How to store Swellable Paper

[aCuria]

I'm irritated that you are not getting a good printout with another HP paper; I understand that you got the L10850 new, so you should have a small sample pack of Epson paper - e.g. premium photo glossy - with it; print a test image - one sheet - 4 x 6 inch - with the default driver settings and check the printout.

My L10850 did NOT come with any paper unfortunately.

I have purchased a fair bit of epson paper - "Epson Glossy Photo Paper", "Epson Premium Glossy", and "Epson Premium Semigloss" fairly cheaply.

So far I have tested the "Epson Premium Glossy" and "Epson Glossy Photo Paper" and they both work well enough. I dont have enough of the "Epson Glossy Photo Paper" to justify making a profile for the paper, but the generic "Glossy Photo Paper" setting seems to work.

Annoyingly I had to calibrate the printer out of the box, my first print was on Epson Premium Glossy and there were lines in the print. Epson needs to work on their QC in this regard, becase I had no issues on Canon

Since I have a Specto now, I gathered up all the photo paper I had lying around (and my relative gave me a stack of old papers too, including that HP Photosmart) and I printed the Argyll CAP480 patch chart on everything non-epson branded

Luckily for me the (newer) "Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II" worked (that is the ink dried), since I have A3 sheets of this paper

Theres this "Fullmark" paper which has packaging that claims both sides are printable, but the ink only adheres to the glossy side. Its a rather thin paper, appears to be low quality and has a problem with sticking to itself in the packaging

Unfortunately (because I was given 200+ sheets...) the “HP Photosmart” paper does not work with epson inks.The ink adhesion on some colors for this paper was so bad that after printing ink droplets could be poured off into the sink.

I am wondering if the Canon inktank inks would work with the HP Photosmart paper, but that ink fades so fast, it does feel like a waste of ink and paper.

I have stored the CAP480 patch prints in a dry cabinet (and will keep it there for one week to dry as per your advice) before making the color profiles for them.

 

[aCuria]

I quote from here:

https://psap.library.illinois.edu/advanced-help/digital-inkjet#:~:text=Swellable coated paper&text=Only dye-based inks are,produced professionally or at home.

Swellable coated paper​

Swellable paper is comprised of resin-coated paper with an image-receiving layer. The image-receiving layer swells to absorb the liquid ink as it is sprayed during the printing process. This results in a vibrant, crisp image that sits in a layer on top of the paper rather than absorbing into it. Only dye-based inks are used to print on swellable paper, since pigment inks cannot absorb into the image-receiving layer. Swellable paper typically has a glossy finish that mimics traditional photo paper prints. Images printed on coated swellable paper may be produced professionally or at home. Swellable papers have decreased in popularity due to the fact that prints take some time to dry completely (sometimes up to 24 hours), as opposed to porous papers which dry instantly.

Do you think this could explain the non-existant water resistance of the HP Premium Plus paper? If the inks are sitting on an "image-receiving layer" on top of the paper, and not absorbed into the paper, then I would imagine the inks would come right off if the outer resin layer touches water

From my testing the paper is dry to touch immediately after printing. However even after a week of "drying" the inks will run if the print touches even a small amount of water. I suppose I can laminate the photo after printing to mitigate this if necessary.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Annoyingly I had to calibrate the printer out of the box, my first print was on Epson Premium Glossy and there were lines in the print. Epson needs to work on their QC in this regard,

A new printer in production is not tested together with the printhead, the printhead is tested separately and parameters are measured, these parameters are coded into a printhead code which gets loaded into the printer firmware, and this would need to be refreshed in case of a printhead exchange. The WICReset utility supports this.
It is advised to run the printhead alignment once on every new printer as part of the setup procedure.

If you want to run current production swellable papers you may contact this Chinese company.

http://www.bdgiantimage.com/en/products_view.asp?id=45

I have to admit that I'm loosing overview on your issues and actions - printer - papers - profiling

 

[pharmacist]

I was actually thinking about the possibility of a double system: reactive dye ink with a special treated microporous paper that contains chelating colourless metal salt that works as a fixating agent. This way the paper can be used for any type of ink (If the ink is not reactive to metal ions), but with that special formulated ink the special dye molecules can be chelated by the metal ions inside the microporous cavities to form a strong metallo-organic dye structure that is very tenacious towards ozone and UV-radiation to make it very fade resistant. On normal paper and normal photo paper this dye ink would be much less fade resistant. No need for difficult to maintain swellable paper.