Until today I lived under the comfortable thought that the image on a dry inkjet print is 'fixed' and cannot be rubbed off when handled carefully. But when I accidently rubbed over an image today I noted that the ink was separating from the paper, leaving a big pale streak. My fingertip was now black from the ink. I could rub the ink off over the entire surface of the print. I tried a few more prints with the same result. Also using a very soft dry cloth resulted in ink separating from the paper.
It appears that black and white prints (including toned ones) are heavier affected than colour prints but on all prints ink can be rubbed off leaving nasty streaks. The worst affected image is a black and white that was toned blue: I was able to rub and wipe the blue ink completely of, leaving a somewhat paler gray and white version of the erstwhile image. It appears that now no more ink can be wiped off from this print.
All the affected prints were made with an Epson R1800 printer with a Lyson CIS using Lyson Photochrome R8 pigment inks and Lyson Pro Photo Gloss paper. I have made these prints several months ago, left them to dry for several days on a table before storing them in an archival quality card board storage box. Climatic and environmental conditions in the house are normal: no excessive heat, humidity, fumes etc.
You can imagine this is a 'slightly' nerve wrecking experience... I am just glad that nobody has bought any of my prints...
Any thoughts on what may be the cause (and remedy)?
Thanks! Albert
You have an Ink/Paper mismatch. The fix is to change one or the other. You may as well toss the prints, they will never dry.
I've seen this frequently with third party inks over the years. The manufacturers seem to go heavy on the glycol (glycene?) to keep the inks from clogging the heads.
I have 200 HP5000 3rd party ink cartridges from a company called Red Giant that will not print on anything other than bond paper or Intellicoat Torino Canvas. It never dries!
They came with a business I bought, and are pretty much useless (which was what I expected). Someone actually shelled out about $20,000 for this load of junk ink.
If you want to sleep at night, stick to the manufacturers inks. While there are probably some good third party inks out there, if printing is your business, why take the risk?
