Pigment in dye head.

[soysauce]

That is true but pigment ink can not match some photo printer with a dye ink in color fidelity. Also you can not replace dye ink printer with pigment ink since dye ink printer is stacking color dots for right tone. And if you stack pigment dots you will still get the same color dot.

Just been messing around with some UV & water resistant Dye inks for Canon. Looks good what so ever but two years is long time to find how long it could last outdoors.

Can use use a UV light source to accelerate testing to predict how the colors would last outdoors compared to known inks?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Can use use a UV light source to accelerate testing to predict how the colors would last outdoors compared to known inks?

Lots of accelerated fading tests have been done by Wilhelm Research and Aardenburg Imaging
http://wilhelm-research.com/
https://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/light-fade-test-results/ with free registration

These are tests with OEM and other commercially available inks, not experimental inks

 

[soysauce]

Yes, and I'm suggesting Do-It-Yourself UV testing might not be difficult or expensive for experimental inks for INKJET ARTIST.

 

[ccc]

For do-it-yourself testing use a comparative approach. By that I mean, pick an image printed with the best OEM pigment inks (HP Vivera) you can get and a another with the best OEM dyes (Canon Chromalux) and then print with your own sample. Find a good light source and put all three under it. The point of comparative testing is so you can compare your sample with known others. Absolute testing of one ink tells you nothing much about its character.
{If you're a refiller you can buy recently expired large carts of HP and Canon inks on eBay.} Direct sunlight has about 4% UV but it is a very short wavelength compared to compared to the rest of the spectrum so it packs a big punch on some materials.. A test outdoors will provide a reasonable UV load.

 

[soysauce]

For do-it-yourself testing use a comparative approach. By that I mean, pick an image printed with the best OEM pigment inks (HP Vivera) you can get and a another with the best OEM dyes (Canon Chromalux) and then print with your own sample. Find a good light source and put all three under it. The point of comparative testing is so you can compare your sample with known others. Absolute testing of one ink tells you nothing much about its character.
{If you're a refiller you can buy recently expired large carts of HP and Canon inks on eBay.} Direct sunlight has about 4% UV but it is a very short wavelength compared to compared to the rest of the spectrum so it packs a big punch on some materials.. A test outdoors will provide a reasonable UV load.

Great advice, and I'd also include a sample with low quality 3rd party dye ink as another control so you know that the UV is sufficient to degrade at least some inks. If the low quality ink doesn't fade, you'd have reason to believe that the UV exposure (intensity, time, wavelength, etc.) was not sufficient for the test to be meaningful.

Also it might be helpful to mask part of each sample with removable tape or something similar to block the UV locally and make comparison of the exposed and unexposed regions easy.

 

[clive]

My T120 is a fairly new design and can easily go beyond the plan and drawing capabilities of these machines. On glossy or satin stock at max resolution it produces excellent color prints. How useful it would be if you could run pigment colors as well as black.
{As an aside, Something tells me that HP have worked hard at new ink lay-down algorithms recently because the new "Z" series no longer have LM or LC carts and have done away with one of the light blacks as well. My T120 can produce amazing black and white prints with a single black cartridge.)

Also, hi to everyone, this is my first post on this amazing site.

I have recently bought a T120 and like yourself am in Australia – Sydney. I have been doing some testing and so far very happy with the results. Like yourself I find the colour prints/photos better than my expectation – which was based on my Designjet 110+ output.

However my BandW have a colour cast, when using the CMY dye ink. Using just the black pigment the result is not acceptable.

“My T120 can produce amazing black and white prints with a single black cartridge”
What settings are you using for your BandW ?

 

[ccc]

I have recently bought a T120 and like yourself am in Australia – Sydney. I have been doing some testing and so far very happy with the results. Like yourself I find the colour prints/photos better than my expectation – which was based on my Designjet 110+ output.

However my BandW have a colour cast, when using the CMY dye ink. Using just the black pigment the result is not acceptable.

“My T120 can produce amazing black and white prints with a single black cartridge”
What settings are you using for your BandW ?

Part of the secret of getting good B&W is to use a paper setting that allows printing in grayscale. I use polypropylene satin. On the "color" tab set "Print in Grayscale". Also set "Printer managed colors". Then go to the "Paper/Quality" tab and meke sure you have set for "Cusom Options", "Settings" "Max Detail" and that the paper type is set at the machine and in your printings software to the same paper type. Below is a T120 B&W print. Ther is a setting somewhere to adjust the printer for banding. Explore your menu and service menu.