Inkjetcarts ink

[Wayne Fox]

But to answer Wayne directly:  The advocacy issue is this.  It absolutely sets my hair on fire to see all the misinformation put out by people that know NOTHING about third party inks... never used them, never tested them, never did anything but pontificate and spread FUD about all the "risks" that they know nothing about!

Well,  while I agree I don't use them, and generally don't recommend them, to imply from that I don't know anything about them is incorrect.  I have tested many different inks over the years in a fairly high production facility.  I've tested various CIS systems to use in producing high volume folded cards, as well as other inks for other solutions.  I now own a retail store which sells printers, and have seen several with problems due to 3rd party inks.  Whether I've tested the specific inks you've mentioned I don't know, since I don't remember all the brands, but I never found one that delivered the same image quality including all properties of gloss, gloss differential, metamerism and bronzing as Epson inks.

Canon may be different and indeed Canon inks in printers before the current ipf63/8300 series had their own minor issues with these things so indeed 3rd party inks may be just as good.  Since the heads are user replaceable, the risk of ruining the printer isn't much of a factor but there are still many factors to consider other than just the pure cost of the ink.  While certainly your expectations may be met by these inks, I don't think anyone knows what kind of printing you do ... which is certainly a key perspective. For all I know you crank out signs that get hung on the side of buses (great business, have a friend that does that), and if so I'd be all over 3rd party inks.  I also don't know what the OP is interested in.  So as I mentioned there are two sides, what you are calling FUD really isn't, as many of us have first hand knowledge of various inks and anyone looking at using these inks should proceed cautiously. I'm not saying don't use them, just make sure you understand what you are getting.

I guess it all depends on what the client wants, but even if these 3rd party inks don't last for 100 or so years like Epson claims, who cares?  In reality, for the average person who leaves the same print on their wall for literally decades?  I think I'd be happy with 10 or so years.  If your print fades after 50 or 60 years call me and I'll print another

Of course a generalization.  Being from a portrait photography background and knowing that large images of mine from over 30 years ago are still on walls, as well as millions of images from my previous company stored away in albums for future generations, I see longevity from a different perspective.  Even in my landscape work which won't be regarded in the same way, longevity is still important.  I'm pretty happy knowing several decades ... but if it's only 10 years I'd go back to photo paper which is cheaper to produce anyway and can manage several decades under most circumstances.

The real point I'm trying to make is when analyzing costs, you need to understand the costs at the print level, and not get sidetracked by the cost of the entire cartridge.  Using the OP's logic, it may make more sense to buy a printer that just uses bigger ink cartridges.  One reason I run the 11880 ... sure a 700ml cartridge is over $200, but the cost per ml is only .34. This translates to to only about 1% of the total cost of producing a wholesale image, and about 1/2 of 1% of the cost of a personal image I'm selling.

Two ways to look at it, and two very different business models.  I don't know which the OP is in, but most on this forum are printing there own work to sell directly to their own clients, meaning the ink costs per print are pretty insignificant.

I think we've beat this horse, I hate getting sucked in.  Unlike Tom, I don't enjoy arguing, and really don't understand why people make so many assumptions and generalizations, especially those who think their own personal situation applies to everyone.  And I'll never understand why anyone attacks anyone (such as the assumption that I'm poor, thus a poor businessman thus my opinion has no value as happened earlier in this thread).

[ippolitois]

Mark, as a young man, I fretted over the same issue. In the late 70's and early 80's (I was an advanced toddler then and my mother read me American Photographer and Camera Arts to me at bedtime) the whole industry was a buzz about longevity. We had 20 years of data to show that the processes at that time were inherently flawed, but that didn't stop us from printing millions of photos. When I go to peoples homes, I see those fading memories on there walls and still thing about those bedtime stories my mom read to me. I haven't anyone say that we should contact the photographer and get a fresh photo. One bedtime story I heard during that time, was that there was a charm about how as we fade into the light so do our memories and photos. I'm still not convinced about it, but it's one way of looking at it.

We have technology now that I never dreamt of having when I was a toddler.  High ISO, prints that last 50, 100, or even 130 yrs. Wow, during the 70's the buzz was that we all hoped color prints would last 20 year! Even black and white prints were susceptible to fading too if they weren't processed properly. Now, I just press a button and if I use the right stuff, my prints will last double that. I think that's pretty cool.

I'm so happy my mom read me those stories instead of the usual stuff my mom read to my sisters.

Paul

[KenBabcock]

For me this is a non-issue.  I have several printers.  Some have original ink, others 3rd party.  Depends who I am printing for and their desired price range.

All I'm saying about the 3rd party inks I use is that in real world use, they have compared to original Epson and Canon inks much better than I expected.  If I didn't know any better I would not be able to tell the difference.

I have continued to use original Epson and Canon inks thus far just in case.  A few years back when I started printing (okay, more than a few) I didn't want to trust the 3rd party inks just in case, and so I continued using original inks.  The G&G has been tested thoroughly with my own personal prints and for those that don't want to pay a premium.  I don't care what Wilhelm says, in the real world under real UV rays and exposed in direct sunlight every day, coated or not, these inks have not shifted at all after five years.

This is my own personal experience and is damn good enough for me.  I will continue to offer both original ink and G&G ink because I have several large format printers and can do so.

I'm done.

[Alistair]

Firstly, my apologies for a post which has brought about some heated discussion.

My equipment are Canon ipF6100 24" printers which use 130ml carts.  Where I live the OEM carts are sold to me by a Canon agent for $120, (which is $US about $127, but I'll just use Aussie dollars because we're doing comparisons here.)  Injetcarts will sell their cart, same volume  for $43, and $10 more for postage to me, which totals $53.  That's a saving on each cart I buy from them, instead of Canon, of $67.

Now the price of a new printhead is around $450, so I am in front after 8 Inkjetcarts.  Every cart after that before the head(s) give out is $67 off the price of a head when I need one.  Of course, we know about bronzing, metamerism, profiling etc etc, but it is only head life which we consider the issue in this case.  Because we print on many materials we have to deal with color matching, bronzing etc  whatever heads we use.

So it is quantitative info from users that we are seeking.  Thanks to everyone for a lively debate though.

So given that IS inks are materially less expensive in Aus than OEM, printheads are not negatively impacted by IS inks and you are not concerned about qualitative aspects of reduced gamut and increased bronzing, it would seem you are good to go with IS.

[enduser]

Wayne, a great post that identifies most of the issues.  You're quite  right about what people are printing being a big part of the decision.  We print low cost images that are ready to hang, to an unsophisticated buyer.  Not that they deserve a lesser product, it's more that they don't expect anything more given the price.

A bit of a look at Mark's Aardenburg Imaging results, where there is a result for Ink Specialists ink, we might expect an acceptable life indoors and using the coatings we have, of at least 50 years.

When we have a customer who shows a bit of interest in media quality, any attempt to tell them this glazes their eyes and they laugh and say "we'll all be dead by then". (They're probably referring to me).

If our trade builds to include a higher expectation consumer we would immediately acquire another machine and use only OEM inks in it.

[Wayne Fox]

Makes sense, in fact sounds much like Ken who's last post indicates he has a similar model that is certainly logical and works well for him.  The only thing I will add (I apologize, I'm the one that made the comment about beating the dead horse and here I go again) is that sometimes the value of longevity is not obvious.  There are some types of prints which deserve the utmost concern because the subject of the photograph may be historically significant even though it might not be that obvious when making the image. My example was family and individual portraits.  While 50 years sounds great, just look back how many images from 50 to 75 years ago are now valuable enough that people spend large amounts of money getting them restored.  Here again if that happens to be your clientele, a dual strategy might be perfect.  Certainly the ability to preserve the image digitally might easily make this moot, but it's a little too soon to see where that ends up several generations from now.

Best of luck to you.