Gloss optimizer and fading of dye inks

[Ink stained Fingers]

The patches are out in the environment now for 35 weeks - for more than half a year with these results:

Paper Fading Test Epson 106 + GO overprint
Total Lightness increase of CMYK patches (Range from 0 - 255)
(measured with a scanner, delta via the histogram vs. a copy kept in the dark)
L1800 Printer, Epson 106 inkset, Ultra Glossy driver setting, Sihl glossy paper

_______________patches w/o GO_______patches with GO

after week 1__________1_________________0
after week 4__________4_________________3
after week 7__________8_________________5
after week 11_________20________________12
after week 15_________31________________21
after week 19_________54________________42
after week 23_________73________________55
after week 27_________92________________72
after week 31________115________________92
after week 35________153_______________119



Cyan remains by far the weakest ink, weaker than black;
I'm running a little test in parallel with the Epson 106 and the Fuji Surelab cyan inks, they fade equally fast, this now after 12 weeks .

I think I'll stop this test now at this point, this test was done with one type of gloss optimizer - from octopus-office in Germany, I don't know whether the Epson genuine GO would give the same level of protection or more or less and don't know either how GO's from other 3rd party suppliers would perform
in comparison. Applying a GO overprint to dye prints is a non-standard procedure and it would be a question for a user whether these results are worth the additional effort. You effectively need both a dye ink printer and a pigment ink printer with GO for this approach - Canon Pro 10/100 or Epson P400/600.

 

[Andreas S]

Hello ISF, If you still have the prints it would be of interest to measure them with a spectrophotometer to get the exact delta-e values.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Sorry, I dumped the color card already as I finished the test cycle

 

[Andreas S]

Maybe at the next time.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did quite some testing here to check the impact of a GO overprint onto the fading of dye inks, here is a simple illustration of the effects, I printed 'Gloss optimizer' with GO instead of a black ink in the black channel of a WF2010W onto a photo paper and pointed a UV lamp onto it , it directly shows the filtering effect of the GO - less UV is hitting the optical brighteners in the paper - there are no dye molecules here - and the print is darker. And this test does not show any protective effect such GO layer on the paper could have to shield against ozone.




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