Gloss differential

[jtoolman]

Out of the 10 printers in my shop the two PRO 3800s are my favorites. My question has to do with K3 3rd party ink and their gloss characteristics, using OEM inks as the baseline.

Just about every ink I have used from Image Specialists, OCP Germany, and a couple of others, suffer from almost total lack of gloss of the Magenta inks. So colors and tonalities which utilize Magenta will display very apparent gloss differential when compared to other non magenta utilizing hues.
A good friend of mine who also has several Epson printers uses Jon Cone's K3 inks which claim to also be micro encapsulated like Epson's OEM K3 inks. So far the test prints he has sent me ( We have shared the same test prints with each other for comparison ) printed with Jone Cone's K3 inks (www.inkjetmall.com ) show almost zero gloss differential problems where as my IS and OCP inks Magentas are almost Matte when compared to the rest of the colors in the Ink set. The same can be said of Image Specialists inks I am currently using.

If any of you PRO 3800 users out there know of a 3rd party ink set or a supplier that sells K3 inks whose magenta is as glossy as the rest of the colors, please share that info. Jon Cone inks do pass the gloss test but they are about the most expensive 3rd party inks out there.
I just may end up obtaining those unless something else exists.

Thak you all in advance.

Joe

[jtoolman]

No one knows?

[Schewe]

No one knows?

I doubt many people are trying to push 3rd party inks through the 3800/3880 printers because, well the Epson inks are pretty darn good as is. What are you trying to do, get better results or save money? Penny wise, pound foolish comes to mind...

[darlingm]

Yes, Epson ink is fairly expensive, and it's easy to look at the cost of an entire set of cartridges and consider purchasing third party due to the savings.

However, supplies in this industry (should) make up a small percentage of your gross.  I'm going to off the top of my head ballpark this, but ink probably runs you between $0.33 - $0.60 per square foot.  Take a look at what prices you charge and figure out your per square foot gross.  It's (hopefully) many orders of magnitude higher than the ink cost, like $8 per square foot likely as a minimum, probably higher.

If you cut your ink cost in half, yes, you've saved a lot for a set of inks.  But was saving $0.15 - $0.30 per square foot that you're reselling for so much more worth it?

I haven't looked into it for a while, but I don't think there have been any reputable lightfastness testing done on third party color inks for the semi recent or current Epson Stylus'.  That should likely be a big concern for you, unless you're only printing things intended for short term display.  (If you know of any, I'd be interested in looking at it, even though I probably wouldn't consider the switch.)

You often have to consider the chance of the ink doing harm to your printer.  Although I think the risk is overplayed by manufacturers to keep their market share, you occasionally do hear about someone's printer having issues that are due to using a third party ink.

Furthermore, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine the stock profiles for Epson ink might not be very accurate for third party inks.  Perhaps color management isn't of extreme importance to you, or perhaps you custom profile everything anyway.  Or, who knows, perhaps third party ink suppliers create profiles for some media types -- but you'd still have less profiles available when you start looking at third party media.  But, otherwise, it's introducing one more variable to increase how many reprints you have to do -- which is the most expensive resource of your time.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Thak you all in advance.

Joe

Whether it is wise to use third party inks is something you have to decide yourself.

The Epson magenta changed, if I recall it correctly, with the 9800 generation and third party suppliers could not match it anymore. Vivid Magenta was the next step. They probably load more pigment in the ink to overcome that. I think almost all inkjet pigment inks are encapsulated one way or another but that is not solving gloss differential in total.

And Neomark claims to have encapsulated pigment particles in their ink.
http://neomark.net/pigment.html
And if you look at the right side of this page, you may be surprised:
http://neomark.net/

The larger tanks of Epson and Canon have a lower price per ML than the 3800 carts have. That  could be a strategy too.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
400+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, October 2012:
Extended: Ilford-Innova-Hahnemühle-Pictorico,
NEW added: Tetenal-Mitsubishi, NEW halfway: Kodak-Bonjet,
NEW to do: Permajet-FelixSchoeller-Sihl
Would like to get samples: InkPress-JonCone

[Czornyj]

And if you look at the right side of this page, you may be surprised:
http://neomark.net/

Nobody ever expects the Dutch Inquisition! <diabolical laughter>