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Fuzzy Logic In defense of photo quality ink
Fuzzy Logic In defense of photo quality ink | In defense of photo quality ink |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Wednesday, 09 May 2007 | |
  
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Instead of ink prices going down, printer prices have dropped through the floor, with some vendors offering ‘all-in-one’ multifunction units at prices under AUD $100. As a result, a third party ink market sprang up many years ago to cater for the needs of users who simply wanted cheap ink to print everyday documents. But this is where my argument diverges from Stan’s. Perhaps I’ve been to too many printer launches where the importance of quality ink was drummed into me, but the facts on printing are clear: if you want to print high-quality photos, at whatever size (be it 6x4, 5x7, A4 size or even larger), and have them last for decades, if not longer, when stored in a photo album, you need three things for the best quality. First is a photo quality inkjet printer. Second is photo quality inks from the manufacturer of the printer you’ve purchased. Third is photo quality paper – and preferably paper from the manufacturer of your printer. Some will dismiss this as simply the mantra of printer companies, but why is it important? Because it’s a system. A system designed to work together to deliver the best results. Whether it’s Canon, Epson or HP – who are in my book the top three printer companies- using the same brand of ink and paper as your printer is important – when printing photos you intend keeping for a lifetime. Of course, there’s Brother and Lexmark, too. But few professionals who want to print photos would use Brother or Lexmark – they are better suited as business machines or printers destined for lots of regular printouts of web pages, documents, homework or other such printing. Of course, HP, Canon and Epson’s printers are perfectly suited to such everyday tasks as well. But when it comes to claims of ink quality, the printer companies are really talking about the quality of photo prints – and how long they’ll last. In Stan’s story, he quotes Henry Wilhelm, the guru of the photo printing quality world. His benchmarks are the ones that printer companies use as the gold standard, and when it comes to photo print quality, Wilhelm is a name you can trust. So when I read, both in Epson’s press release that I also received, and in Stan’s story that Epson are saying Calidad’s inks are bad for photo printing, I believe it. Here’s the quote from Stan’s story: “In what appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to sling mud at third party ink suppliers, Epson warned against the use of third party inks in its printers with the release of "independent test results" which purport to show that one of Australia and New Zealand's best known third-party ink brands, Calidad, has one of the poorest results for print life ever measured”. Stan’s story continues that: “The conclusion of tests, according to Henry Wilhelm, President of Wilhelm Imaging Research, which conducted tests for Epson is that displayed prints made with genuine Epson DURABrite pigment inks on Epson paper will last more than 40 times longer than prints made with the Calidad inks on Calidad paper”. Stan then quotes Wilhelm as saying that: “The Calidad ink cartridges appear to contain low-stability dye-based substitutes for Epson high-stability DURABrite pigment inks. The Calidad inks have poor resistance to atmospheric ozone that may be present in homes and offices, and the Calidad inks also give up waterfastness when printed on plain paper”. Stan also quotes Epson's Marketing Communications Director, Mike Pleasants, who said that: “When Epson users see these results they should be in no doubt that using third party inks in their Epson printers will lead to rapid fading and loss of their precious photographs. I am sure that no parents would want to give or receive as a gift a framed photograph of treasured children, friends or relatives, or that special occasion, that can suffer significant fading in less than a year”. Stan then goes on to quote third party research that says users have had few problems with third party inks. Well – both sides are right. Why is that so? Because for everyday printouts of web pages, documents, homework, drafts and other everyday mundane printing, the highest quality inks that last for decades are simply not required. Third party inks will do the job just fine, as long as they are made to a good standard, which they have to be, or few additional sales of third party inks will occur. But when Epson – and HP and Canon – say that quality inks are important in the context of photographs – they are spot on and absolutely right. If you’re printing quality photos with third party inks on third party photo paper, you might get a great initial result. But weeks, months and years down the track, you’re likely to regret it as your photos fade and simply degrade. On top of all of that, printers are so cheap these days that it’s relatively easy to afford a second printer just to print out your photos. On that unit, you can use genuine ink and same-brand paper. Of course, if you’re printing out THAT many photos, the traditional photo store still exists and hasn’t been killed by the digital revolution, even though some of those stores are unquestionably hurting from the lower numbers coming through their doors. So – if you want to print out everyday documents, you CAN get away with third party inks, especially if you’ve not been having problems with printer heads clogging up or other deleterious effects that printer companies claim can happen if you use third party inks. But if you are experiencing problems, and your printer head clogs up – at least a new printer is quite inexpensive, even if genuine inks decidedly aren’t. The final thing to remember is that quality always costs money. Printers, ink and paper, especially photo paper, are designed as a system. If you want the best results, every time, choose original, genuine supplies, and you won’t go wrong. And if something does go wrong, it can’t be blamed on third party ink. If quality isn’t that important because the kids are printing out things left, right and centre and costing you a fortune in ink, third party ink is certainly attractive. You might just want to do some research on the Net first before buying different brands of third party ink to see what others have found, especially to see what is considered to be ‘the best’ or ‘most reliable’ third party brand, or you might find that you’ve saved money on the ink, only to need to buy a cheap replacement printer sooner than you might have expected.{moscomment} |
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