My New Epson Stylus Photo 1500w (artisan 1430) !!!

[The Hat]

You volunteering to take the trip @The Hat ?

Just phone me when you got the Hotel & tickets booked, I’ll take care of the beer..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Let me update on some more findings from my fade tests,

- L800 vs. L300 Epson inks:


the L800 inks perform clearly better than the L300 inks, this after 3 weeks, something to expect, similar to the findings of the Wilhelm tests

- L800 vs. D3000/Chinese inks

CMY hold quite well in comparison, the D3000 black starts turning dark gray earlier than the L800 black, this after 2 weeks.

- L800 vs. Fujifilm DL inks

That' quite an interesting status after more than 3 weeks, both inks perform very similar, if not identical. The hues of CM are somewhat different, but that's something to be handled by a profile.
I'll let this patch run longer for a while although there is not much sun these days , and the daylight period is getting shorter.

In parallel I did another test, the D3000 Chinese ink was the first one with the black fading into a gray, and not turning brown. I mixed my standard dye ink, a secret sauce, a mix of some black dye inks from previous tests, and mixed that black with 50% Cyan.

This has the same effect, the black on the left is fading into a gray after 3 weeks, the right black patch starts turning dark brown like all other previous inks. Fading prints loose saturation and become lighter, and with the black getting brown the overall color impression shifts to the warm side, holding the black on a grayer track would reduce that perceived color shift.


When I put those findings together so far into a kind of fade resistance ranking, I place pigment inks on number 1

1: pigment inks, I don't know whether there are significant differences between original inks and
3rd party Lyson etc inks, so I leave the 2nd place free

2: open

3: open, I don't know yet whether there is a dye ink better than the Fujifilm DL inks, I have not tested
the Epson Ultrachrome D6 inks at all

4 - 5: Fujifilm DL and Epson L800 inks are pretty close at this time

6: a Chinese ink claiming suitability for Epson Surelab D3000 printers

7: Epson L300 inks

8: other inks, EV6, Coralgraph, OCP and others fading visibly faster than the inks above

9: some very fast fading inks, from China, fading within days under daylight, only suitable for box storage,
inserted into a photobook and for a short exposure to daylight.

All this performance difference is a matter of price , with the Fujifilm DL dye inks more expensive than typical 3rd party pigment inks. It's a matter of judgement which ink characteristics are important enough for the selection of the ink type, fade resistance, gloss, bronzing etc all discussed elsewhere.

(I'm considering to place my targets from above tests into a cabinet for long term storage, so in 100 years we can as well discuss here dark fade resistance....it's difficult to accelerate them , darker than dark is not possible at this time)

 

[The Hat]

@Ink stained Fingers I would dearly love to see how your 100 years tests turn out, but unfortunately I’ll have faded much faster than that myself by then, so please excuse my absence..

 

[martin0reg]

That's good news for the epson L800 bottled ink - which I have ordered.
I will fill it in my r285 and compare with DL. But with some test photos under my UV bulb instead of color bars in the sun... I am curious to see if the results are similar.

PS: just thinking of the pricing:
DL ink (CMYK - LM LC has to be diluted) 4x500ml from ebay reseller ca. 200euro all inclusive to germany, that makes around 10 euros for 100ml. Similar to the price of one L800 bottle.. but these contain only 70ml.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

less density in unsaturated lighter colors means less ink, I expect the fading to become visible somewhat quicker there, darker mixed colors will probably take some more time than pure CMY, o.k., a UV lamp makes an accelerated test anway. And for the dark fade stability we may do a prelim review a few years earlier. I'm just contemplating how to keep unaltered prints as a reference to compare to to judge any degradation, how about some deep freeze storage ? I wouldn't like to start measurements , to get the i1 calibrated now and then, delving into the accuracy of that calibration and traceability to national standards etc , no - I will probably just forget it....and rather keep the camera busy

 

[martin0reg]

I just got a L800 ink set and filled my R285 to compare with the fuji DL ink (which I use the most for it's quality and longevity). First prints with epson in epson are promising, regarding color and contrast, printed only by setting the epson driver.. profiling will be necessary anyway..
Because I wanted to know how different these inks look "by itself", compared to the L300 4-color-set, I made one-drop-dilutions of both sets. The C-M-Y looks quite similar.
But the blacks are really different: L300 BK is on the reddish magenta side - like most dye blacks which I have inspected this way. L800 BK is on the bluish cyan side - which I have seen not often with other blacks.

I remember Fuji DL black and epson claria as almost neutral.. PK of ultrachrome is greenish, I think.
The more bluish tint of L800 may also be recognized in your latest fading tests... it's not turning to brown like most other dyes.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Now, after almost another week I can update you on one remaining question - the L800 ink vs. the Fujifilm DL performance, it is getting clear with my targets for the L800 inks, the black starts getting lighter than the DL black, not by much, but now visible, there is no clear difference yet with the other colors. The L800 black is turning dark gray, not brown like most other inks so far. That goes together with the test above that the L800 diluted black gets a blueish tone. These inks are pretty close together for their fade performance, but the DL black a little bit better, that let me (almost) complete my above ranking

4: Fujifilm DL inks

5: L800 Epson inks, very close to the DL inks, and a decent alternative since this ink is
available in smaller 70ml bottles than the DL 200ml or 500ml cartridges

There is one question left for me, Epson is offering their 'Claria' inks only in small cartridges, and not by any other means, the L800 inks are not labelled as Claria inks, and the Ultrachrome D6 Surelab inks are not labelled as Claria either. This may have technical reasons, they are different, or there are marketing reasons not to use the Claria name in connection with any other hardware/Surelab than their photoprinters 1500W and some XP premium models. So I'm starting one last test now, with Ultracrhome D6 Cyan and Black against the Fujifilm DL inks - 2 colors only which should be representitive enough. Since I expect both to perform quite well it'll take some weeks until some trend will become visible.

 

[Smile]

So it seems one needs to use L800 CMY and DL black to get best for the money ink combo?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I guess pricing and availability would vary by country, and it's your choice to buy either smaller Epson bottles or higher volume Fujifilm cartridges

 

[Smile]

I guess pricing and availability would vary by country, and it's your choice to buy either smaller Epson bottles or higher volume Fujifilm cartridges

For example I can buy EPSON L800 ink locally, so no shipping required. The DL ink however needs to be shipped from Germany and therefore buying just single cart would be expensive if you add shipping to it. So one has to calculate how much the ink would cost plus shipping. If I buy whole set of carts than that is acceptable, but if you say the EPSON L800 CMY inks are well enough holding against the DL ink then it would be reasonable to buy few black carts from Germany then to buy at least 2 sets. And you know Yellow carts ends first