How much longer-lasting are prints from, say, a Pro-100, compared to, say, a Pro 9000 Mark II? Canon ought to tell us what the tests it's sponsored show.
Samples made with both Chromalife 100 and 100+ inks can be found in the Aardenburg database (
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/light-fade-test-results/). After logging into the database (registration is free) you can find the relevant samples easily by filtering the ink/colorant field on "Chromalife". Canon didn't sponsor these tests, and to date along with all the other OEM printer and major media manufacturers doesn't acknowledge publicly available Aardenburg light fade test reports even exist.
The difference is night and day between the two ink sets on microporous media (swellable polymer papers are essentially no longer on the market), and the problem can indeed be attributed mainly to the black ink performance and to a lesser extent the red (orange) ink used by the Canon Pro 9000 Mark II printer. Neither the PK nor the red(orange) color channel is evaluated in the Wilhelm legacy densitometric test method, and there's the rub! The Wilhelm legacy densitometric test method and WIR 3.0 densitometric endpoint criteria set does not evaluate a maximum density black patch nor any red, green, blue/violet, orange, or skin tone colors. Skin tones would blend some of the weak red (orange) ink, and very deep shadow values plus maximum printable black areas deploy PK ink. However, even though a max black color patch was not part of the WIR measured patch set, the fade resistance of the Chromalife 100 PK dye was so severe (in the realm of cheap third party dye sets), that it would most likely have been easily noticed by WIR staff if any Dmax text printing was located anywhere on the samples placed into test. Published images of the standard WIR color test target indicate that max black printed areas are indeed present on the standard printed targets even though they are not part of the official test. And the visually alarming fading signature (the black dye turns reddish brown) in those areas of the the WIR test targets in turn would have certainly been sufficient cause to halt the testing.
As such, both WIR and Canon more than likely had to wrestle diplomatically with what followed after that. What followed was apparently no WIR publishing of any test results for the Chromalife 100 set (nor the Chromalife 100+ dye set, either), and Canon ultimately rectified the technical problems by quietly replacing the weak Chromalife 100 PK dye with a much more stable PK dye in the Chromalife 100+ set and also by dropping the use of the red (orange) ink while also introducing photo gray channels derived from the new black dye stuff (a first for dye based printers) when the Pro 9000 Mark II replacement, the Canon Pro-100, came to the market.
Hence, the good news is that Canon ultimately did the right thing by going back and reformulating the Chromalife 100 ink set to come up with a new and improved Chromalife 100+ set. More good news is that the Chromalife 100+ set, especially when configured with photo gray inks in the Canon Pro-100 design specification, now place at the top of dye-based print longevity ratings in Aardenburg lightfastness testing, i.e., better than Epson's Claria dye set, and also significantly better than Fuji Crystal Archive II chromogenic color paper which many photographers erroneously still consider to be the "gold standard" for archival color photo printing.
kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com