Epson Claria inks, Fujifilm inks and alternatives

[Ink stained Fingers]

And there is more to archival papers - they shouldn't contain OBA's , you should know the long term performance of organic compounds like resins in the coating, the environmental storage conditions are very important etc.

The Tecco Baryt, the HP Premium Plus and the Tecco Fine Art Rag don't contain OBA's, the other papers in the test do. You don't see any relevant difference of the white level of the HP paper to the Canon paper, even in bright light, this indicates that there is no significant visual benefit of an OBA actually.
Both papers have a very good overall gamut, but I'm not testing and comparing the gamut, black level, white point of the papers in this test, just their impact onto the fading of inks.

 

[te36]

In doubt, making paper white with OBA is cheper than without. Theoretically it should also be possible to make OBA paper brighter. After all, you're converting some otherwise untapped spectrum energy and make it visible.

Shouldn't the i1pro be helpfull to diagnose OBA level in paper ? Eg: any spectrum reflection higher than those from the calibration plate.

The way i am thinking about it: Unless one understands exactly how a print will change with OBA fading, OBA is yet another variable whose elimination makes printing life easier.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

if you want to profile more correctly OBA containing papers you would need the i1profiler package with a i1Pro 2 or a newer i1Sis scanner to measure the OBA effects separately, or you just use the HP paper - CR674A without OBA - or you forget about it.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm updating the test running with the Fujifilm DL dye inks on 8 different papers
The field starts separating , the matte papers perform worse than the premium PE
glossy papers - significantly and visibly now after 2 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

Tecco Baryt Fibre Silk_________________0_______8

Labelheaven 230 cc Glossy______________3_______9

Tecco PG230 Glossy_____________________0_______0

HP Premium Plus Glossy_________________0_______1

Tecco Fine Art Rag PFR295 matte________4_______7

Canon Pro Platinum PT101 Glossy________0_______2

Tecco PM 230 matte_____________________5_______8

Netbit/Aldi Glossy_____________________0_______1

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm running another test with a Solution CL inkset by Falter/Poland offered as substitute inks for Fujifilm Drylab printers, in bottles and in cartridges
https://inkjetsolution.eu/de_DE/c/Fur-Fujifilm-Frontier-S-DX100/317
This ink is now out in the sun since a week, running against the genuine Fujifilm inks, it is very easy to see that this ink does not perform as well as the genuine ink

that's part of the exposed and unexposed patches, no changes are visible yet on the DL ink patches

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I ordered and got some ink from China via Aliexpess - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/6-c...8c-4538-8073-ba7fbfc4f0cf&transAbTest=ae803_2 claimed to be suitable for the Epson Surelab D3000 printer. That's difficult to believe at a price of 15$/litre but I needed some general purpose dye ink anyway so I ordered it and could negociate the freight cost down by 35$. I'll run this ink as well against the Fujifilm DL and Solution CL inks, I'm getting the impression that the number of test patches is growing and growing on my table in the sun - I just don't know why....

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The solution CL inks are fading faster than the Fujifilm DL inks, now after 2 weeks, they are not bad, better than lots of other inks, but I don't have enough data at this time to make any ranking with them beyond rating them below the DL inks. The Chinese D700/3000 Surelab compatible inks are still frying in the sun, no numbers yet.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me update the paper fading results after another week - now after 3 weeks. The PE type glossy papers separate from the rest of the field and perform best

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

Tecco Baryt Fibre Silk_________________0_______8______17

Labelheaven 230 cc Glossy______________3_______9______20

Tecco PG230 Glossy__PE_________________0_______0_______5

HP Premium Plus Glossy__PE_____________0_______1_______4

Tecco Fine Art Rag PFR295 matte________4_______7______12

Canon Pro Platinum PT101 Glossy__PE____0_______2_______6

Tecco PM 230 matte_____________________5_______8______14

Netbit/Aldi Glossy__PE_________________0_______1_______6

I checked the papers with an UV lamp as well, the optical brighteners are
almost gone now under the sun and fade faster than the DL ink.

 

[apetitphoto]

I'm not sure what I'm seeing, but it seems to me that the PE papers have a sudden, more violent, change than the others - which seem to have a higher, albeit, more consistent change. If you're going to do it, next week's numbers should be interesting.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

there is some measurement uncertainty, and keep in mind that I'm printing and measuring saturated colors - with the max ink the particular driver setting delivers, and the excess ink may behave differently on the surfaces of cc and PE papers, and the weekly exposure dose - UV/ozone - differs from week to week. I'm not reading the data every day, and there may be more hidden variables like temperature or humidity affecting the fading speed. All that would make me reluctant to compare individual test results from tests at different times, it's more the ranking I'm interested in. Next weeks' results - we'll see - they'll spread even more.
I did a kind of similar test already here
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/which-pigment-ink-for-epson-1500w.9323/page-18#post-92342 postings #175 and #176
showing how different glossy papers impact the fading of the black ink - in that test. The test now is quite similar, just with a few other papers.
I'm actually recording the fading differences for all CMYK colors but focus onto the black ink because that defines the visual contrast of a print. If colors fade with different speeds it would create a color cast over time. I could as well take an average of those numbers for CMYK changes but I don't think that more (complex) numbers really add more information to the overall recognition of the fading effects. And numbers may create an assumed level of accuracy which is not there since I cannot control the base parameters, their mix of ozone, humidity etc.