Epson 1160 and Epson 7600 compared
Epson 1160 versus Epson 7600 (Dye ink versus pigment ink)
Can we compare these printers at all?
Comparing a small desktop (A3+) printer with a professional Wide Format (A1+) printer?
An example: our Epson 1160, using either genuine Epson ink or lyson Fotonic using Ilford gallery Classic Pearl paper is able to outperform our Epson 7600 (using either genuine Epson UltraChrome ink or Lyson photoChrome ink and using a fast drying semi-gloss paper like Epson Lustre or any other similar paper.
Outperform in which way?
The prints from the 1160 seems to ‘look’ sharper, the black’s are deeper and the colour saturation slightly better than the 7600 system or any other pigment ink system. The downside of the 1160 is that we are only able to outperform the 7600 using slow, non- water resistant papers (like the Ilford gallery Classic Pearl) , whilst the prints coming from the 7600 are instantly dry on a fast drying paper, like Epson Premium Lustre or Fuji Hunt Satin, longevity is probably much better and we would see only a slight difference holding prints side by side. From the 7600 we are able to get stunning B&W prints as well, which we will not get from the 1160 even with the best possible profile.
Interesting enough, if we would use a quick drying (micorporeus) paper with a dye-based ink and compare it with a pigment ink we will get a better black and colour gamut using the pigment inks.
Although we are getting the best prints from the 1160, we still prefer pigment inks in printers like 2100 / 4000 / 7600 / 9600, because the sacrifice in colourgamut is particularly on photographic media relatively small and at the same time we experience a lot of benefits: prints nearly instantly dry, very water resistant, good ‘black point’ on fast drying papers, black & white prints much better and probably the best possible longevity we can achieve with inkjet printing today.
Our advice?
We have customers who do like to 'look' and 'feel' of Fine art papers on which dye-based inks perform a much better colour gamut and black point than pigment inks. Only if longevity is not an important issue, one could consider using dye-based inks.
The difference between dye-based inks and pigment inks on Semi Gloss and Gloss papers is much less, so for this reason we prefer the pigment inks. The Ultrachrome inks still suffer from bronzing and differential of sheen, but with the latest K3 inks, this is much less.
For fine art reproduction the answer from for us is simple:
We do not believe that the longevity of any dye-based ink presently on the market is able to match the longevity of a pigment ink. So we think that a pigment ink is a much saver route to go.
