Dye Ink In An Epson R1900

We see many examples of people using pigment inks in printers like the R1400 designed for dye inks but not so much the other way round, so I thought this might be of interest.

A few days ago I was asked to make a profile for an Epson R1900 fitted with Fotorite dye inks instead of the UltraChrome Hi-Gloss® 2. The targets supplied were Gretag Macbeth (Xrite) TC-918. The paper type was not specified, but was a typical glossy paper. Here's what I found from the profile made with ArgyllCMS.

First, the colour gamut looked good for a third-party ink so out of curiosity I compared it with the official Epson profile for Premiium Glossy paper downloaded from the Epson USA site. The colour gamut of the Fotorite dye is just a bit bigger than that of the OEM ink. Not massively bigger and probably not noticeable in real prints. Here's a plot showing the two - the wireframe is the dye ink, showing a better response in the green region. What this view doesn't show is that the pigment is better in the red! You can't win 'em all.



Second, the colour accuracy according to Gamutvision is very good - just as good as the Epson profile for the 24 colours in the GM ColorChecker.

Third, the B&W response is very good. The Epson is also very good but does give a slightly denser black.

So, does that mean that the two inks are "equivalent"? Well, comparing the profiles showed that they are very different. I don't have access to the printer and I haven't seen the result of printing using the normal Epson profile. However it can be simulated in Photoshop, and here's what it looks like. The RH image is the original and the LH is the simulation of printing with the dye inks using the Epson profile. I don't think many people would be happy with that!



Now, I'm not saying that the Fotorite ink is any good, and it is absolutely not a drop-in replacement for OEM ink. BUT, with a good profile it can give results very close to that of the OEM ink. Just don't ask me how long the prints will last!

Nice idea but would anybody really want to switch to dye ink over pigment, yes dye inks look great but pigment looks greater for longer and longer, and in the case of fotorite not very long at all.. (You did ask)

For the average Hen or Stag party I normally use dye inks where longevity only has to last for the one night but for prints that are going to be for keep sakes then I switch to the superior quality of pigment..

The Hat said:

Nice idea but would anybody really want to switch to dye ink over pigment, yes dye inks look great but pigment looks greater for longer and longer, and in the case of fotorite not very long at all.. (You did ask)

For the average Hen or Stag party I normally use dye inks where longevity only has to last for the one night but for prints that are going to be for keep sakes then I switch to the superior quality of pigment..

Click to expand...

Somebody obviously wants to switch from pigment to dye - he just did it and paid me to make a profile for him!

May all of your costumers be as dumb and so generous as this one and I wish to you a Happy and prospers New Year..

The Hat said:

May all of your costumers be as dumb and so generous as this one and I wish to you a Happy and prospers New Year..

Click to expand...

Whoa there Hat! I don't think I can let you call my customers dumb without a response In fact, in this case, I think he's been pretty smart. He probably paid about £50 for a complete Fotorite re-filling kit (I'm just guessing - I don't sell ink) hoping that he would get acceptable results. As I said, printing with the Epson profiles is a no-no so he came to me for a profile, as he has done in the past with other inks. And the result in this case? The prints will probably be indistinguishable from those done with OEM pigment ink, at least for a while. Certainly long enough for a camera club competition say, or for a batch of New Year cards. Sounds like a happy ending to me.

As for being generous - I wish He just pays the market rate for a custom profile.......

And a happy and prosperous New Year to you too.

The Hat said:

... dye inks look great but pigment looks greater for longer and longer..

Click to expand...

Pigment looks great but dye inks looks greater..

Seriously I think longevity is the only argument for pigment...and chemistry keeps evolving both..
Take a look at the drylabs, these should print as good as "wet" labs. Guess what sort of ink is used..."ultrachrome d6" = dye!
http://www.epson.com.au/CommercialProducts/products/DisplayMain.asp?id=SL-D700

Well, I will stick with pigment. I ordered a waste ink potty from www.octoinkjet.co.uk and 2 sets of refillable R2000 cartridges with a reset press button on top. So I will try to mix some orange and red inks and hopefully it works.

I tried to print a glossy print without gloss optimizer and the bronzing was terrible, just like printing with OCP pigment ink. Gloss of the inks is quite good, but bronzing and gloss differential is terrible without the GO. So GO is the way to go .

With a good profile B&W is very good, indistinguishable to the ones made on my Epson Pro 3880 with K3 inks.

RogerB said:

Whoa there Hat! I don't think I can let you call my customers dumb without a response In fact, in this case, I think he's been pretty smart.

Click to expand...

Ops, I shouldn’t have said dumb and for that I apologise @RogerB, Would naive to more appropriate then.. or should I just go to my room ..

CONE inks has DYE K3 inksets . They used to carry it for the R1900 / R2000 as well but they no longer do so.
I've used them and they are amazing! Of course they can not complete with real OEM Pigment Epson inks BUT if they last 10-15 years ( Which they claim to do ) then I am happy!

http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/it.A/id.5979/.f?sc=29&category=72574

I think the longevity guessing game against dye inks is not that easy, looking to the data from Wilhelm Research dye inks are much more prone to ozone than pigment inks, and specifically dye inks on microporous paper are the worst combinations. Some of the OEM dye inks on particular papers come close to the results with pigment inks, and that is what Epson is probably doing with their Surelab printers - UV stable dye inks together with a fotopaper which does not show the deficiencies of the microporous papers , so it's both - the ink on the right paper, and that's what Epson is probably trying to imply with the 'Ultrachrome D6' ink name - a similar performance like the other Ultrachrome (pigment) inks everybody is aware of since years.