Gloss optimizer and fading of dye inks

[Ink stained Fingers]

I got the Canon ink set delivered - 6 colors with 130ml cartridges for 1€ at Ebay - that's quite a good deal. I just hope that my Epson R265 will not freak out when a secret ink sensor recognizes Canon inks in the printhead and goes into alarm mode....I'm now going to print this and that to replace the inks in the CISS system, in the tubes and cartridges and then get some color patches printed for a test to compare with my other inks.

 

[martin0reg]

I'm curious to hear your findings, especially because you can test two things:
- does canon ink for thermal heads also work in cold piezo heads? As we know that it don't work the other way around...sadly..
- how does the prints perform on your balcony? Under my UV bulb the fading was better (=slower) than the most other 3rd party inks I've used - but clearly not as good as fuji DL (for epson) or the latest canon "chromalife+".

BTW there are newer canon LFP's with dye inks, perhaps the ink formulation is newer too, with better UV resistance?

Here is a catalogue which shows the ink type more clearly than on canon sites:
http://copyrightgmbh.de/downloads/CR_LFP-Preisliste_Zubehoer_Nr15.pdf
see pp60-63, e.g. PFI-102, 107, 207...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It will take some days to get a first impression how the Canon inks perform, the R265 printhead gave up to protest and printed the test sheets correctly, the next days will show whether it will stay like that.
The BCI-xxx inks have the advantage as you pointed out that they are available at very low prices for the expired cartridges which is a pricing bonus over the Fuji DL inks. I'm not inclined to test any third party compatible BCI cartridges, the inks in use are unkown and their performance most likely not as good as Canon inks. I have not seen any heavily discounted PFI-xxx ImageProGraph cartridges, they are probably priced similar to the comparable Epson inks so there is no pricing benefit for me to use those.
I found a list of BCI cartridges as a list for the safety data sheets
http://www.canon-europe.com/sds/bci-series-cartridges/
It is interesting that similar lists exist for America and the South Eastern Asia market which list slightly more ingredients, the inks contain a benziso.... as a fungizid, that's good to know, and the pigment inks don't list the colorant, but a pyrrolidinone.. as a polar solvent, needed to keep the pigments separate and afloat in the ink suspension, and the black inks list a Carbon (pigment) black which is not listed for the dye blacks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I had a quick look to the targets printed with the Canon BCI-1411 inks - black and yellow for this test.
The R265 is not complaining about Canon inks in the nozzles, there are no adverse short term effects visible. The Canon yellow performs better than the OCP dye yellow I recently got, the Canon dye black fades visibly to brown within a few days , about as bad as the dye black I'm using so far as a general purpose ink.
These targets, and all other targets in earlier tests, last year etc are all placed outside on a balcony exposed to sun as the weather provides. I'm coming to the conclusion that it is not mainly the UV in the daylight, but much more the ozone, or another unkwown agent, causing the color shifts. I'm observing some effects on the papers, most of glossy papers contain optical brighteners , and these disappear pretty quickly, within days, they are not visible anymore under UV light, not showing the blueish whitening effect. It is the effect that a piece of scotch tape pretty much slows down the fading process.
The ozone level is much lower indoor , but still let the optical brighteners fade away over time, it may take months but it happens. I'll get some sample info together to support that claim. The difficulty is the separation of effects - UV vs. ozone, I cannot measure anything, not the concentration or the UV spectrum and intensity indoor or outdoor. UV brighteners have impact onto profiling, changing the paper white point and affecting the color of lighter, less dense colors. But if optical brighteners fade away that quickly it may not make sense to consider them at all.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I got some Canon BCI-1411 black and yellow inks, they are exposed now for 5 days,

The left bar is the reference black kept in the dark, the middle bar is printed with the Canon black and
the right bar with my current no name black ink mix - OCP + 10 other inks - both the Canon and this ink perform about the same - there is no benefit for me to use that Canon ink. It looks different with the yellow, the Canon yellow performs visibly better than the OCP yellow I'm using since recently, I'll switch to the Canon ink if I can make some bargain deals for it on Ebay.
The test with the scotch tape is now running since 3 weeks:

The areas covered with scotch tape fade much slower than the unprotected sections, they now have reached the same lightness increase as the uncovered areas after one week, the means that something like scotch tape or lamination can extend the fading period by a factor of 3, the overprint with gloss optimizer as tested separately about a factor of 2 - just as a ballpark number for orientation.
This is an indication to me that the main cause for the fading is ozone which is kept away under the scotch tape, the UV radiation is less effective and let the dyes fade under the scotch tape much slower than the ozone in the unprotected areas. A gloss opt. overprint is less gas tight than a scotch tape and thus would provide less protection against ozone in such areas. I'll place this target now under the UV lamp to check what else becomes visible.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm done with most of this test cycle and got the information I'm looking for - GO, scotch tape impact on fading, Canon inks and this and that. I still have a sheet in the sun printed with Fujifilm DL inks, they fade much slower, it's not visible yet but starts becoming measurable via the histogram of the scanned patches. It will take some more time to get clear results for the DL inks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I let some patches with the Fujifilm DL inks running in parallel to the tests above , that's what I get, basically confirming the findings from last year that the DL inks are much better than all other 3rd party inks etc.

That's the DL black ink on the Netbit paper, after 4 weeks , with quite some sun and probably ozone as well, you won't see a dfiference between the black bars, their luminance differs by 2 (out of 255) at this time between the exposed and unexposed patches.

This is the DL ink on the cheap castcoated Logicseek glossy paper, partly covered with a piece of scotch tape

Region 1 - the luminance of the exposed patch raised from 28 to 43 - delta of 15
region 2 - the luminance under the scotch tape raised from 28 to 35 - delta of 7.

This shows that something like a scotch tape or lamination can slow down the fading, but not as much to compensate the poor performance of the paper to start with. Ink fading is not just an ink property but always needs to be be judged in context with the paper in use, and this quick test shows again, like last years findings, that the choice of the paper has a tremendous impact onto the overall fade performance. The difference is between the castcoated papers and the better RC - resin coated papers with a PE film sandwiching the paper base. Last year's tests showed as well some differences between those RC papers - Sihl, Netbit, Tecco, HP etc but not as big as between the RC and cc papers. And a poor performing ink won't catch up even on a better paper, such a combination is not worth the money , so the situation is unchanged , there are only a few really good performing inks like the Fujifilm DL, Canon Chromalife or Epson Claria inks to choose from if fading performance is your concern.
And I'm looking as well how the optical brighteners in the Netbit paper fade, they do, but slower than in the LS180 paper, they are gone here but still visible to a degree in the Netbit paper with the UV lamp.

 

[The Hat]

I wonder if you have ever used or tried KMP pigment ink in your tests, it’s for the Canon printer but that’s never stopped you before, it’s about the best black ink I’ve ever used, it’s also a blacker ink than OEM...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Thanks for the tip, yes - I would test about any ink which fits through the nozzles.....but I think this KMP ink is the pigment black for normal paper which won't work on glossy photo papers.

 

[Flying Scotsman]

I see you said you would use any ink that fits through the noodles
I was told that using pigment ink in my canon ip8750 would damage the print head is this correct ??