Ultra K / Ultra black pigment ink from Precision Colors

[ghwellsjr]

There's nothing out of the ordinary to show for the pigment inks. You can see a closeup of a couple lines at the bottom of the last picture. Except for the warped paper, you can't tell that anything has happened to them for either the plain paper or the ColorLok paper. Do you really want to see more than what you can see in those couple lines?

 

[Tin Ho]

Ghwellsjr, the dried HP colorlok paper shows some gray shadow on some part on the left side of the paper. It looks like some washed off ink. The right side is plain white still. Can you tell if it is ink or something else that makes it look like that? The paper did show that it is quite resistant to water wash. That's quite a technology. But if the gray shadow is caused by washed off ink it may eventually smear if the sheet is kept damp for longer like a few hours or a day. You proved a point. Dye ink plus HP bright white paper (colorlok) does the wash test surprisingly well. Are there any other paper that will do so well too?

 

[ghwellsjr]

The shadowing you see is a result of the warped paper and angle of the lighting. If I had stretched the paper out and made it evenly flat with direct light on it, you would not see any shadow. In fact, I showed the two printouts to my wife in the sunlight and she immediately identified the text on the wetted side of the ColorLok paper as being "darker". I would characterize it as being "bolder". That is quite noticeable. I think you can see it in the photo. I asked her if she could see any difference in the white background and she said "no" and neither can I.

However, I would consider a document ruined that suffered a minute under water. Both sheets are not just warped, they become a little stiffer and crinkly and a nuisance to handle. But at least you could make a copy and "recover" the document with no ill effects.

There is a small amount of show-through on the back side of the ColorLok page that had the dye ink printing and got wet and a tremendous amount on the plain paper piece (but remember it is 20 lb vs 24 for the ColorLok page).

The bottom line is the pigment ink is superior in this test, no question about it.

 

[Tin Ho]

I showed the two printouts to my wife in the sunlight and she immediately identified the text on the wetted side of the ColorLok paper as being "darker". I would characterize it as being "bolder". That is quite noticeable. I think you can see it in the photo. I asked her if she could see any difference in the white background and she said "no" and neither can I.

I too noticed that the "bolder" effect on the side that was washed. Water did cause this to happen. This is one minute only of wash. If it is soaked for an hour it may show smearing eventually. It does not have to be soaked. If the environment is humid the dye ink may eventually smear. That's the concern. Pigment ink will hold up much better.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Pigment ink will hold up much better.

As I said, "pigment ink is superior in this test, no question about it."

But it is not superior when used on ColorLok paper with a highlighter or, possibly, when sent through the mail. Obviously, the best solution is to use non-ColorLok paper when you are only using pigment ink, but if you also have dye ink colors, you're better off with ColorLok paper.

If there were a good highlighter pen that wouldn't smear the pigment ink on ColorLok paper, that would be the best solution.