Cone Ink releases "dye" ink for Epson "pigment" printers

FussyBob · May 21, 2012

http://shopping.netsuite.com/c.362672/site/what-is-inkthrift.html

Interesting and he states that its fade resistance is better than other (OEM?) dye inks.

rodbam · May 21, 2012

Sounds like a good move as not all prints need to last as they say in your link.

BrightGuy · May 25, 2012

I have tested many OEM and non-OEM dye based inks. Besides their low light/gas fading resistance (exception must be said about the Canon ChromaLife100+ inks), another strong drawback is their narrower gamut for shadow and deep shadow tones, specially for glossy (resin or cast coated) papers. If someone reproduces a lot of dark wood tones or skintones, can't live with dyes. Also, many of them are (much) more prone to color differential.

qwertydude · May 26, 2012

Meh. Converting Epson printers to dye ink is a really common practice. Pretty much if you want to run CISS you have to run dye. And actually you do get much better color gamut with dye inks on photo paper than pigment inks on photo paper. Also with pigment ink you need to get paper specifically made for pigment ink. Many microporous papers will simply let the ink sit on top and it'll puddle or wipe right off even when dried.

The only problem is that converting to dye inks means you'll have some color shifts, although the conversion from a reputable supplier can come awefully close. And any differences are easily remedied with a profiler like Profile Prism. I currently print with a really cheap Epson Workforce 30 converted to Dye CISS and it prints fantastic photos with much better color than I could have hoped for with the Epson Durabrite inks. The fancy UltraChrome inks on the advanced photo printers can match the gamut and shadow detail and color of dye, but then again we're talking needing 4 different shades of black and on top of that needing the photo cyan and photo magenta to do so.

The only downside is of course less resistance to fading. But I have some dye prints from cheap refill inksets that have so far lasted 6 years without fading. It's all a matter on how you keep them. Of course in direct sunlight it'll fade, but surprisingly even OEM dyes will fade just as fast as a refill dye. The type of paper actually tends to have more an effect on fading. The most fade resistant I've seen was the HP premium plus paper. It's a swellable type, it makes for very fade resistance prints but requires careful handling, long dry times and are not water proof, water will damage the print.

iladi · May 26, 2012

I have a stylus 9700 printer with inktec dyes. It is a 4 color printer but i have a huge gamut of over 900000 units on photo paper. It prints on every media i want. On microporos paper the prints are even waterproof. Downside is that the prints fades in about 2 weeks when exposed to light, even behind a UV treated glass. I had prints exposed in my office, not direct sun at all, and they were fading in six months or so. Not a big fading. But i can see subtle changes in dark areas that turn to dark brown from blacks. Now i'm looking to OCP pigment inks. Probably not so good gamut but the same price as cone dyes and for shure better fading resistance. And i hope an acceptable very short outdoor resistance as i print alot for short time advertising and it is cheaper than printing with my roland ecosolvent.
Printing with dyes in 9700 was a very simple task, just fill the printer with ink and reprofile the media.

3dogs · May 26, 2012

For the last six months I have used an Epson 730 with Claria 81N carts, use Epson Paper and their stock profiles loaded with the printer disk. For three years prior to that I used a Canon Pixima 810, it was bought from last remaining stock as a NEW model was replacing it....it ran on Chromalife 100 ink. My prints are mostly A4. This is gear that sits at the bottom of the entry level to printing because my priority was to make images to display on my Eizo and thats all. Joined a local Camera Club mostly to find folks who have similar photographic interests :lol:

After about two years there finally overcame my reluctance to show images, to date I have entered just 5 images got 2 best in comp print, and 2 seconds. I was astonished at the results for my prints given the gear I am using. Made BOLD by the results I am persuaded to part with actual cash to launch into the unknown...namely a 'proper ' printer and appropriate refilled carts.

Spent the last three months on a waiting list for a Canon Pro 1. Had a play with one today in company with one of Australias' best Pro's, it is truly AWESOME. BUT its NEW, the carts are only 35ml and 30% will be gone to fill the tubes replacement carts will have to come from the USA (true!!) and that will set me back around A$375 for a 12 ink set AND I would need to order most used colours and the gloss optimiser at the same time. THAT is a MAJOR investment!!!!! This MONDAY is crunch day when the dealer calls and asks if I want to pick up my new printer.

At the Digital Show I had a look at the Epson 3880..it seems OK. I am very interested in running the Cone dye inks in it from day one, but with the pigment ink refills as a backup option.... Geez! I am almost out of puff with all that background...

My question is (finally) " are any of the forum members submitting/ having images accepted for local, county, national, international comps." are the refill inks good enough to be mixing it with the OEM inks.

I am asking for your help as I am just not comfortable with the Pro 1 option, and I REALLY cant figure why, it is truly an AWESOME A3+ printer giving results that easily matches almost all the big Canons in print quality.

I am SO undecided that I went to the Show cash in hand......and came home without a printer...again :barnie

Cheers n thanks

Andrew

Bazz8 · May 26, 2012

I am a Club member and have competed at local and show levels always using a Epson r800 for 7 yrs the paper of choice was Ilford smooth pearl
a very good combination

, then for some obscure reason I decided to get a bigger printer a Epson R1800 superseded yet the reviews made my decision
easier.
I have a R800 , an R1800 for the staggering cost of $19.75AU as parts only and tried to revive the printer and have everything now working except a paper feed issue

I then bought a working well kept R1800 and the first set of prints I did were simply stunning ,so OEM inks for that one
Then I saw on ebay a 1410 Dye printer A3 with Claria Dye inks $ 66.00 AU the only setting I had to change to get comparable prints was increasing contrast a tad the profiles are very good
vast improvement on the R800 profile set , if you choose wisely I would suggest keeping your options open for a 1410 or 1430 as these are identical printers with the 1430 having wireless
according to the scribes the claria inks ( 100 yrs) are very fade resistent not as good as the ultrachrome inks which boast 200 yrs( marketing crap from both as who is going to be around to worry?)
I have now converted my r800 to a ciss machine useing RIHAC inks and the difference between my r1800 and the non epson inks is very minor when i did 3 prints today the
rihac inks exhibited a slight red tone, the 1410 Claria inks slightly yellow the R1800 WITH ULTRACHROME OEM inks was the best.

My 2bobs worth
good luck and management with your choice

Bazz8

FussyBob · May 26, 2012

3dogs said:
For the last six months I have used an Epson 730 with Claria 81N carts, use Epson Paper and their stock profiles loaded with the printer disk. For three years prior to that I used a Canon Pixima 810, it was bought from last remaining stock as a NEW model was replacing it....it ran on Chromalife 100 ink. My prints are mostly A4. This is gear that sits at the bottom of the entry level to printing because my priority was to make images to display on my Eizo and thats all. Joined a local Camera Club mostly to find folks who have similar photographic interests

After about two years there finally overcame my reluctance to show images, to date I have entered just 5 images got 2 best in comp print, and 2 seconds. I was astonished at the results for my prints given the gear I am using. Made BOLD by the results I am persuaded to part with actual cash to launch into the unknown...namely a 'proper ' printer and appropriate refilled carts.

Spent the last three months on a waiting list for a Canon Pro 1. Had a play with one today in company with one of Australias' best Pro's, it is truly AWESOME. BUT its NEW, the carts are only 35ml and 30% will be gone to fill the tubes replacement carts will have to come from the USA (true!!) and that will set me back around A$375 for a 12 ink set AND I would need to order most used colours and the gloss optimiser at the same time. THAT is a MAJOR investment!!!!! This MONDAY is crunch day when the dealer calls and asks if I want to pick up my new printer.

At the Digital Show I had a look at the Epson 3880..it seems OK. I am very interested in running the Cone dye inks in it from day one, but with the pigment ink refills as a backup option.... Geez! I am almost out of puff with all that background...

My question is (finally) " are any of the forum members submitting/ having images accepted for local, county, national, international comps." are the refill inks good enough to be mixing it with the OEM inks.

I am asking for your help as I am just not comfortable with the Pro 1 option, and I REALLY cant figure why, it is truly an AWESOME A3+ printer giving results that easily matches almost all the big Canons in print quality.

I am SO undecided that I went to the Show cash in hand......and came home without a printer...again

Cheers n thanks

Andrew

Andrew,

I just want to say that I have both a Canon PRO9000 MK II dye printer and an Epson R2880 pigment printer.

I use OCP dye ink in the Canon that rivals Canon OEM ink when properly profiled. It costs me $0.30US, yes 30 cents, per cartridge refill, I consider that almost zero ink cost per print compared to the paper cost.

I use Cone dye inks in the R2880 and again it rivals the the Epson OEM ink with proper profiling and cost about 25% of the OEM ink cost.

If I compare the dye prints to the pigment prints, the dye wins by a very slight margin for contrast and more punch especailly with glossy papers, but comparing color gamut maps there are very slight differences between
the dye and pigment gamuts.

Bob P.

3dogs · May 29, 2012

Thanks Bob,

Been a great help to me. Picked up an Epson 3880 yesterday so that part of this saga is put to bed.....for now :celebrate

my question was prompted by the answer I got from an enquiry I made about purchasing a RIP. They thought that ink density may be a problem using dye on the 3880 at the time I was exploring a link to a photographer (using pigment) who increases the ink density and slows the print head to allow additional dry time to get ??better ?? colour.

That is what prompted the question. Seems to me that most of the focus of questions anyway is on fade resistance. Now whilst that is important Cone is using numbers like three decades, that will put my remains at 95 and I offer an open challenge to ANYONE get any care factor from me, from six feet under :hit

As you will see from the waste ink thread I got the machine under really freaky circumstances. I called the Retailer Friday morning (day before our Digital Show), they had no stock. Found nothing at the show, so in desperation this Monday morning phoned the Retailer back to find out how long it would take them to get one in for me, they got two delivered a couple of hours after I called. So Monday afternoon I drive the 80miles to the City. The deal I got was great one set in the machine, and another set for free, plus sample paper. All because I have been visiting with them for a couple of years and drooling over the 3880 (it was a mess, drool is SO hard to clean off :lol:

)

So next stop Dye refills, but not so soon I am thinking as 120ml of all colours is going to take some using.

So I am guessing next time you hear from me it will be for help with something daft I have done :hide

Cheers,

Andrew

Cone Ink releases "dye" ink for Epson "pigment" printers

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