Canon dye ink vs. Epson pigment ink.

I resurrected an old Canon 9000 Mark II that was plugged and sitting idle for some months. It had OCP dye ink in it from Rjettek.com I think. Anyways, it showed some plugs so I let it sit with some head cleaner on the ink cart ports overnight, installed the OCP carts, and ran a few cleaning cycles and it showed up with a good nozzle check. Yay!

What I didn't expect was the Dmax of the black dye ink to be visibly far better than the Epson pigment PK black on the same Epson Glossy paper. The Canon shows a L*=3.80 and the Epson L*=8.10 on average from basICColor Catch. Even the blues were far richer than the Epson.

I know dye ink is allegedly more vibrant, but the dye black better than the PK pigment black? When I increased the Epson ink density,it reversed and the Dmax began to climb up from 8.0 so not an issue of more ink. Weird stuff with the OCP dye ink maybe?

I did note during the Canon unclogging that the black must have been a mix of the magenta and cyan as well since the photo magenta ran out and I got some black and cyan check lines until the refill photo magenta got on board. Maybe the mix of the black, cyan,and magenta makes for a lower Dmax black than the Epson pigment inks? I don't know.

ColorThink Pro 3 clearly shows the difference too, although it is very visible on paper. You can see the Canon OCP dye wireframe beneath the Epson solid showing the denser black and blues. I think it costs me about 35 cents to refill the Canon 9000 carts with the OCP ink too.

W. Fisher

O.k., that's nothing unique or special - different inks on a different printer. But let me comment your findings in some more detail - there is not the only one pigment ink on the market, there is the Epson original pigment photo black, and lots of different 3rd party inks by well known or less known manufacturers, and all these inks will give you, or most of them , a different black level. An L = 8 for a pigment ink is quite typical, and varies somewhat with the paper type. Other inks may be better or worse.
When you read Epson's advertising for the new Surecolor Ultrachrome HDR inks they mention specifically a far better Dmax for the black, and I can confirm that as I have posted elsewhere about 9 months ago, and the Lyson P600 compatible black performs as well visibly better than my typical pigment black - I got down to L=5 on the same paper from L=9.

A L=4 is quite typical for a good black dye on a good paper

Do you know if the Surecolor HDR ink can be sucked out and reloaded into the 3880 refillable carts? No damage to the head?

I'm guessing it is just their HDR PK Black, or maybe the lesser blacks too?

Tia.

W.F.

Sorry, it's the new Ultrachrome HD ink, not the HDR version http://www.epson.eu/ix/en/viewcon/corporatesite/cms/index/11529 in use with the new P600/P800 printer models

I tapped an original cartridge and tested that HD photo black in a R265, and the corresponding Lyson ink which performs quite close to the original ink. I did not test the matte black.

Aardenburg did some comparative testing of the Dmax of the new Ultrachrome HD inks compared to the Epson 3880 inks, results starting at about 1/3rd down in the article.
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/p600-project-results-part-i/
Improvements vary with the type of paper used. 3rd party pigment black inks may not be as good as the 3880 inks, so improvements to the HD black may be better than these numbers.

W. Fisher said:

What I didn't expect was the Dmax of the black dye ink to be visibly far better than the Epson pigment PK black on the same Epson Glossy paper. The Canon shows a L*=3.80 and the Epson L*=8.10 on average from basICColor Catch. Even the blues were far richer than the Epson.

I know dye ink is allegedly more vibrant, but the dye black better than the PK pigment black? When I increased the Epson ink density,it reversed and the Dmax began to climb up from 8.0 so not an issue of more ink. Weird stuff with the OCP dye ink maybe?
W. Fisher

Click to expand...

Is this result with genuine Epson PK? I always get an L* of 5 or below on a good gloss/luster paper, and even lower using ABW.