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

[martin0reg]

...
Conclusion: original Epson Claria Photographic ink still rules in terms of fade resistance. As expected pigment ink is very fade resistant. Inkowl is quite good, but still has some fading. OCP Claria compatible dye refill ink is quite disappointing indeed: fading of this ink is just unacceptable.
The strangest surprise in the Coralgraph ink: despite the slight fading the prints after 6 months of fading is remarkedly good.

Thank you for testing, well done and very useful, because with 3rd party ink you never know ... especially regarding fading.
I will put coralgraph on my list and cancel OCP - and I am curious how IS ink would have come out here, more like coralgraph or like OCP...?!

In this test of canon dye the best 3rd party ink was "peach" but sadly they sell only carts no bulk ink:
http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=3338&seite=9&t=die_lichtbestaendigkeit

 

[The Hat]

The problem with testing inks is to find a suitable paper surface that works the best with the brand of ink you’re trying to test, and testing OEM ink on OEM paper, is not a fair comparison at all.

Getting an accrete colour fade test can be so time consuming even impossible, by just changing the paper you can get completely different results so testing is never that simple, some inks will behave differently on certain paper surfaces.

I have tested OEM and I.S. inks on matte/glossy inkjet paper, while the I.S. ink was a disaster on the matte paper, the OEM ink didn’t run away a clear winner on the gloss paper either, it just piped the I.S. ink and on copy paper it was so hard to tell the difference if any at all.

OEM ink and paper are clearly the very best that you can use so if you’re selling your prints then that’s your only choice, everything else is just second best, so remember the paper can be as important as your choice of dye/pigment ink and so is the printer.

If you’re not happy with your current print setup and feel you can get it better then shop around, but be prepared to spend because the choices out there are many and varied so try and choose wisely, it is after all you money !

Happy Printing..

 

[pharmacist]

The problem with testing inks is to find a suitable paper surface that works the best with the brand of ink you’re trying to test, and testing OEM ink on OEM paper, is not a fair comparison at all.

Getting an accrete colour fade test can be so time consuming even impossible, by just changing the paper you can get completely different results so testing is never that simple, some inks will behave differently on certain paper surfaces.

I have tested OEM and I.S. inks on matte/glossy inkjet paper, while the I.S. ink was a disaster on the matte paper, the OEM ink didn’t run away a clear winner on the gloss paper either, it just piped the I.S. ink and on copy paper it was so hard to tell the difference if any at all.

OEM ink and paper are clearly the very best that you can use so if you’re selling your prints then that’s your only choice, everything else is just second best, so remember the paper can be as important as your choice of dye/pigment ink and so is the printer.

If you’re not happy with your current print setup and feel you can get it better then shop around, but be prepared to spend because the choices out there are many and varied so try and choose wisely, it is after all you money !

Happy Printing..

This is the reason I have carefully selected 2 papers: One of them is OEM Epson. So Epson ink on Epson paper and I have chosen Netbit paper: a rather average and good 3rd party microporous paper. It is very similar in terms of gamut and ink absorption compared to Original Epson premium glossy paper. As you can see in my test: Epson OEM does a great job in terms of fade resistance on this paper, so this paper is very representative to test fade resistance of other inks printed on this paper. I could introducte many other papers in my test, but it was not feasible to do so, so it was a compromise.

 

[costadinos]

I strongly believe you should let the prints fade more before jumping to conclusions.
Sometimes, like in the case of the OCP with the magenta, there's a problematic colour that leads to dismissing the whole inkset as prone to fading.

Your results look similar to mine, at least regarding the OCP, it seems like the magenta is fading faster than the other colours, resulting in severe colour shifts. The blacks don't seem a lot more affected than the other inks though.

When it comes to dye inks, I believe the ideal would be to create a hybrid inkset, combining the strongest colours from each brand, but to do that all of the prints should be allowed to fade visibly so as to be able to figure out how each individual colour behaves.


Here's a link to my test posted earlier, for reference:

http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/dye-ink-fade-test-ocp-vs-is-vs-ir-vs-fotorite.7865/

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Costadinos,

I agree with your suggestions about using a hybrid ink set, to take the strongest dyes of each specific brand of refill ink to bet a best of different worlds ink set .

 

[martin0reg]

...When it comes to dye inks, I believe the ideal would be to create a hybrid inkset, combining the strongest colours from each brand...

Nice idea - but only for "printer-addicts" not for common users, and not for me. Irregular fading with color shift simply is worse than "regular" fading...and it is the job of the manufacturer to avoid this, by creating a consistent ink-set.
By the way, thank you too for your fading-test!

 

[CakeHole]

@pharmacist great thread with some very interesting results Can you remember how long it took your inkowl inks to arrive from Canada to yourself in Europe? They have a Brother chip resetter which would be of Great use to a relative of mine here in the UK.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi CakeHole,

I believe it was 2 weeks. It is pretty fade resistant indeed. .

 

[CakeHole]

2 Weeks is pretty good considering the shipping is so cheap for international orders, will definitely pass along the company details to my relative, thanks pharmacist

 

[martin0reg]

Thank you for testing, well done and very useful, because with 3rd party ink you never know ... especially regarding fading.
I will put coralgraph on my list and cancel OCP - and I am curious how IS ink would have come out here, more like coralgraph or like OCP...?!

In this test of canon dye the best 3rd party ink was "peach" but sadly they sell only carts no bulk ink:
http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=3338&seite=9&t=die_lichtbestaendigkeit

After buying a set of ink bottles for canon CLI-8 from coralgraph I have to say: the ink do not match canon colors any good..and the PGB is worse than others too, over saturating black areas in images and producing puddles on the paper. So the good results of coralgraph seems not to apply on canon sets...regarding color matching (I have not tested UV)