Tom's Hardware ink evaluation & paper benchmarks

[panos]

Tom's hardware has published an interesting article with advice for evaluating the quality of your ink and paper. The ink part is obviously focused on refillers which makes it more interesting.

They had also published a comparison of inkjet papers a few months ago. This is a very interesting read as well, I can tell from personal experience that if you print text documents on your inkjet, you'll be blown away by the results on a higher quality paper such as HP Bright White.

 

[rodbam]

Thanks for posting the links mate the first one on the inks I found really helpful & some simple ways to test the quality of the inks. There was some great information in the article.

 

[The Hat]

I take most of these articles on comparisons and evaluations on paper / ink with extreme caution.
Some have an axe to grind or are in someones pocket so try your own tests
on paper you like to use and then draw your own conclusions.

A lot of the time the oddest of papers work great with 3 party inks so finding the right combination
is not always easy and the high profile papers (in everyday use) can turn out to be a bit of a disappointment altogether...

 

[rodbam]

Caution is always required but the in depth explanations & magnified views of inks on paper & even the bleed test putting a drop of ink into another colour is easy to do at home but whether this indicates a true quality ink I don't know.
I learnt a lot more reading that article than from any other I've read & they didn't rubbish aftermarket inks, just a caution to find a good quality one which is the advice given here.
I've found I get very good looking prints from photocopy paper, cheap Kodak papers (I use this paper for test prints) & just love the prints I make on Ilfords smooth pearl.
We get very little choice down here in Oz to find a good cheap paper.

 

[The Hat]

I've found I get very good looking prints from photocopy paper, cheap Kodak papers (I use this paper for test prints) & just love the prints I make on Ilfords smooth pearl. We get very little choice down here in Oz to find a good cheap paper.

Thats it rodbam just keep on the lookout for any paper and try every sample you can get your hands on
as expensive papers are not always the best as they tend to be aimed at specific markets (most profitable)..

 

[panos]

they didn't rubbish aftermarket inks

That's the reason they got my attention. Most articles about printer inks in mass media publications are just trashing the aftermarket vendors.

This one didn't.

In regards to papers, I have found that while ink/paper combinations can vary greatly in photos (eg. HP photo papers would provide terrible results when combined with my aftermarket Canon inks), text and graphics printed in normal papers (up to 90g) are not affected by the specific combination of ink and paper as much as they are affected by the qualities of ink and paper separately.

For example I have used HP's bright white for many years with excellent results in both HP and Canon printers using either OEM ink or various aftermarket brands. The only problem is that HP Bright White isn't a two sided paper, only one side is treated to provide the best results.

On the other hand, I sometimes use an extremely cheap brand of plain paper that always yields bad results no matter the ink or the printer.

I think articles such as Tom's that increase the public's awareness of the importance of paper are good steps to the right direction.

 

[stratman]

Fun couple of articles with solid basic information. Thanks for the links.

But a couple of statements that maybe got lost in translation...

From the May 26 article:

You cant calibrate a printer, but you can calibrate a monitor.

Forum members must be a brilliant and powerful lot to bend space and time with their printer profiles. No wonder Grandad35 goes around telling people to "kneel before Zod".

I picked up a ream of the HP Multipurpose paper to evaluate the ColorLok function based on forum members' posts. The results of TomsHardware tests appear to substantiate what forum members said. Maybe we are a brilliant and powerful group.


From the September 1 article:

The subject of printing has the potential to be super boring.

Not at all.

Isn't it odd that in a world where everything seems to be stored in digital form, we still wind up printing so much content to paper?

Umm, no again, but I get the popular point he's trying to make. Technology isn't capable of being paperless for several reasons and humans still like the experience of using paper. What is odd is Soylent Green is ******! (Censored so as to not ruin the movie for those who have not seen it. It's a good sci-fi flick about the year 2022, which was 50 years into the future from when the movie was made.)

 

[rodbam]

Stratman are you saying we calibrate a printer?

 

[stratman]

Yes, Rodham, via ICM profiles. Even the manufacturer gives you basic calibration tools in their software such as the Properties settings found in Canon software.

I thought you Aussies were infamous for sarcasm. Maybe your not getting your daily recommended amount of beer.

 

[rodbam]

Ah I thought you were calling profiling calibration. Well we are infamous for what you call sarcasm ( sarcasm to us means vindictive or hateful type jokes) Ours is more Irony/satire I spose but why I missed yours was the absence of swear words