Best overall ink choice for Epson R3000

[chazza]

Greetings - this is my first post, so apologies if you have 'seen it all before' !

I have been a photographer for years and recently acquired an R3000 to move into home printing. OEM cartridges seemed like a non-starter (3x the price of pro-lab prints) and so I read up everything I could find on PK, DPReview and other sites. I also had to decide on paper choices (the easy? part) So I have settled on Fotospeed PF Lustre for general use and Ilford Gallerie gold fibre silk for presentation), both of which are lustre / satin finish. I will have a look at gloss options at some point, but for most uses I prefer lustre.

Now, on to ink. I started out with IS from the well trusted OctoInk which seem fine. However, I am now thinking I should try Inktec Powerchrome ink. I need to buy a new set of inks anyway, but i don't want to waste money either on small smaples, or the wrong ink !

This will be for lustre (not gloss or matte) and whilst I can see some bronzing / lack of deepness to my prints at present they are perfectly acceptable. Of course, if I can cover my default lustre AND occasional gloss with one ink (hence the thread title) then so much the better !

Thanks

- Chazza

 

[Smile]

Ink preference mostly depends on where you live ! I would not want to get inks from US and pay huge tax, import etc. So I buy from Europe based sellers that have OCP, InkTec, etc. inks. That said US based ink makers makes great inks too.

 

[chazza]

Thanks - actually, in the UK all of IS, OCP, Inktec and IRK-4 nano (I think) are available. As I said, I know this has been covered in various ways before, but having tried the IS ink and now settling specifically on lustre paper (ie not gloss or matt) I wonder if people with more experience would suggest to stick with IS or move to Inktec as that seems to be the preferred solution for gloss??

 

[Smile]

IMO you will need to do testing yourself as everyone views are different. I can say that certified RGB print is just that, there is no bad or good prints if they meet the standard deviation rules. As far as creativity goes everyone needs to decide for themselves what they like.