Which companies supply the higher quality non-OEM inks for Canon printers?

[stratman]

As I understand from the octoink site KMP ink is only used for the PGBK

An important distinction I failed to note though I surely thought it. The mind is faster than the typing fingers.

My recommendation for the OP to try a small quantity of refill ink remain valid regardless of what changes to various ink sets have occurred. Or were your comments about updated ink sets aimed at mikling but written to me?

OP needs to wade into the water first with a reputable seller's brand. The "local" Octoink makes for a logical first choice.

Unless you or others believe it not to be in his best interest. Are you saying that?

 

[stratman]

IS did not produce any newer inks since the CLI-8 days.

How does that comport with what Palombian just wrote? It appears there is a major discrepancy with your comment:

or the PRO-9500 pigment printers, in the old IS formula (now STS), sold by www.octoink.co.uk and www.precisioncolors.com, some colours have been replaced since more than 2 years (due to imperfections in gloss difference, ink feed and adherence).

Since then their inks are not the same.

Precision Colors replaced C,M,PC,PM,R and GY in a new inkset, while octoinkjet has v2 ink for M,PM,R,GY,BK,PBK and G.

 

[palombian]

How does that comport with what Palombian just wrote? It appears there is a major discrepancy with your comment:

The PRO-9500 was the first small format Canon pigment printer.
Probably Canon and the 3th party suppliers just used the Lucia ink made for the wide format printers.

A few years ago there was some panic when IS was sold. It made me experiment with other suppliers (Prodinks, Octopus.de), but their inks for the 9500 were nowhere comparable even with the old IS inkset.
Prodinks eclipsed and I have no information about changes from Octopus.de (their Maxify ink is OK).

Much appreciated octoink and PC did the effort to enhance the inkset for a now obsolete machine.

 

[palombian]

An important distinction I failed to note though I surely thought it. The mind is faster than the typing fingers.

My recommendation for the OP to try a small quantity of refill ink remain valid regardless of what changes to various ink sets have occurred. Or were your comments about updated ink sets aimed at mikling but written to me?

OP needs to wade into the water first with a reputable seller's brand. The "local" Octoink makes for a logical first choice.

Unless you or others believe it not to be in his best interest. Are you saying that?

I would only suggest the ink for pigment printers was probably not from KMP.
The only thing for sure is that octoink has a different supplier for the actual inksets (for PRO-9500 and PRO-10) than PC.
PC was faster, I think that was the reason I switched.
Octoink's solution most probably is OK (no experience) but it is not as simple as: in the UK buy from octo, in the States from PC (with the anglosaxon simplification that the rest of the world doesn't exist ).

 

[arw4]

IS did not produce any newer inks since the CLI-8 days. The midrange printers are now two generations past the CLI-8 and the color tones have changed in both these. It appears that some are treating the CLI-8 inks as universal Canon inks.
Paper composition has changed and pigment inks had to change with that was well. Today's printers actually accommodate this in how they use pigment ink and the composition of this pigment ink has changed as well to accomodate faster dry times and penetration characteristics.
BTW, there is a lot more than tinkering going on, PC actually works with ink labs to develop and achieve results not obtainable elsewhere.

I didn't know this for sure, but I suspected this was the case. Thanks for clarifying the matter - especially useful information for anyone assuming the CLI-8 inks could be used across the board. With mid-range printers being comparatively cheap, my strategy is to buy two or three when I only in fact need one. That way, when one printer finally gives out, I've got a direct replacement on hand to continue using my existing ink supplies and cartridges. In some ways, I miss the CLI-8 days. Things were a lot easier, the carts were semi-transparent so you could see the ink, they contained more ink, they didn't have chips, and there was a proper working ink monitoring system that actually monitored ink consumption.

I note your comment about PC, and do recognise them as a highly reputable and leading supplier.

 

[stratman]

@palombian --

I am not sure why the talk about the Pro-9500 and the Pro-10 which are all pigment ink. The OP lists his printers as

Printers: Canon MX 925, Canon MG 5650 x 2, Canon MG5751 x2

These are all primarily Dye-based colors with one Pigment Black cartridge.

Probably the reason I didn't type that the KMP Pigment was just for the PGBK cartridge of these printers and not the CLI's. What else would it be for?

 

[arw4]

An important distinction I failed to note though I surely thought it. The mind is faster than the typing fingers.

My recommendation for the OP to try a small quantity of refill ink remain valid regardless of what changes to various ink sets have occurred. Or were your comments about updated ink sets aimed at mikling but written to me?

OP needs to wade into the water first with a reputable seller's brand. The "local" Octoink makes for a logical first choice.

Unless you or others believe it not to be in his best interest. Are you saying that?

No misunderstanding here, Stratman. I had kept up with the "mind" and the "typing fingers"! KMP pigmented ink seems a good solid choice for my pigment black cartridge only. I'm looking forward to trialing this.

One thing I've often wondered is how the printer driver interprets when to use pigmented black and when to use dye black. I would imagine the distinction is fairly straightforward when printing, say, a Word document using standard black text. Yes, the pigmented black would be employed to produce a printed page with solid black text that is far more fade resistant etc. But what if I were to print a page of notated music (score), as I often do? Which of the black inks (pigment or dye) would be used? Interestingly there seems to be a difference in the appearance of the black when I switch between "standard" and "high" quality settings in the printer driver.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

how the printer driver interprets when to use pigmented black and when to use dye black

That's pretty easy - the black ink type selection goes by the paper type you select in the driver - normal paper - pigment black, same for matte papers - glossy , silk, semiglossy etc papers are used with dye black inks. There may be some tricky deviations from that rule with some Canon printers - e.g. if you select automatic duplex printing the driver switches to the dye black, or if you print borderless on normal paper it may switch as well to the dye black. The ink selection is not context dependend of your document you want to print - like using pigment inks for text and dye blacks for photos on the same sheet - no.

 

[arw4]

The PRO-9500 was the first small format Canon pigment printer.
Probably Canon and the 3th party suppliers just used the Lucia ink made for the wide format printers.

A few years ago there was some panic when IS was sold. It made me experiment with other suppliers (Prodinks, Octopus.de), but their inks for the 9500 were nowhere comparable even with the old IS inkset.
Prodinks eclipsed and I have no information about changes from Octopus.de (their Maxify ink is OK).

Much appreciated octoink and PC did the effort to enhance the inkset for a now obsolete machine.

It's certainly interesting to learn about your experiences, and thanks for sharing your knowledge. I am mindful, however, we're talking about two completely different ink sets - pigment and dye. As you use a pigmented ink set, your experiences are naturally focused in that area, but I would have to question how much of what you describe can be related to dye ink sets of the companies you talk about. I think this is perhaps why a degree of ambiguity may have arisen in previous posts.

However, as far as I know both PC and Octoink have switched from using IS in their (or at least some) Canon compatible dye based ink sets, and no doubt these well reputed companies had justifiable reasons for doing so.

 

[The Hat]

It’s not always the print driver that works out which black ink it will use, you can make the decision yourself by selecting which media to use and that will over ride both the Application and printer’s choice.

There’s more to this than meets the eye, the App. you print your file from also makes a difference, a text document with graphics, in a Word file will use pigment black, but the same document printed in PDF file can use both blacks, but only if your media is set to plain paper, any other media setting, then only photo black is used, regardless of which App you use.

There are lots of variation in how the printer and Applications determines which ink is used, for instance a Vector file will usually use pigment black while a raster file will use photo black, so where does that leave the plain ordinary text file ?

While text may look like a Vector file but in fact it’s a bitmapped image, so by right it should always use photo black, and in a PDF file it mostly does, but in a Word file it doesn’t, and Canon printers will use both blacks mixed for a Duplex document, confused yet !

Lots of other Applications have many variations, that why your text may not look as black looking in some file formats, while in others, its very black, Applications used for photos can also cause this effect..

What’s not commonly known, with some Canon Pro printers is, they mix matte/photo black on some glossy surfaces to get a deeper black when required, this is borne out by the levels of black ink used in a long print run...