Refilling Canon with OEM ink

[The Hat]

I don't find a way to compensate this. You can darken the image or print, but the deepest black remains the same, no better d-MAX, only a darker print...

When you print CYMK with Litho, the black was only used for highlights in the darker areas of the picture and on its own could only achieve 70 % black, not true black, but to make sure the solid areas remains very black, it was customary to use 25% cyan underneath it, that included the text also..

 

[martin0reg]

[edit to add: The following verdict is too harsh! I won't change it after the fact - but see my finding in post #15 below.
The canon GI ink is definitely no chromalife, but at least as good as - or better - than a good quality 3rd party ink..]


Anybody wants to buy a pixma ip3000 with new canon OEM ink?
After my first fading test of the new bottled GI-490 ink set I have to admit that I'm disappointed...

See the prints after 10 days under a UVa bulb (imitating bright sun light for terrarium).

The four competitors are: canon BCI-1411 cartridges (for dye LFP), some standard compatible ink (could be IS or sudhaus), espon L300 bottled ink (known as weaker than L800 bottled ink), and fuji DL (in a old stylus photo 950, sometimes blotting)
All prints on a cheap but decent semiglossy RC paper (size A6 4x6"), scanned side by side.



To my eyes the new canon ink seems to fade like a standard compatible dye ink.
And moreover the three colors fade uneven resulting in a visible color shift to the greenish side.

Note that the unexposed samples on the left are not really the same (what they should be, if I would have them profiled exactly the same), so you can judge the fading of each pair but not the fading across all faded samples.

 

[martin0reg]

Here is my last competition in search of a stable, or at least of the less unstable dye ink for canon BCI / CLI printers (and also for newer pixma's with a similar ink set)

Inks are from MIS and "Tintenalarm", printed on cheap (cast coated) glossy paper,
the B&W image was printed just like the other, using all "photo colors"

But this time they were exposed 14 days (!) ...




... and although the fading is fairly strong, a difference is clearly visible.


My personal conclusion: the canon BCI-1411 (previous posting) is the best among these generally bad(***) "compatible" dye inks.. but sadly for canon there seems to be no such alternative like DL or D6 for epson dye...

(*** regarding light fading only...no other criterion here..!)

 

[martin0reg]

After reading about fading tests and megalux I just tried to evaluate very roughly the output of my "dersert lamp", which is a sort of DIY-fader:
http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...uting-magenta-and-cyan.7545/page-5#post-80941

Lux relates to EV and my light meter reads 12 EV under the shade with the 26W full spectrum fluorescent bulb...
- what seems to be equivalent to about 10,000 lux = 0.01 megalux.

Most of my tests took one week = 7 x 24hrs = 168hrs
So 0.01 x 168 would result in 1.68 mlux hrs exposure.

In this informative PDF is an overview of some typical indoor light levels...
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/AaI_2009_0118_TA-01.pdf
...the level under my desert lamp (10k lux) seems to be like the strongest level of the list at the end of the paper: bright sunlight through a south facing window.

(Aardenburg: "A very simple rule of thumb to relate Conservation Display ratings to industry-standardized “years on display” is to divide the Megalux-hour values by 2. This simple relationship between megalux-hours and years on display uses the widely cited industry-standard assumption of average display illumination levels equal to 450 lux for 12 hours per day."

So one week under the DIY fader (1.68 megalux hours) would be like 10 months "on display ... in a bright home or commercial office building illumination level is 200-500 lux. Also, good illumination for color critical viewing and color matching tasks begins at about 500 lux."

Enough calculating.. just wanted to make a rough estimate how things may relate to real life fading...

 

[martin0reg]

..
After my first fading test of the new bottled GI-490 ink set I have to admit that I'm disappointed...

After another fading test with the canon bottled "GI" ink in my ip3000 I couldn't trust my eyes.. it seems I had no idea how important the paper choice really is:

above: Aldi/Sihl 280 glossy (RC)
below: some cheap unlabeled 180g glossy (CC)
Both on the right were only 6 days under the UV bulb, all scanned side by side

The difference between these two sorts of paper seems to look bigger than, let's say, the difference between some bad 3rd party ink and canon OEM chromalife!

So this canon GI ink set is probably not so bad as I assumed in previous posts.

And I have to add: the d-max (of this CMY ink set without K) is not as weak as I assumed, after printing on better paper with custom profiles.

So I would not sell my ip3000 anymore. It's one of the rare older models with chipless easy to refill carts - and new printheads available!

And here are the other prints, on top stored in the dark, below after the same 6 days under UV bulb:
to compare R285 with L800 ink vs. ip3000 with GI-490
(all on the same aldi/sihl 280g glossy RC paper)

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did some limited testing of various papers last year as well and can confirm your findings that that some papers like the Sihl Glossy perform better, let the inks fade slower than other papers. I tested the papers actually to find that one which would give me the quickest results, would let the inks fade faster than other papers so I didn't continue that testing and I just use the Labelheaven 180gr cast coated for the time being. Using different papers for testing adds another variable to account for and makes it more difficult to find the best ink/paper combination, and an overprint with a gloss optimizer would have as well an improving effect.

 

[martin0reg]

One more update of canon 4-5 channel ink sets, 8 days under UVa bulb. Printed on the same cheap CC glossy paper.
To my surprise the two canon "OEM" inks,
- BCI-1411 from bigger carts and GI-490 bottled ink,
are not better than the two 3rd-party inks,
- "Tintenalarm" (with M from IS) and MIS.



As with my previous test, you can not compare all exposed prints across.
Because the four are not profiled, instead printed out of canon driver. So looking at the unexposed you see how the ink would match canon colors.

 

[martin0reg]

Finally I will do some tests with canon OEM, chromalife and chromalife+, because friends let me do some prints on their pixma. And they are using OEM, other than me, a poor refiller...
Here is my first, printed on plain paper. I'm surprised this uncoated paper seems to keep the colors better than some cheap photo papers of previous tests. Maybe that on this sort of paper you see the ink fading "as such" ..?

On top: IS / on bottom: OEM

PS:
I have written some more or less clear annotations on the prints.
But on all prints there is a
- "UV1" = kept in a folder .. and a
- "UV2" = exposed to the UV lamp

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you know that Canon inks are not my turf, but there are some commonalities nevertheless in this subject.

I did some media testing last year, with Epson compatible inks, and can confirm that plain paper is not the worst in regards to fading. I'm not testing plain paper this year since I'm not printing any critical images on plain paper, if at all then only with a laser printer. Some cast coated glossy papers fade pretty quick, and I have a well a 250g matte paper by Tecco which is equally bad. I must admit I have not expected such a wide variance between the fading performance of different papers. I'll report my findings in some weeks, I'm still waiting for the fading to become visible under the scotch taped patches.
The choice of good ink alternatives is wider for Epson printers, for some reason, the only stable ink
for Canons would be the Fotonic XG by Marrutt/Lyson
http://marrutt.com/find-my-printer/...ro-9000-mark-ii-printer-ink#lyson-ink-refills
(watch the pricing whether it's with or without VAT )

I tested that ink as the Epson version - C and BK - against the Fujifilm DL inks - the black is very good, very dark and fades as slow as the DL ink, the Cyan is a somewhat weaker than the DL Cyan, but much better than any regular standard ink. But the negative for me is the very high pricing, above the DL inks, so no alternate choice for me. But I would expect that inks advertised for the Pro-9000 would print as well in most other Canon printers, and profiling would be a must.

 

[martin0reg]

You know the UV test of lyson fotonic xg (for epson 1400) at aardenburg?
I remember (very) bad results...