About inks:
Small desktop printers:
We have to admit; we never use ourselvels genuine Epson ink in our own small desktop printers because the OEM ink is just so expensive (we think it's far over priced) and printing costs are just too high. Printing with a CIS system (Continuous ink flow system) filled with a third party ink is at least 5 timers cheaper compared with using the genuine Epson ink
Of course we do not use just any third party ink, but one of the third party inks we consider to be a serious option for producing professional quality prints:
Manufacturers we consider as a possible professional alternative are:
Lyson, Mediastreet, Permajet AIC Symphonic
Using a professional third party ink in a wide format printer? These inks are still a lot cheaper, but only if you are prepapred to invest in a set of (6, 7 or 8) 1 Litre bottles, otherwise the price difference is not that much anymore between the original inks and the third party inks.
Third party inks compared with the genuine Epson Ultrachrome inks:
It is true: The Epson Ultrachrome ink (Epson 4000 / 7600 / 9600) and the latest Epson K3 inks (Epson 4800 / 7800 / 9800) is of exceptional quality. The third party ink manufacturers have to work hard in order to be able to match the quality of these inks.
Still we are able to get very satisfying results with some third party inks as well and only an expert might see any difference, if their would be any difference at all.
Some third party inks however do have the advantage over Epson ink (like Lyson Photochrome) that we can use one and the same Black ink on both Photographic media (like Gloss and semi Gloss) and matt media. Unfortunately we experience here a slight downside: if we look at prints under an angle particularly on Gloss papers we can see that the Lyson black is slightly more matt than the other colours and is causing a slight differential of sheen. Using the right type of paper, we hardly see any problems on Semi Gloss, but the ‘matting’ is still visible on Gloss papers. For some customers this is not an important issue at all (like myself), but for other customers it is. This problem does not seem to be an issue anymore with the latest ink from Lyson, developed for the K3 ink printers from Epson.
Differential of sheen
Still the overall complaint about pigment inks is that we still can see some kind of differential of sheen (even with the Epson ink). For this reason Epson is now bringing to the market printers which spray a gloss optimiser over the whole print in order to get rid of this differential of sheen (Epson R1800).
Bronzing?
Bronzing is the phenomenon of being able to see bronz colours in the high light area's of a print if we look at it under an angle. This is a problem we encounter particulalrly with the Epson Ultrachrome inks for the Epson series: 2100 / 4000 / 7600 / 9600 / 10600
We hardly see this problem with the latest Epson series: 2400 / 4800 / 7800 / 9800 which are using the Epson K3 inks. The way Epson solved this problem is using a third black ink cartridge with Ligtht-Light-Black. This channel is used in the high light area's of the print and is hiding the effect of bronzing.
Reduction of differential of sheen:
With the use of the Shiraz Rip software we have been able to reduce this problem even more, because this software allows us to control the amount of ink being laid down which allows us to find the maximum possible density we can reach which each ink channel whilst making sure the printer is not putting down too much ink. We try to find the point at which we reach the highest possible density and colour gamut whilst making use of the least possible amount of ink! Particularly a so called overinking will cause the pigment ink ‘sitting’ on top of the surface and will increase the differential of sheen. Avoiding over inking will reduce this problem. It's a problem very often seen with the standard Epson driver.
Although the Colorbyte Image Print Rip does not allow us to control the Rip like as described with the Shiraz Rip, still this Rip is able to produce prints with less differential of sheen than what we have seen with any other driver!
Dye-based ink
But if you want to achieve the highest possible colour gamut and deepest black (and longevity is not much of an issue) it’s very likely that a dye-based ink will outperform a pigment ink particularly on Matt papers. The difference between pigment ink and dye-based inks is less noticeable on semi gloss and gloss.
