Inkjet printing and inkjet prints

Inkjet printing and inkjet inks

The Printer

Tests show that pigment inks for inkjet printing can have a light stability approaching 200 years, although most won't.
Pigment inks work particularly well on matt papers but tend not to work so well on glossy papers for two reasons:

There can be Bronzing, which is a slight metallic bronze appearance on the blacks and dark shadows. If this is going to show, it is likely to be seen with pigment inks on the more glossy papers.
Metamerism can be another fly in the ointment. It is where two objects appear to be the same colour in one light source, but are no longer of matching colour under a second light source. So two objects might be the same red inside a store, but are different reds outside in the daylight.
This is because one of the items is capable of responding to long wave light, for example, to a greater extent than the other. If the first light source has little short wave light, the objects look the same colour. If the second light source contains more long wave light, then one of the items will reflect more of the long waves and will look a different colour; in this example, it will look more red.
Pigment inks contain fluorescent components and react differently under the ultra-violent sections in the light. There can be a noticeable change of colour under different light sources, particularly on glossy or semi-gloss papers. Ideally, prints need to be assessed under the light conditions they will be permanently viewed.

Gamut is the colour range that the inks can reproduce. The gamut of pigment inks is usually slightly less than that of dyes. In practical terms it means that a greater range of subtle tones can be reproduced with the best dye inks. There are a few shortcomings with pigment ink, therefore. Unfortunately it is the pigment inks which have much longer life and fade less, so the user has to consider a trade-off between archival permanence and the best quality.

Ultrachrome is a pigment ink used in a number of the larger Epson printers. The ink has good longevity and little sign of metamerism. The A3 printers is rather heavy on ink, however, although the larger inkjet printers (4800, 7600, 9600) contain much larger ink bottles and become considerably more economical.

Lyson make a similar ink called PhotoChrome which can be used in their Continuous Ink System. It can be laminated and, like Ultrachrome, works best with matt, semi-matt and fine art papers rather than on glossy.

A very reputable tester of inks and papers for inkjet printing is Wilhelm Research and they follow the specification for fading tests outlined on the last page.
The site has a mass of information on print fading and longevity. The site is quite hard work, however, with long articles and loads of technical stuff.
Print life can depend on paper as well as inks, on on display conditions. The Wilhelm Research tests on the Ultrachrome inks give the following results:

Framed Print
years Framed with UV filter
years

Epson Glossy 85 98

Epson Lustre 71 185

Epson Velvet Fine Art 82 150

Somerset Velvet 166 200

The pigmented inks for Hewlett Packard inkjet printers have also been shown to last up to 200 years on HP papers.

Dye Inks

As with pigment inks, it is the dye ink / paper combination which must be considered when dealing with longevityin inkjet printing.
Dye inks will work well on fine art matt papers, satin finish and glossy papers.

Lyson are becoming a bit of a brand leader among independent suppliers of ink for inkjet printers both in the fields of general and fine art printing. They carry out their own tests to the same spec. as above. The Fotonic ink is a very popular choice among professional who are producing the best quality art prints. They have a wide gamut and produce excellent results on a range of papers, including high gloss, which is a bit unusual for inkjet inks.
A snag is that they will not have the longevity of pigment inks and the years given for the life-span of inks is around 25 years.

There is also the Lyson Quad Black which is a set of black inks with 4 different intensities, and coming in Cool, Neutral and Warm tones. They will last longer than standard silver halide prints.
With Lyson Standard Fine Art paper they can last up to 100 years;
with Somerset Velvet Radiant White paper, up to 100 years;
with Epson Photo paper, to 80-90 years.

Lyson Archival inks can last up to 65-75 years on Lyson papers.

The Lyson Photochrome are a subsititute for the Epson Ultrachrome but with a slightly larger gamut and they can be laminated.
The Lyson Small Gamut inks are black and white with a slight colour tone.

Printer profiles for Lyson papers and inks are available as free downloads from their website www.lyson.com. They are generic profiles which means they are a general average. You can be lucky and get excellent results but they are unlikely to be as perfect as an individual profile as explained in the Colour Management tutorials.

Digital files can be printed on to photographic paper. This requires special equipment usually only owned by laboratories. The Lightjet system can produce some stunning results on Fuji Crystal Archive paper which should last for a good 70 years on display.

With gamut, or range of tones, digital printing is already ahead of most traditional printing methods. With longevity, digital inkjet prints are at a par with most traditional methods and doubtless soon will offer better results.

Ink Prices

Ink prices have always been a contentious issue. The inkjet printers from Epson, Canon and HP can be extremely good value for the quality technology involved; they make their big money on the inks.
The systems are set to use more ink than is truely required, especially with the black.
These branded products can cost the equivalent of �800 ($1400) per litre and even when the printer claims the ink cart to be empty there is invariably more than 5% of the ink left.
An A3 print will take up about 2ml of ink so those small cartridges won't last very long - perhaps a dozen full-sized prints. There are two ways round this:

Use inks from independent manufacturers. Some are rough and only suitable for low grade work. The risk of using universal inks is that they can clogged the printer's nozzles. At the very least, only use inks designed for each specific printer. Jet-tec are good. They don't cause that problem and are said to be the same formula as the Epson inks.
Attach a Continuous Ink System to inkjet printers. Kits are available for a number of printers which replace the standard ink carts and allow the use of large bottles of ink. Lyson Archival, Fotonic, Black and White and Photochrome inks can be used in this way. Inks costs can be reduced by 90% and anyone doing even a modest amount of printing should consider this route. The setting-up costs are soon recouped.

Darwin got it wrong � he overlooked intelligence

Using a Continuous Ink System

With a continuous ink system, the standard puny ink cartridges are replaced with another cartridge. This is fed inks from large bottles.
The ink is bought in bulk at a much reduced price.

Very successful continuous ink system for inkjet printers are supplied by www.marrutt.com .
www.mediastreet.com supply the Niagara CIS system for a large range of printers.
Further information can be be found at inkjetmall.com, continuosink.com and kalvins.com

When making a change from Epson to other makes in inkjet printers, it should be considered absolutely essential to use cleaning carts before installing the new inks. The Lyson ink, and many other makes, will react adversely with the Epson chemicals and nozzles can become clogged, causing a major problem.
Ideally, a new printer is installed with the alternative inks from the beginning. If the printer is used vigorously immediately, there should be no problem.

purge print The cleaning procedure is as follows:

Install the Lyson cleaning cartridges, and do 4 cleaning cycles.
Then make half a dozen CMYK A4 size purge prints at 360dpi.
A purge print will involve an image file with large columns of cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, blue and grey as seen on the right. By now, the paper should be clear of ink.
Switch off the printer, leave overnight, and repeat the procedure the next day.
Install the new inks and repeat the procedure again.
Do a number of large prints immediately to really flush the new inks through the system.
The next priority is to plug inkjet printers into a timer. Set the timer to come on for half an hour or so at night. The inks are air-drying so if the printer is left unused for any length of time, ink in the nozzle jets will dry out and start to clog. Every time the machine is switched on, it does a mini-clean. If this is done every day, even if no prints are made, then clogging in the nozzles is unlikely.

One word of warning; most continuous inks systems are not cheap and seem to be somewhat over-priced. Just dream about all the money you will save on the inks once you start printing.
Paper prices from all the manufacturers can also be excessive, very often higher than the more complicated traditional photographic paper. It's best to shop around on the internet.

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