'll also have to disagree with your last comment. I don't have to buy the "good" stuff if I want things to last anymore; the way my printers are set up, I buy 3rd party pigment inks at a fifth or less the cost of the "good" stuff (Claria inks for example, and even RA4 media), and am able to offer my clients a superior end product...

GOOGLE the first colour photograph, the first colour prints were not made on inkjet printers in the 80's believe it or not. Then be advised, in a very friendly way that I am VERY opinionated on ink for home printing. RESPECTS to @jtoolman, but both OEM dye and pigment inks are overpriced CRAP, and only fossikers like Joe can do it at a reasonable price, for the rest of printing humanity, who clutch their overpriced OEM carts to their chests as if they were lifejackets, in a storm, in a leaky rowboat at sea, I feel the pangs of regret that one might feel for a lemming on a mission to meet its destiny. You know, sorta remote, and vague interest in how odd nature can be but that is all.

Added

Just re reading your comment again and ..........couple of years ago I was browsing my collection of slides. As it happens I scanned and printed a copy of one of the prints it was done on a little Canon multifunction scanner/printer using Canon paper.......... what I got was a PERFECT replica of the slightly washed out over exposed print.
Remembering it has put me in the mood to say what i am thinking.
Some things have gone backwards, ink is one of them.
Upstart technosavvy numbskulls trumpet the virtues of DROSS, inks made HUNDREDS of years ago are still way, WAY more durable than the crud we are sold today.

Take some time to go to a museum and beg the chance to look at the old volumes illustrated and otherwise, there you will see what real inks are.

Pre WW2 Germany had super ink/ colour technology, bombed to oblivion, gone, the formula for red, lost forever. What we have now is utter crap made to a price by wannabe's, that never will, in my ever so, humble - opinion

Please be assured that this is a swipe at current technology and marketing, not at you in ANY way, most of what we put up with today is a shadow of what can, and has been when the focus was able to be on quality before profit, just ask the guys that still have older printers if they would swap for todays flash glitz and very flimsy tinsel.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

I think we are reading too much into this ink/colour technology discussion.

It is not now, and never has been rocket science. All we are doing at the end of the day is using different techniques to deposit a few microns of dye or pigment colourant onto a substrate, usually paper.

Of course HP, Canon, and Epson try to convince you otherwise to justify costs in the region of $3,000 per gallon.

Essentially the methodology and techniques have been around since the caveman era, merely improved and upgraded as technology moved forward through the ages. For the most part evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

To claim the Germans prior to WW11 had better pigments, and coatings than are available today is just not true. Simple test - take any recent issue of National Geographic and compare the reproduction with ANY prior WW11 reproduction. A blind man will see the difference.

However on the flip side German technology has dominated commercial printing since the days of Gutenburg and Senefelder. Even today in North America German machinery is dominant in the commercial printing field.

I had better stop now. I merely wanted to give some perspective. Not my intent to make new enemies. I have enough old ones.



Roy Sletcher
You are hereby encouraged to be as critical as you see fit, since this is how we're stimulated to reconsider and learn. You can even do a bit of idiotic humour if you like - I won't get offended or have a hissy fit.

 

[The Hat]

I had better stop now. I merely wanted to give some perspective. Not my intent to make new enemies. I have enough old ones.

Ok Roy, but considers this if your old enemies’ meet your new enemies then they could talk about you for an awful long time and that would keep them from bothering you for ages..

 

[3dogs]

Be a bit sad if a person was not able to take on board all opinion. I am SURE that my one eyed rant is seen and named as just that, but as @Smile observed, out of counter opinion comes learning, no value carrying anything forward.

I dont really see ink being devided into "streams" Roy, for me ink is ink. A vast ammount of knowhow was obliterated in Germany, may be a tad inconvenient for some today. What I am saying is that, most, if not all of what we are producing today may just not be sitting in an archive ages hence, consumerism has sway and THAT more than anything else will determine the long term outcome.

 

[Smile]

If you compare the output of a 4-color pigment printer to that of a dye printer, like you did, then yes, the dyes will be clearly superior.
Try comparing a print made with an 8-color printer (R2000, R2880 etc) to any of the current dye printers, the pigment wins hands down.
I've compared a print made with 3rd party pigments in an R2000 to that from a 1400 with OEM dye inks, the R2000 print is clearly superior in saturation, especially in the reds/yellows (the extra red and orange inks do make a difference).



Wouldn't bet on that. Try looking at any wedding album over 20 years old, most of the photos will have probably faded to oblivion by now.
Even those made on Crystal Archive, for which Fuji claims 70 years fade resistance. And keep in mind they also claim that their digital labs (using dye inks made by Epson, probably very similar to Claria), match their Crystal Archive in fade resistance...

Take a look at this comparison dye ip8500 vs. R2000 on Quality MOAB Paper Glossy.
IMHO BCI-6 inks were not so bad than CLI-8 in terms of gamut.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

When it comes to color photo print fading, there are no rules. Not even generalities.

I am the family photo archivist, we have silver prints going back 130 years, beutiful 4x5" Kodachromes that are still perfect 68 years later, through Ancscochrome, Anscocolor prints, and right through the most recent chemistries and papers.

If I open a forty year old album or envelope of prints, there is no way I can predict the quality of the images. Every single batch differs. Why? Probably mostly paper, possibly some lax processing. Just today I pulled a folder that I needed for some insurance matters, and inside were two perfect 27 year old color prints. Kept in the dark, for sure, no air circulation.

With the Fuji Cystal and later Kodak papers, the dyes have become extremely stable. If I recall my research of four years ago, both claim 100 years in indirect room light. Then there's the old Cibachrome, which was doing that decades ago.