Which Pigment Ink for Epson 1500W?

[Ink stained Fingers]

I placed a 4 color CMYBk patch set with the EV6 inks into the sun, for 30 days, together with other targets for the paper fade tests.
The black fades into a kind of light brown


The luminance histogram of the exposed and unexposed part of the black patch is displayed,
this Paintshop program allows me to read the peaks at the cross hair cursor position, the peaks differ by exactly 100, accidentally. I call this the SEED - the Summer Equivalent Exposure Dose for one month - UV and ozone and humidity all together. Using like patches in the future together with new targets - I'm not sure that I won't run more fading tests in a while - will allow me to measure the actual exposure dose by comparison to this one, so I can compare results of tests which don't run parallel at the same time. And it allows me to measure and compare other places like the fridge door in the kitchen.....The reading with the scanner is quite accurate overall, the variance is +-1 when scanning and reading the patches repeatedly or tomorrow again, this relates to the horizontal luminance axis from 0-255, so a delta goes with a +-2 digit tolerance.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I brought up the Fotonic inks in the Canon ink thread, I know the Aardenburg results, they differ by a factor of more than 10 vs. this tests of the Fujifilm DL inks. I would assume that Lyson changed their ink recipe when I look to my numbers - the actual readings and their delta - in a period of one month - these inks got exactly one SEED - as explained above.....

............................... Cyan............. Black

Epson Ultrachrome D6.... 48 - 94 / 46.... 28 - 47 / 19

Fujifilm DL .................47 - 83 / 36.... 24 - 42 / 18

Fotonic XG .................69 -117 / 48.... 24 - 35 / 11

The D6 and Fotonic cyan deltas are the same with 46/48, the DL ink fades less with a spread of 36,
the D6 and DL blacks with 18/19 fade about equally, the Fotonic black is doing even better.
The DL and Fotonic blacks have about the same black level of 24, that's visibly darker than the 28 of the D6 ink, so the Fotonic ink actually performs very well overall, just their pricing is above the pricing for Fujifilm inks. There are no equivalent other inks available for Canon printers so this may be the only choice in this case.
This overall result - compare the black level shift here of 11/18/19 here against the 100 with the EV6 ink above - shows the huge differences between inks - on the same paper, different papers are another game, the tests are still out in the sun.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm taking some of the paper targets out of the fading race since the results are obvious after 25 days

That's an Epson Inkjet paper (coated) #1, Labelheaven 180 cast coated #2, Logic Seek cast coated 180 #3. The patches are partially covered by a piece of Scotch tape to check for its protection effect. And there is another interesting detail, visible on patches #2 and #3, there is a barely visible vertical line from top to bottom on the right side, that is Scotch tape on the back side taping target sheets together, Scotch tape even on the back side impacts the fading on the coated front side, there is apparently some gas exchange, probably the ozone ingressing from the back side, or not where the Scotch tape is. Cast coated papers don't have a PE foil barrier between the coating and the paper carrier like the RC coated better PE photo papers.
The ink used for these prints is a Coloration ED by farbenwerk.com advertised as suitable for 6 color Epson photo printers, it is performing somewhat similar to the EV6 inks by precisioncolors.
The Scotch tape shows a pretty impressive protective effect - prolonging the fading by a factor of 2.5 to 5 until the same level of lightness increase is reached on the protected patches. The effect of lamination should be somewhat similar, it is another question whether that is practical and reasonable for dye prints. Tests in some more days will show that the effect is similar with higher grade photo papers. Lamination of poor performing papers is probably not a good approach to reduce the fading, the right choice of paper itself is much more contributing to a good fading performance than some people expect.
Just some numbers - the Epson inkjet paper increases the lightness of the black by 97, the Labelheaven fades by 122, and the Logic Seek as well by 121, the starting black levels are slightly different so the final colors may look as well slightly different.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

please let me show you some more findings about the paper fading performance after 4 weeks


#1 is the Sihl/Aldi paper, #2 the Netbit/Aldi , the Sihl fades by 59, the Netbit paper by 34, that's quite a difference, as well visible, both papers are sold at the same price for about 10ct/A4, the Scotch tape areas show how much better the paper performs with additional protection , about 3x to reach the same level of lightness increase. I haven't seen both papers since a while in German Aldi shops, this may be different in other countries Aldi is serving.

#3 is a Tecco PG230, Photo Glossy which is offered for use with Drylab printers, the black fades by 20, visibly less than the Aldi papers, this PG230 is offered for 35ct/A4.

#4 is a Tecco Premium Photo Glossy PPG280, thicker, has a slightly smoother gloss than the PG230 , fades as well by 20 , and is sold for about 70ct/A4, about the double price as the PG230, with the same fading performance.

#5 is the HP Premium Photo Glossy and the black fades by about 27, and is the only paper which turns into a blueish gray whereas all other papers turn into brown - with the same ink on all sheets.
This paper has as well a very smooth gloss and 300gr, and is sold for about 50ct/A4.

#6 is my XX-paper, I got it at least 10 years ago, it is of a swellable type, you only can print single sheets, or they stick and glue together. The surface is like a kind of fine/smooth leather, but with some spots as if the casting material contained some particles, this paper is not usable for regular printouts, but it is interesting that this is the least fading paper in the test, only by 10 so far, barely visible. I don't know where I got it, I think it was a sales out action - very cheap.

I took another paper out of the test - a Tecco Baryt glossy, with a nice surface but attracting strongly every drop of rain and mist in the vicinity, and it is fading worse than the Labelheaven papers from the previous post. This paper would require very careful handling , e.g. cotton gloves, and be displayed behind glass or something.
And I stopped as well a Tecco Duo matte, printing matte on both sides, as well a very nice surface, very smooth and matte, but fading as well faster than the Labelheaven type. This paper would better run with pigment inks.
These are specialty papers, more expensive, the fading characteristics are mediocre but most likely not the prime selection criteria when somebody plans to use them.
This review shows the wide variance of the fading performance of these papers , and as well in relation to the pricing ranging from 4ct for the Labelheaven paper to the 70ct and more of the premium Tecco papers. Premium papers of other suppliers like Canson, Hahnemühle etc are in about the same pricing range but we cannot directly transfer these findings with the Tecco papers to any other brand, and since the suppliers won't tell you the consumer is left alone to find out.
Photo papers can vary in price from 4ct/A4 to 70ct and more, and inks can vary from 10€/litre from China to 200€ for the Drylab inks so the risk is pretty high that inks and papers are not combined optimally to suit the purpose - it's a range of 1:20x20 for both - inks and papers together. I don't mind to use low price material - I know what I get for the money and what the limitations are, and the benefits if I don't go for an unnecessary overkill.

 

[The Hat]

@Ink stained Fingers, I reckon I’m on the same tram as you, I’m happy using the cheaper papers and inks and am not interested in top quality OEM products, they wouldn’t increase my pleasure in any way, far from it because I can always reprint anything that starts to look a bit jaded.

I mainly use the Lidl Sihl glossy photo paper for all my own photos and switch to pigment ink for any photos for my friends, it’s a win win situation I reckon, I wish Lidl will stock some more Photo paper soon because I’m down to my last two boxes, I still have 5000 of their copy paper which is very good.

Thank for your excellent and detailed fade tests, I never tire of them..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I think some awareness of these wide performance and price differences is important for the consumer that he can make the right purchasing decision, but producers or dealers don't provide any good information about that . Marketing claims about the most colorful printouts ever are just blabla and don't help at all. I'll continue to use Labelheaven like papers when I know about the limited time prints are looked at, or I use the Netbit/Tecco type papers with the DL inks for those prints which are sold or given away and I can't reprint them whenever later, or I do pigment ink prints for larger format posters. Specialty prints on non-standard papers are always interesting and done as needed. Or I use something in between and test this or that, and that's always good for a surprise.

 

[Ionlab]

OK as promised here are my profiles for the 1500w for the Epson Premium Glossy Paper and the Cheaper Media Range (with the L800 inks). Also for comparison is included the RX520 profile for the Epson Premium Glossy again with the same inks and the WF-3540 profile for the Epson Premium Glossy with the EPSON original pigment inks.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2F6Wk2hyXPram04cHlKM0RPWlk&usp=sharing

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Your profiles are all V4 which might create some problems with non-compliant software , it wouldn't matter too much probably that Firefox is only supporting V2 at this time. The WF profile seems to be somewhat off from the other profiles and weaker in the magenta to cyan range at medium lightness but much wider than the others around L=25 if my display software is correct with the V4 profiles.

 

[Ionlab]

Yeah that was the default option in the software! Later realized that was the reason I could not select the profiles directly from the Epson printer driver as well. Is there any difference between V2 and V4 (wider gamut, more accuracy etc). But I must say....printing photos in A3+ or panoramas does spoil you...wish I had the dough for an ever wider format printer. And wish someone had the EPSON udps printer utility because I still have not found any links

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Icc profiles V4 vs. V2 - that's not that simple , see
http://www.color.org/whyusev4.xalter and make sense out of it.
You are on the safe side with V2 profiles, change your program setting, you may get into some problems now and then with other software as well, profiles with different versions cannot easily be converted from one into the other version.