Fading of Inkjet Papers

[maximilian59]

Yes, with tank printers things changes a lot. If you want to spend the money in advance, then buy one of the new Canon or Epson printers. You have to print a lot, especially for the ET-8850, to get your money back. On the other hand you can by the bottled inks and as a refiller you get the best quality now for the money.
Would be a dream getting from Canon a G200x as a follower of the Pro-200 with the same printhead and inks. Plus more possibilities for paper feed.
For us, who make our own profiles, refill our cartridges, and look for a good paper are golden times. But I think for the people, which want a cheap printer with cheap inks and cheap paper without refilling, nothing changed. And there are still many, which just use one ink set a year and stay with OEM, because it just works good.

 

[The Hat]

I am probably an Neanderthal when it comes to refilling and found it hard to change what worked for me, so I never taught for a moment that I’d be the one that would ever consider using OEM inks, but I’m glad I did.. Never say never.

These OEM bottled inks are a whole new ball game, as @maximilian59 said, if you don’t want the expense of buying a tank printer, and they may also do away with the need to adjust your profiles greatly.

On the other hand you can by the bottled inks and as a refiller you get the best quality now for the money. For us, who make our own profiles, refill our cartridges, and look for a good paper are golden times.

So the possibility is there for you to make switch over, because the price gap is closing, and if you consider what you’re paying for quality photo paper, then why not have everything with OEM quality. It’s worth investigating..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Bottled OEM inks - there is a rather separate range of inks as well - pigmented and bottled OEM inks - CMYK - but with a matte black only. Both Epson and Canon now offer office oriented tank system printers which use such bottled inks - like the ET-5800. Fading is a much lesser concern with such inks; I tried the CMY inks and looked to bronzing and gloss differentials - they don't match the OEM inks of a P800 in this respect but are no worse than typical 3rd party inks. Tests by WIR and Aardenburg show that the stability of OEM pigment inks vary very much as well on the type of paper used for the testing - there is not much of a difference between dye and pigment inks in this respect. Using OEM bottled pigment inks for refill into other printers with cartridges may provide a higher level of assurance that such OEM inks cause less problems - clogging etc - than arbitrary 3rd party inks - the informed user has the choice now.

 

[maximilian59]

Bottled OEM inks - there is a rather separate range of inks as well - pigmented and bottled OEM inks - CMYK - but with a matte black only. Both Epson and Canon now offer office oriented tank system printers which use such bottled inks - like the ET-5800. Fading is a much lesser concern with such inks; I tried the CMY inks and looked to bronzing and gloss differentials - they don't match the OEM inks of a P800 in this respect but are no worse than typical 3rd party inks. Tests by WIR and Aardenburg show that the stability of OEM pigment inks vary very much as well on the type of paper used for the testing - there is not much of a difference between dye and pigment inks in this respect. Using OEM bottled pigment inks for refill into other printers with cartridges may provide a higher level of assurance that such OEM inks cause less problems - clogging etc - than arbitrary 3rd party inks - the informed user has the choice now.

For the ones doing their prints for themselves or just sell cheaper prints like greeting cards, this may be ok. I don't think Epson uses the same purity of pigments, or the same pigments for office printers and their printers for art printing. Good pigments with always stable colors are expensive. Who cares, is a office printer delivers little bit different colors, which may only be visible for the trained eye? Are they also as fine, which makes pigments more expensive again, as for the other printers? I would make it different for cost reasons. Best for best printing and the rest for the others.
Art printers wouldn't accept color differences with every cartridge they put in the printer. Everybody is awaiting getting each time the exactly same product. Especially with the big roll printers, where you change inks on the fly without stopping to print.
I had to print 100 cards for a friend on expensive paper. With my Pro-1000 I was sure that changing cartridges, what happened, will have no influence on the colors. The first and the last print, there was no visible difference. That is what I expect form the pro-printers from Canon. The same will others expect from their Epson printers.
So it is ok for a lot of amateurs, maybe, but not for professionals.
Cheers,
Maximilian