My Canon PRO-10 on refill ink - and what happened to my PRO-9500II

[The Hat]

Guys, you are measuring apples with oranges, whatever devices or inks that your using is irrelevant and not important, it’s the results you get that make you satisfied, and if you’re happy then that’s all that matters, and as for cheap photo paper, bring it on same goes for cheaper 3rd party inks..

The ink suppliers are only there to make profit, remember that… and mixing OEM in conjunction with 3rd party ink is a cope out…OEM products are superior, but nowhere near as fun..

 

[palombian]

My CO was empty (I printed as much in a week than the previous owner during the whole life of the printer) and I refilled a set of carts I sucked empty before, so minimum contamination with OEM.
I lost a bit of gamut in the new profile.

When I would have printed with OEM ink on Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II with OEM inks and profile I would have the grayed gamut in the image.
With Octoinkjet ink on Aldi paper I have only the gamut in solid.
On average 5 times cheaper.

This when I would have done the same with Precision Color SE ink.

This when I would have used Octoinkjet ink and profiles (Platinum- no GlossyII found).
My own profile is now greyed and the Octo profile is a bit wider in the green.
Based on this I would have been better with PC72SE in the green, orange and purple and worse in the red.
Adding OEM red corrects this as documented.

To be seen how much of an average photo is in the part I miss.
Anyway, the dark green and blue part is not visible on my sRGB monitor.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The Epson P-400 and the Canon Pro 10 are a kind of similar printers , A3, pigment inks, gloss optimizer, and with a red ink.
I did some testing of various inks - gamut, gloss - some time ago , and if you would provide me your icm-profile for the Aldi/Sihl paper I could plot that profile against mine which I did as well on the Aldi paper - with the original Epson inks - Higloss-2 and some refill inks.
I'm not using the Aldi paper on the P400 at this time, gloss variances are visible, and Sihl does not really recommend it either for use with pigment inks.
There was older communication about this in the forum

www.printerknowledge.com/threads/the-glossy-photo-paper-is-back-at-lidl.11411/post-101165

that this paper may not be optimal for use with pigment inks.
If you search the forum for 'Sihl recommendation' you'll get a few more links with this info, some of the links to
Sihl may not work anymore. This Sihl paper is great with dye inks, I use it on a L1800 at this time.

I have not seen the Aldi/Sihl paper since years in the German Aldi-Nord shops, Aldi does not seem to distribute this paper any longer, and it is not available at Lidl either as it was in the past via their Office United custom brand . But it is still available in the Sihl-direct Online-shop as the Quick Dry paper type 0769

www.sihl.com/en/products/quick-dry-photo-paper-280-glossy/#

Prices are visible only if you register and log in, and I don't know if they ship outside Germany.

 

[Artur5]

If this Sihl paper is the same as the Office United sold by Lidl a few years ago, I can’t agree at all with your opinion that it’s great for dye inks. Yes, fresh from the printer looks very good for gamut and appearance but fading in the short term is terrible. Black ink turns to brown and cyan to very pale blue in a few days, if exposed to light/oxidants, Of course other glossy papers from main brands fade as well with compatible dye inks, but Office United does it five times faster.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

but Office United does it five times faster.

We probably have tested different papers - United Office is the private label for office stuff by Lidl, and they may sell paper from different suppliers, similar to the situation with Aldi Nord/Sued which sold as well photo papers of different origins at the same time, in a very similar package. The Lidl paper I was using was identical in performance with the Aldi/Sihl paper and with a direct purchase of the Sihl Quick dry 769 paper - by gamut and fading performance, actually tested, and it was marked as manufactured by Sihl.

I have tested various papers with the same ink, and different inks on the same paper, several times in different combinations for the fading performance, and cannot confirm at all that the Aldi/Sihl paper would perform 5x worse than other papers.
But you are right that some papers let the same ink fade faster than other papers, and most let the black ink shift to a brown tone - except HP papers for some reason. There are so many companies selling photo papers - direct or via Ebay or Amazon etc which makes it impossible to pick out the 'best' one since such performance is not specified by the supplier by any measure. And the price does not make a difference either - expensive papers may not perform better than this Sihl or other budget papers. And since expectations and requirements - pricing, performance, availability - may probably be different by different users, everybody has to work out the best choice for him.

 

[The Hat]

I never buy quality photo paper from any source, but I did get several HP rolls of satin and gloss papers for pennies that I have used for the past ten years, the pigment ink doesn’t fade on them, but the paper delaminates after 5 years when exposed to normal bright light indoors (Sunshine).

I’ve only ever used Lidl /Sihl photo paper (United office) for years and years and yes it does cause some dye colour fading, but that takes several years under normal viewing conditions, and cheap paper + cheap inks = lower quality, that’s to be expected.

The Sihl photo paper is still on sale in Ireland (On special last week) and I’ve not had a problem using it with pigment inks, O’ yes I do get gloss differential with this paper but I always give the prints a coating of GLOP and the problem is solved..

And since expectations and requirements - pricing, performance, availability - may probably be different by different users, everybody has to work out the best choice for him.

And this is correct everyone gets different results when using non OEM paper and inks… That too is to be expected.

P.S. I’ve never used a single sheet of Epson Canon OEM photo paper in any of my printers, Dye or Pigment.. (Ever) nor do I make Profiles, I just go with what the printers provide… one or two test prints and it’s good to go.. Works for me..

 

[palombian]

The Epson P-400 and the Canon Pro 10 are a kind of similar printers , A3, pigment inks, gloss optimizer, and with a red ink.
I did some testing of various inks - gamut, gloss - some time ago , and if you would provide me your icm-profile for the Aldi/Sihl paper I could plot that profile against mine which I did as well on the Aldi paper - with the original Epson inks - Higloss-2 and some refill inks.
I'm not using the Aldi paper on the P400 at this time, gloss variances are visible, and Sihl does not really recommend it either for use with pigment inks.
There was older communication about this in the forum

www.printerknowledge.com/threads/the-glossy-photo-paper-is-back-at-lidl.11411/post-101165

that this paper may not be optimal for use with pigment inks.
If you search the forum for 'Sihl recommendation' you'll get a few more links with this info, some of the links to
Sihl may not work anymore. This Sihl paper is great with dye inks, I use it on a L1800 at this time.

I have not seen the Aldi/Sihl paper since years in the German Aldi-Nord shops, Aldi does not seem to distribute this paper any longer, and it is not available at Lidl either as it was in the past via their Office United custom brand . But it is still available in the Sihl-direct Online-shop as the Quick Dry paper type 0769

www.sihl.com/en/products/quick-dry-photo-paper-280-glossy/#

Prices are visible only if you register and log in, and I don't know if they ship outside Germany.

The Aldi paper I use is produced by netBIT.
In my tests with the PRO-10 I could only distinguish it from Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II because the latter is only 275g.
I made a new test print tonight with the profile I made after refilling a set of carts with more pure Octoinkjet ink (plus OEM PBK and PC CO).
I could not see any difference with the previous one (nor on other photo's I reprinted) although the profile lost some gamut.
In comparision with the one I made with OEM ink I see no difference in the parts containing photos, only in the bands and patches with out of gamut colors, but this is because the Canon profile translates them otherwise (same can be seen on @jtoolman's youtube channel).
Compared to my PRO-9500 prints the red is visibly better and has no more gloss difference.
The CO gives more pop to all colours and the OEM PBK is a big enhancement too.

I plan to test Octoinkjet CO soon.
As source for PBK ImagePrograph ink is not ideal, only the Red of these printers is the same.

I will order PC72SE-PK photoblack since it still will be considerably less expensive than OEM (where the only sources are PRO-1 and PRO-10 cartridges).
Depending on the results with Octoinkjet CO also PC72SE-CO wich should be better than the older PC72-CO I have now (and is only slightly less than OEM).

Concerning the possibility of clogging of the Red and Magenta due to pigment overloading I am in doubt.
Based on the gamut Octoinkjet Red should be the most overloaded, but it has been only observed until now with Magenta.
Since @Artur5 uses OEM Red, only @Borut can exclude or confirm this.
Adding PC72SE-M2 Magenta will enhance my inkset in the 4 o'clock zone and will flush my printhead just in case.
Red and Magenta are important for skin tones.
I see no reason to buy OEM Red for colour reasons, should clogging occur I can order a PGI-1000R cartridge within 24 hrs.

Until now I do not see the lesser gamut in the greens and blues, but I have an eye on a second hand EIZO Coloredge AdobeRGB monitor (to add to my frustrations ).

 

[Artur5]

Take with a grain of salt the custom profiles made with the Color Munki Photo, This device is OK. for getting pleasant results to the human eye of real life colors but it isn’t accurate enough for a precise evaluation of gamuts in the highly saturated areas of the spectrum. This is true specially for glossy papers, which are usually coated with plenty of OBAs to increase the perceived ‘whiteness’.

I think that we can compare with reasonable precision the profiles made with the same instrument and printer for different combos of papers/inks, but not the profiles made with the ColorMunki vs the ones obtained with the expensive sophisticated spectrophotometers used by the manufacturers.
Below there’s a comparison of gamuts from two profiles. The first is my custom Color Munki profile for Canon Platinum using OEM ink from the starter cartridges of my Pro10s. The second profile (greyed ) it’s the one provided by Canon for the same printer, paper and, of course, OEM ink. You see that there’re visible differences, albeit small, in some areas. The Canon profile shows more extension on the orange-red zone, magenta and green-cyan. Yellow and purple-blue are practically the same.
In theory, dealing with the same printer, paper and inks both profiles should be identical. In real terms, there’re other variables interfering - different hardware, rendering intents, etc..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

@palombian - Netbit was an alternate source for the Aldi Glossy paper - I have profiled both papers with various inks on several printers, the gamuts are a close match . Netbit is not a manufacturer like Sihl but a distributor , the actual origin of the Netbit papers is unknown to me - I assume some Eastern country - I got some time ago ink and papers from a Polish distributor - Falter - which did Cone inks for Europe, and the gamut of their paper was very close to the Aldi/Netbit material.
@Artur5 - your and the Canon profile are a very close match, I would not think that such small differences would be visible at all on actual prints. I have seen much wider differences with Epson - Epson inks on Epson paper - my and their profiles compared.

 

[palombian]

Take with a grain of salt the custom profiles made with the Color Munki Photo, This device is OK. for getting pleasant results to the human eye of real life colors but it isn’t accurate enough for a precise evaluation of gamuts in the highly saturated areas of the spectrum. This is true specially for glossy papers, which are usually coated with plenty of OBAs to increase the perceived ‘whiteness’.

I think that we can compare with reasonable precision the profiles made with the same instrument and printer for different combos of papers/inks, but not the profiles made with the ColorMunki vs the ones obtained with the expensive sophisticated spectrophotometers used by the manufacturers.
Below there’s a comparison of gamuts from two profiles. The first is my custom Color Munki profile for Canon Platinum using OEM ink from the starter cartridges of my Pro10s. The second profile (greyed ) it’s the one provided by Canon for the same printer, paper and, of course, OEM ink. You see that there’re visible differences, albeit small, in some areas. The Canon profile shows more extension on the orange-red zone, magenta and green-cyan. Yellow and purple-blue are practically the same.
In theory, dealing with the same printer, paper and inks both profiles should be identical. In real terms, there’re other variables interfering - different hardware, rendering intents, etc..

View attachment 9541

@Artur5 , you are pretty close with the Colormunki indeed.
Such differences - if real and not a measurement deviation - are invisible in a print.
I had larger ones between my last profile and the previous with remainders of OEM ink in the carts.

I would like to know how I measure Lab values in the image to print and plot the points to see if they are covered by the profile.