Pigment Ink for Epson XP-950

[Ink stained Fingers]

oh well, you know the answers to your (rhetoric??..assumingly) questions... you as a consumer are supposed to spend your money but not asking too much of such details..

Glossy papers can yield better fading performance than matte papers, but not all glossy papers are alike, just look to my posting #184 https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/which-pigment-ink-for-epson-1500w.9323/page-19#post-92490
illustrating how much different brands of glossy papers, all of the resin coated type (RC) with a PE film layer, change the fading performance of the same ink, it is significant. So how much to do want to spend on photo papers - 10ct or 50ct or 70ct ?
I just use 4 CMYK color patches to compare - different colors fade with different speed, I can't handle the color checker 30 color patches.
You may use the freeware 'Gamutvision' to compare profiles, I'm using a pretty old version of Monaco Gamutworks I'm used to but this software is gone.

 

[The Hat]

@te36, from what I can gather reading you post is, your try to get to the impossible (Holy Grail), if you intend to sell your prints, you must ONLY use OEM ink and premium papers, so you must suffer the high costs involved, there are no shortcuts.

As far as the fade testing goes, don’t believe any of them, because all their testing is done in Lab conditions and NO print whether it’s an Oil Paintings, Lithographic Print or the humble Inkjet Print will stand up to direct sun light. (Impossible)

You can’t expect to pay very little to gain a lot, it can’t be done, yes, you are the consumer, but when you sell your prints, you then become the Vender and therefore you must stand behind your work...

 

[te36]

Your arguments "trust the OEM" sounds a bit like "If you buy from Microsoft you won't get fired if it doesn't work" (from my line of work). Only that i do not believe it. If i where to sell prints i should have some better argument to my customers than "i trust the OEM (but they really only tell me BS...)".

Whether i am an end-user or actually wanting to sell prints, i am happy to pay for the value i receive. The OEMs just don't want to honestly show me the value i receive, and as long as they do not do this, i will not trust their marketing but look for alternatives. With OEM price for ink it is extremely hard to believe that thats the best value i can get.

Even more fundamentally, i would like to be able to switch printer vendors once i am happy with some ink. Thats a good reason to see whats the best i can get out of 3 or 5 color prints.

 

[apetitphoto]

From Epson:

https://www.epson.eu/how-epson-measures-print-speeds/print-permanence-rating

Ink Type:Ink Type: Pigment-based Epson UltraChrome® HD ink technology

Fade Resistance / Print Longevity:Color: Up to 200 years
Black-and-White: Up to 400 years

 

[apetitphoto]

And some stuff from canon:

http://downloads.canon.com/cpr/soft...anon_WIR_LUCIA_Resistance_Result_April_07.pdf

 

[apetitphoto]

Your arguments "trust the OEM" sounds a bit like "If you buy from Microsoft you won't get fired if it doesn't work" (from my line of work). Only that i do not believe it. If i where to sell prints i should have some better argument to my customers than "i trust the OEM (but they really only tell me BS...)".

Whether i am an end-user or actually wanting to sell prints, i am happy to pay for the value i receive. The OEMs just don't want to honestly show me the value i receive, and as long as they do not do this, i will not trust their marketing but look for alternatives. With OEM price for ink it is extremely hard to believe that thats the best value i can get.

Even more fundamentally, i would like to be able to switch printer vendors once i am happy with some ink. Thats a good reason to see whats the best i can get out of 3 or 5 color prints.

Switching printer vendors/makers may mean a change in ink as different makers use different print head mechanisms which require different inks. You seem to be chasing the holy grail of inks and paper combinations and, at least in this case, there ain't no such thing.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

If it would be that easy - but the Canon report in reference is from 2007, 10 years old, and the Epson data are for an age old SP/R2400 printer and a newer 7880. A lot has changed and improved with the inks since then, there are new generations available now. There is much more current and detailed data in the Aardenburg database, Epson and Canon have supposedly changed over from WIR to Aardenburg since these organisations became competitors some time ago. Whatever - there is interesting data available. The Aardenburg reports all contain a table how to translate easily their CDR megaluxhours into a number 'Years on Display' for several different display conditions, and to relate them as well to the WIR Print Permanence Ratings. Hundreds of such reports are available with Canon and Epson data, the problem is that there are virtually no data for inks and papers supplied by the 3rd party consumables market, and that makes it so difficult to get any feeling how much you would gain or loose using their products - inks and papers - gaining/loosing performance vs. a pricing benefit. You may not need the greatest performance for all your prints - but you don't know at all what you can get for 30% or 10% of the price - better or worse performance ? We have just been discussing this in this thread in relation to the Fujifilm inks, pretty expensive - but how many more inks are there on the market - you cannot count them all and even less test them all.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I tested the InkOwl dye ink claiming 'UV resistance', it's disappointing, no - the ink is not that much UV resistant, (but as expected I must admit)

That's how CMY patches fade after 5 days in the open, mixed weather, there is no visible and measurable change on patches with the Fujifilm DL ink running parallel, on the same sheet of paper, in the same environment, the ink is performing like many in this range, slightly worse than a similar ink EV6 by precisioncolors used well in this test. This InkOwl ink appears to be overpriced for me with its pricing and performance claims, it would be o.k. as a budget type ink if you don't expect too much.
As discussed there are just a few dye inks available with very good fading performance, and please consider as well to use a good glossy paper with it, cheap castcoated papers will downgrade the performance of even the best inks.

 

[te36]

Thanks, ISF.
If i manage to repair the one XP610 here that doesn't want to turn on, i might try it with pigment ink, and my XP900 will probably get fotonic ink.

I am not quite sure about resin vs. cast coated high gloss photo paper. What difference would i have to expect on the printing side ? Because i think i do not see a difference:

I have kirkland high glossy inkjet paper which claims resin coated, and i do notice the photo paper like back side. And that back side is well water resistant.

https://www.costco.com/Kirkland-Sig...onal-Glossy-Photo-Paper.product.11612316.html

Then i also have the print4life.de super glossy paper which on the back side seems to be not protected, so it takes on water on that side.

But on the print side, i can notice no difference. Seemingly equally water resistant as the kirkland.

So i do get the point that air can get to the colors on the back side if it's not resin coated. But i guess i could try to spray film the back side (or just use the print4life for album A3 prints but not for those i put on walls).

But how about the print side, eg: What difference in being "air tight" could i expect in different high glossy papers. Any way for me to test whether a paper is better or worse other than seeing that it does not take on water ?

How about putting some spray finish on the paper ?

Else maybe laminating. I don't think i'll be a fan of the laminating material, but for protection against air it should be good, right ?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Oh well, lots of questions - so let's start somewhere.

I must admit that you can find lots of garbage published when you try to find some good and clear and simple description of the differences of cc vs. PE/RC papers, and some of it is not even applicable to specific inkjet papers, but only to other types of printing papers.
'Cast coated' is a gross description of a production process to get some coating (with any property) onto a base material/substrate - a paper type base in case of most inkjet papers (if you don't look to polyester films as the base material).
The coating for inkjet papers is supposed to do the most important thing - to keep the ink, the dyes on the paper, it is a kind of porous to microporous, absorbing the ink, the dyes with the solvent, and this creates the impression that it is dry very quickly - instant dry, but it is not actually - it takes a while until the solvent, the water and the glycoles are evaroprated.
The Coating of a cc paper is applied directly onto the base paper/karton, and the consequence is that the solvent migrates from the top layer into the paper and the paper may expand slightly and temporarily until the solvents are gone. This effect makes cc paper slightly wavy after the print depending on the ink density on the surface.
Better papers, with a more complex production process (and more expensive), come with PE layers on the front and the back, a very thin polyester film is applied to the base paper, on both sides, and this makes the back of such paper water repellent, and it feels a little bit more plasticy , and you cannot print on it, water based inks won't adhere. The front side is coated with several layers, microporous, ink absorbing and a kind of lacquer for the gloss. Such surface won't allow the solvent to penetrate the paper itself, it is still mircoporous and the solvent stays in the coating for a short while.

A diagram in this article under the section title 'Cast coated Papiere' illustrates this
https://fineart-foto.de/fine-art-papier-was-ist-das/ the 2nd image from the left.
Swellable papers show up a lot in descriptions of inkjet papers - 3rd image from the left - but those are not standard papers at all, only specialty papers , the handling needs more caution, they are expensive, but.. look very good.
RC - resin coated - papers, this abbreviation does not describe the production process but the chemical base of the coating - that must adhere to the PE film which is not that simple as to adhere to a plain-fibrous paper surface, so some additional glue/binder is necessary.
So, if the back of your paper is water repellant it is of the PE/RC paper type, and the pricing is in line with this.
I did lots of ink testing over the last years, and it showed again and again that the same ink performs much better on these PE/RC papers than on such cc-papers - up to a factor of 3 - 5 until the same level of fading becomes visible.It can be the porosity to give ozone easier access to the dyes - whatever.
And there is another visible difference between the cc-papers and the RC-papers, the RC-papers give you a wider gamut, more color saturation and a better black level which impacts the visible contrast of a print.
Your Kirkland paper claims to be compatible with all inkjet printers - that's another broad claim which is not true in all cases. All papers look pretty good with dye inks, there is not much difference, but when it comes to pigment inks you'll find visible differences between papers how prints look with the same pigment inkset, it might be the gloss, the bronzing, which are the complicating factors with pigment inks. It may look great - or not so. And different pigment inks may look different on the same paper.
A gloss optimizer overprint would remedy most of those differences but that is a different subject.

Lamination - I only would do that for special applications when the additional protection - scratch, humidity is necessary. @The Hat did a specific test with lamination here
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/3rd-party-dye-ink-fade-test.11694/page-2#post-100184