Media Black Points and Fading Test 106 114 T54C GI-53

[Ink stained Fingers]

I started a litle fading test with these Epson and Canon inks - Epson 106 114 T54C and Canon GI-53, all inks used in some type of Epson or Canon photo printers, I'm using these papers for this test
- a HP Premium Plus Photo Paper - a Glossy 300 RC paper via ac-concept/Ebay and a cc-paper Hayatec via Amazon, this is the cc-paper which curls the least amongst cc-papers after print . I'm starting with the media black point of these papers and inks

The Epson inks on the above papers are pretty close together, the Canon GI-53 ink is rather weak on the resin coated glossy paper and as good as the Epson inks on the Hayatec one. This again shows how much inks and paper depend on each other. The difference between 11,8 and 5,59 is visible between prints in direct comparison , but photo prints still look pretty good on the Hayatec paper if you cannot compare, and there are more differences between cast coated - cc - and resin coated - RC - papers - like the feel of the paper, the look of the gloss etc. The user decides which paper he takes to print his photos.

Fading results will follow.

P.S.

Attention - please be aware that I'll restart this test with the same inks and papers, I'm not sure to which extend the above data are affected.

PPS:
I'm adding a link to the Hayatec paper by Amazon here since 'Hayatec' is not mentioned in the product name so you can't search for it

https://www.amazon.de/s?k=Photopapi...+a4+glänzend+fotokarten,aps,97&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

That's always the nice thing with printing and testing - there are hidden surprises here and there.

GI-53 BK ink and thought it was a very good ink; well still very good on some papers..

I don't test in this cycle any Canon paper - who knows how that would perform .......

This just shows that general statements about inks or papers must be viewed very much with caution

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did a small check how the fading proceeds after 5 days and found some problems/inconsistencies in the data, ink in a yellow cartridge was contaminated and patch sheets wrongly labelled, I don't know to which extend some colors are affected so I'll restart the test in the next days and hope that I have enough ink at all - It's just what is left in cartridges for the most part since I'm mainly using the Epson 106 inks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I reprinted the patchsheets and measured the media blackpoints again, I added a Canon PT 101 Pro Platinum to the test, and I'm getting these results:

The data don't vary much against the data in the original table , the Epson inks all run pretty closely, the Canon GI-53 performs somewhat weaker on the RC papers from Canon, Epson and a 3rd party paper. I created profiles from the patch data to check for hidden errors, the problems appear to be gone.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I was hopping for a better performance of Canon Ink with Canon paper.

You are addressing a problem about every user has - to get performance data of inks and papers , it is virtually not possible even for OEM products, and even less for 3rd party products , so you have to make a guess or just go by the brand names hoping to get a good product. You may find the paper white point in some secluded databases of some manufacturers but where would you find the media black point(s) - e.g. with different inks - GI-51 or GI-53 etc ? ?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I checked and scanned a few patch sheets already after 5 days to verfiy if there are still some inconsistencies in the data , I couldn't find any, data are already diverging pretty clearly depending on the ink/paper combinations - but that is actually expected . I'll give the patch sheets an exposure time of 2 weeks for clear results and will report accordingly.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me update the results of the fading test now after 2 weeks - with 4 papers and 4 inks, I'm not running any
cheaper 3rd party inks like InkTec in this test, and I don't repeat tests from over the last years with the lower end Epson and Canon bottled inks like Epson 664 or 102 or Canon GI-51, and there are no pigment inks in this test either which all would blow up this test tremendously, and not to forget non-standard/specialty/FineArt papers - there are plenty.
(HP PPPP = HP Premium Plus Photo Paper)

You can observe wide variations between these 16 ink/paper combinations, it appears to me that OEM papers go very well with OEM inks and deliver a better fading performance than the Hayatec cast coated paper, so it is up to the user to balance his requirements against the pricing of these combinations.

I'll puzzle out the effect of the optical brighteners as well in the next days - they basically fade as well and as fast as the regular inks - with variations depending on the paper.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me slhow you what happens with the optical brigtheners during the fading process, optical brighteners are added to the coating of lots of photo papers - typically the standard glossy or semiglossy types. OBA's may be omitted on some matte papers and lots of the FineArt types but you need to go into the datasheets to really find it out.
The i1profiler software allows you to display the spectral response of a paper measured in 10 nm steps of the visible light from 380 nm to 720 nm, UV light is not measured with the regular i1 spectrometers, but UV light of the type close to the visible light - in the range of 300 - 350 nm - is causing a fluorescence effect in the optical brighteners and converting that UV light into a blueish visible light adding to the regular visible light. Other chemicals may get excited by UV light - black light - emitting other colors.

The typical spectral response of a photo paper with OBAs like in the tested Hayatec paper looks like this:

You see 3 curves which relate to 3 different measuring methods - the M0 and M1 curves belong practially together and show an increase of the blue light reponse , and the measurement without any UV light converted into blue light is shown by the green plot.

You may get more info about the M0, M1 and M2 measuring methods here

https://www.xrite.com/-/media/xrite...ctor_what_does_it_mean/l7-510_m_factor_en.pdf

This is the spectral plot of the paperwhite of the Hayatec cc paper at the beginning of the test, the paper contains quite a lot of OBA's.

And how does it look after 2 weeks of exposure - the CMYK inks are fading as listed in the above table, and here is the spectrum of the paperwhite after these 2 weeks

The spike at the blue light is gone - the OBA's are not effective anymore - they are gone - faster then the regular inks. This has a direct impact on the look of white unprinted areas - their cool, blueish tint is pretty much gone - the changes are directly visible in the b-value of the Lab color values.

I have more papers in this test - here is a look to the HP PPPP - Premium Plus Photo Paper - this is the paperwhite at the start of the test

There is no spike at the blue end of the spectrum - this paper does not contain any - or almost any - OBA's which is pretty rare, and this is not marked on the box so you could not even know. This is the spectrum of the HP paper after 2 weeks

There is not much of a difference to the starting plot - there are no OBA's in this paper, and there is no change to the look of the paperwhite.

The situation looks pretty much different with the PT 101 Canon paper, this is the status at the beginning of the test

There is a strong spike at the blue end, this paper contains lots of OBA's, and this is the spectrum after 2 weeks of exposure

The spike dropped a little bit but remains pretty stable overall, this indicates that the OBA's are much more stable than those in the Hayatec paper above. So the fading response of OBA's vary as much as regular inks in combination with particular papers.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

If you want to know more about the effects of optical brighteners in prints you may read this publication

https://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/optical-brighteners-obas/

This is a subject which is completely separate from the question whether pigment inks would last longer than dye inks which is quite a typical question coming up now and then.

This article

https://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/...n-archival-pigment-and-other-fine-art-prints/

calls for OBA free media

Market Sorely in Need of Resin Coated(RC) OBA-Free Media

The above listed HP PPPP paper in the test is apparently about the only RC paper w/o OBA's, and I found it just accidentally through a fading test longer time ago.

 

[pharmacist]

I have noticed that for example Canon Photo Paper Pro has a particular smell, making me think it contains some kind of aldehyde impregnated into the paper. Aldehydes are known to have a reducing action on dye molecules thus stabilising the colour.