Papers to minimise fade with aftermarket dye inks.

[Ink stained Fingers]

Testing snow resistance was not really part of the game, I think I give it a break...

 

[peter D]

I can now give an update on the freight charges quoted by Giant Image for 2 small (610mm wide) 30m rolls of their 220gsm swellable paper for freight by China Post to New Zealand. Package weight was quoted at 12 kgm which seems high for essentially 8.06kgms of paper plus the central cardboard roll cylinders plus box and filling. The freight cost was US$206 which is about 2.5 X what it would cost to airfreight the same size and weight from the USA to New Zealand. Giant Image claim this quote was less than a DTL or TNT express freight price.
I cannot absorb that freight rate at present even though the paper itself is very well priced for two 30 metre rolls .
Such a roll of printing paper should produce 90 A3+ prints plus about 170 5X7's as well which could be said to be the very rough equivalent of 2 boxes of 50 sheets of A3+ paper but there is of course all the extra work of cutting and uncurling the roll paper.
A fair comparison for packaged weight is with a 100 foot roll of 24 inch wide 6 mil glossy pro grade microporous paper for high ink load aqueous printing on a wide format machine which Amazon will transport freight free across the USA and costs around US$60 a roll thru Amazon and has a shipping weight of 4.83 kgm for one roll. A single roll would cost me US$40 from the USA to NZ and US$36.50 from South Korea via my freight forwarder using Amazon's packing dimensions.
Conclusion, something is out of wack for the freight rates via China Post quoted by Giant Image, for example an Alibaba vendor quotes free shipping to New Zealand for two packets of 50 sheets of A3 size 260 gsm double sided coated photo paper designed for a colour lazer printer ie. 100 sheets for US$106 inc freight.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Yes, freight can get pretty expensive, it won't help you to compare with Amazon or alike, they most likely have contracts with major parcel/shipping services around the world, for bulk rates and service levels you never can reach or compare with an individual shipment, there can be differences by up to a magnitude between your single shipment and a year contract with yyy for xx tons per year. You may check e.g. with Fedex, they may have an online freight calculator or a phone number, or with a popular local service for their rate. Giant image may not do much international business - I don't know and they apparently don't sell to end users e.g. via Aliexpress either so they may not be in the position to give you a discounted rate or even be familiar with more attractive int'l freight rate options.

 

[peter D]

I'm only using Amazon as an estimator for the parcel size and weight and then using their free across the USA shipping to bring the goods to a freight forwarder that I use to ship from California or Oregon to New Zealand. This is how I get goods from the USA to New Zealand be it from Amazon or any other vendor in the USA. I can also use the same service to freight goods from South Korea for example.
The rates I quoted are the actual rates that I would have to pay my chosen online freight forwarder (from USA or Korea) converted from NZ$ to US$ just for comparison. My latest purchase of inks from Precision Colors was sent to the California depot of a New Zealand based freight forwarding company for consolidation with separate purchase from an Amazon merchant before being on shipped to New Zealand at a very competitive rates.

I agree with you about the Giant Image company not having any experience with sales to end users because they talk about volume being their business model.

It is now looking as though it might be possible to use a freight forwarder that is operating as an Alibaba vendor to arrange a freight service from Baoding Giant Image rather than have them handle the freight. Hopefully the freight forwarder will handle the payment for the paper as well as the freight using the Alibaba escrow system which would be cheaper that the PayPal option offered by Giant Image - another 5%+ on top.

I'll post an update if I manage to get a handle on an efficient freight service option.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It's now 8 weeks that I keep the swellable paper samples outside for a fade test, despite some adverse weather conditions

- they are performing exceptionally well - no fading measurable on all 3 paper samples - glossy - silk - pearl.
I don't really need to show again how the black ink changed over to a light brown at this time on a regular microporous paper - the same ink which does not fade at all so far on these swellable papers. A sample with the Fujifilm DL inks running in this same test starts showing the first signs of fading now - just measurable and above measurement noise but not visible yet. I'll give this test another 4 weeks and then put the patches away for a summer/UV test to test them for radiation resilience.

 

[stratman]

@Ink stained Fingers - what is your blue image about?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

what is your blue image about?

no, it's not modern art or something , it just recovered from the snow in posting #81 above.....
https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...aftermarket-dye-inks.11990/page-9#post-104309

 

[mikling]

Maybe a bit premature, however, it clearly shows the dramatic improvement one can achieve by using swellable papers to get long lasting prints. With these papers and inside a home in a frame, it pretty much gives users what they want. Long lasting prints on demand, great color, inexpensensive printing, all day every day and refilling.
My estimation is that the performance of the grays and blacks will be similar.
I can't perform tests during this season but I am confident based on experience that they will come out well. I know the greys have worked out well for over a decade.
Essentially, the comparison between different inks is now moot given the differences are relatively small in comparison to using the correct paper. Just use the correct paper and you're good....pretty pretty good actually.
Thus for those experiencing fast fade indoors....ozone is your enemy. These papers are the solution not perfect but a solution nonetheless.

 

[stratman]

no, it's not modern art or something

I like it. Reminds me of some dilute Prussian Blue on a slide with a slide cover under a microscope.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm actually taking quite a lot of luminance readings via the histogram function for the CMYK color patches and could do lots of things - graphs, plots whatever - per color or cumulated and all that but this does not change the essence of this test - these swellable papers provide an excellent fade protection to an ink which just performs pretty poor (or should I say even average for a refill ink) on typical microporus papers.
The difficult supply situation of such papers - ease of availability and moderate pricing - makes it currently impossible to use such papers for a wider user base.