Epson Claria inks, Fujifilm inks and alternatives

[apetitphoto]

I understand that this is not a rigorous controlled test, but some of the data looks interesting.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please let me add some results with a Chinese dye ink advertised for the Epson Surelab D700/3000 printers, this Chinese ink runs at 15$/litre (+ shipping) and is much cheaper than the Solution CL ink,
but does not perform so much worse at this time as the pricing difference may imply.
The optical brighteners in the Labelheaven glossy cc paper are already gone after a week, I'm questioning their need more and more. If you view your prints under a light without any UV in the spectrum the OBA's are not active anyway, and if you get into light with some UV -e.g. fluorescent lamps or outdoor the OBA's fade away pretty quickly. It may have some contrast enhancing effect with copy papers in an office environment - with fluorescent lamps, but I don't see much benefit beyond that. There are only a few glossy papers without OBA's namely the HP premium plus photo paper glossy CR674A 300grs and other specialty papers

WF2010W (matte standard driver setting) Labelheaven 230 cc paper black ink performance

after________week 1

Fujifilm DL______3

Solution CL_____10

China D700______12

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please let me update the test with the Fujfifilm DL inks on various papers, now after 4 weeks
Paper Fading Test

Lightness increase (Range from 0 - 255)
(measured with a scanner, delta via the histogram vs.
a copy kept in the dark)
L800 Printer, Fujifilm DL inkset, matte Photo driver setting

_____________________________after___week 1__week 2__week 3__week 4

Tecco Baryt Fibre Silk_________________1_______3______10______13

Labelheaven 230 cc Glossy______________3_______9______20______26

Tecco PG230 Glossy__PE_________________0_______0_______5_______6

HP Premium Plus Glossy__PE_____________0_______1_______4_______5

Tecco Fine Art Rag PFR295 matte________4_______7______12______16

Canon Pro Platinum PT101 Glossy_PE_____0_______2_______6_______8

Tecco PM 230 matte_____________________5_______8______14______17

Netbit/Aldi Glossy__PE_________________0_______1_______6_______8

The trend is clear and obvious - the PE papers all perform better than the other papers,
just with small variations. I'll let this test run another 2 weeks and close it then, there
won't be any surprises .

( The numbers for the Baryt silk in the top line were slightly misread by the scanner (or me)
and need a correction which I'll update pretty soon. - Done )

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Here is an update for the Solution CL/China inks vs the Fujifilm DL inks , both targeted for the Epson Surelab D700/3000 printers

WF2010W (matte standard-driver setting), Labelheaven 230 cc paper, black ink performance

after________week 1___week 2

Fujifilm DL______3_______7

Solution CL_____10______26

China D700______12______25

These inks do not challenge the Fujifilm DL inks, but perform somewhat similar, the China inks offer a much lower price than the Solution CL inks

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I cleaned the scanner glass of my Epson scanner since it was showing some haze on the inside surface. The cleaning was an easy task - with some consequence on the way I'm measuring the luminance of the exposed color patches for the fade tests - darker colors give a much lower reading now .....not bad as such, but I need to check now how that impacts the luminance readings now and before the cleaning in comparison and whether I can keep consistency of the numbers week by week.

The overall findings are clear so far:

- There is no other ink - Solution Cl or from China or others - meeting the performance of the
Fujifilm DL ink set in terms of fading

- PE glossy papers let inks fade much slower than budget cast coated papers

- the black level of an ink very much depends on the paper it is used on

- no two ink sets or papers of the same type - e.g. glossy - by different manufacturers are alike,
every paper/ink combination has different characteristics - fading - black level - gamut (not
measured in this round of tests) - gloss appearance - and pricing (not to be left out) in an
overall assessment

- and the printer type and driver settings - matte/glossy... + different quality settings - have
impact onto the amount of ink on the paper and onto the black level and gamut as well

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I have still one fade test running - to check the impact of a GO overprint on dye ink prints - DL inks in this case, differences are becoming visible now.
I closed another fading test of the Chinese D700 inks vs. the Solution CL ink set from Poland, both inks perform alike and not - when I'm summing up the fading deltas for all CMYK colors both inks give the same result - but the Chinese black fades slower than the other black whereas the Chinese cyan is weaker than the Solution CL cyan - same with the other inks. Anyway - the Chinese inks are muuch cheaper than the other inks.

I'm getting questions by other people like - what is the best printer , what are the best (refill) inks and what are the best papers for photo prints.........and I have heard that this printer or that ink etc is by far the best........

I try to be simple with my answer but it may slightly extend when talking about fading, black points, gamuts etc.

What is the best printer - I have a simple screen copy of a few gamuts of some photo papers

That's the Netbit glossy, a Canon glossy and a HP glossy paper, with the same ink on the same
R265 printer - so what is the best paper ??? This is just a cross-section at one luminance level, the overall volumes of the gamuts are close together within 2%, and there is some variance at the bottom part, the black point of the gamut as listed in the entry postings.

And if you want to focus onto just one (assumed good ) paper and look to the output of different printer models you get this

That's the same paper - Netbit in this case - on a L800, R265 and WF2010W - which one is which? The WF2010W is running with pigment inks, the other two printers with (different) dye inks - so which one is the best ink ? The gamut volumes differ by 3% in this case.

The fading of inks has been discussed already in great detail - so I'm just not able to answer the above questions. This illustrates how tricky it is to judge a printer . Print quality results from a combination of the printer hardware/driver settings, the paper and the inks all together.

And there is another difference between glossy photo papers - the look of the gloss - papers just look different, it is the smoothness, the evenness of the surface. It is possible to measure the reflectance in 3D with some expensive equipment, but there is a simple way at home as well.
Place some different glossy papers onto a table with some distance against a white wall , use a laser pointer , direct the beam onto the paper surface and watch the reflected light on the wall. You'll see some dispersion pattern, a blob different in size/shape/diameter with different papers, the size of the diffusion circle varies by paper type, and this will correlate very well with your visual assessment of the gloss, the evenness. This laser pointer test works as well on printed sheets

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I continued with the fading tests - actually the sun did most of the job...- here is an update after 6 weeks

Paper Fading Test
Lightness increase (Range from 0 - 255)
(measured with a scanner, delta via the histogram vs.
a copy kept in the dark)
L800 Printer, Fujifilm DL inkset, matte Photo driver setting

_____________________________after___week 1__week 2__week 3__week 4__week 6

Tecco Baryt Fibre Silk_________________0_______8______17______19______22

Labelheaven 230 cc Glossy______________3_______9______20______26______39

Tecco PG230 Glossy__PE_________________0_______0_______5_______6_______8

HP Premium Plus Glossy__PE_____________0_______1_______4_______5_______9

Tecco Fine Art Rag PFR295 matte________4_______7______12______16______22

Canon Pro Platinum PT101 Glossy_PE_____0_______2_______6_______8______11

Tecco PM 230 matte_____________________5_______8______14______17______23

Netbit/Aldi Glossy__PE_________________0_______1_______6_______8______12

The trend is clear - the PE glossy papers perform the best, but not all alike.
The Tecco PG230 and the HP run very close at the top, the Netbit/Aldi as good as
the Canon, but much cheaper - just about 10cts/A4 sheet whereas the other
papers are at 35 - 70cts/sheet - the Netbit is a clear price/performance leader.
I didn't have the Sihl/Aldi paper available at the start of this test, I may do
such test then next year.....This test does not cover any additional test with GO to
improve the fading performance - This may raise the performance of the Netbit paper
above the Tecco paper, and still being cheaper.
The black patch on the castcoated Labelheaven paper is turning chocolate brown now,
it is at about 5cts/sheet, and the price/performance is not as good as with the Netbit paper.
And when you now would combine the Labelheaven paper with a cheap and poor performing ink you get into the situation that you almost can watch your prints fading away.

 

[martin0reg]

As we know the Netbit seems to accept a higher ink limit, but there is no semi-glossy from Netbit, only from Sihl. So I'm curious to hear about the fading of these two (resp three) different brands (and papers) at Aldi or Lidl.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

As we know the Netbit seems to accept a higher ink limit

That is another variable, I printed all test sheets with the same driver settings, it would be a different test whether more ink on a paper would give a wider gamut than on another with slightly less ink. There could be the situation that the coating absorbs the solvents but the color saturation may not improve or even drop again, there is an effect - color saturation reversal vs. ink density which can happen in that case. I have seen such an effect already that the gamut with the highest settings like ultra glossy RPM gave a smaller gamut than lower settings. The results show that general statements of any kind about the performance of inks or papers or printers are just not possible.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm closing the comparison test between the DL ink, Solution CL and a China D700 ink sets

WF2010W (matte standard-driver setting), Labelheaven 230 cc paper, black ink performance

after________week 1___week 2___week 4_____Total shift after 4 weeks (all colors)

Fujifilm DL______3_______7________18_________________32

Solution CL_____10______26________58________________138

China D700______12______25________48________________137


I have added a column adding up the intensity shifts of all CMYK color patches, not all colors
are fading with the same speed; anyway, the Chinese ink is as good (or weak) as the Solution CL ink for a fraction of the price but using such an ink in a Surelab/Drylab photo finishing printer would be cheating the customers who could expect the performance of the DL ink which does even better on a good PE paper - see the separate test. I used the cast coated Labelheaven paper here to get results faster than on PE papers. This all confirms previous findings that there are no 3rd party equivalent inks to the Fujifilm DL ink sets so far, some inks are better than no-name inks but no ink even comes close to the DL inks, (I'm not comparing here to genuine Epson Claria or Canon Chromalife inks). But the Epson refill user has the choice - a wide range of inks from cheap and poor performing to pricey and still weak performing and to the Fujifilm Drylab inks drained from larger cartridges performing by far the best.