can one make light magenta and ligh cayn by diluting magenta and cyan

[foggyjim]

Can one make light magenta and light cyan by diluting magenta and cyan with distilled water? I have two Epson (6 ink cartridge) printers a 200 and a 500 series models. If so what is the dilution ratio?

 

[The Hat]

Can one make light magenta and light cyan by diluting magenta and cyan with distilled water? I have two Epson (6 ink cartridge) printers a 200 and a 500 series models. If so what is the dilution ratio?

No !

 

[turbguy]

Can one make light magenta and light cyan by diluting magenta and cyan with distilled water? I have two Epson (6 ink cartridge) printers a 200 and a 500 series models. If so what is the dilution ratio?

No !

Ditto....

 

[PeterBJ]

I have also tried to explain, that diluting ink is not a good idea. In another post I wrote:

......or your problems especially with pigment ink could be caused by your watering down the ink.

Dye ink is basically a solution of a dye in water, but there is much more to it than that. Additives are used to adjust viscosity and surface tension and more properties. Adding water dilutes the additives, so they may no longer have the desired effect.

For pigment ink it is even more complicated. It is not a solution of a dye in water. Instead the pigment particles are kept in suspension using more additives and a binder is also needed. You can think of pigment ink as a very thin paint. pH value might be important to keep the pigment particles in suspension. Adding water could cause pigment particles to start precipitating by diluting the additives or changing the pH value.

Formulating ink is not a simple task, it is a science. Adding water totally changes the formulation. You are no longer using OCP ink but your own formulation, so in case of problems with the ink you shouldn't blame OCP.....

 

[jtoolman]

You would have to have the exact Liquid Base used to famufacture that ink. Even then you have no idea to what degree you would dilute it.
Buy some ink!

 

[The Hat]

One of the reasons I think that universal inks are so popular is that they are only water..

 

[martin0reg]

Old thread but same question - for other reason:

I have bought ink cartridges for fujifilm drylabs from ebay, they said to be smilar to claria and i want to use them in epson printers. The carts are a 4-colors set containing each 500ml of C-M-Y-K.

I have a 4-color epson L300...no problem to fill it with the 4-color fuji ink (except for the color match or the profiling).

But I want to try them also in a 6-color epson R285/p50..
..so I have to dilute the C to LC and the M to LM..

For diluting I would use gloss optimizer (sure not simple distilled water) from OCP for epson.
Like in two other threads about making b&w ink sets pharmacist and costadinos had suggested:
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/making-a-b-w-ink-set-for-6-color-epson-printers.9198/
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/a-different-all-black-ink-printing-method.8168/

pharmacists calculation for diluting black in the first link says (referring to paul roark):
C: 30% black ink + 70% gloss optimizer
M: 18% black ink + 82% gloss optimizer
LC: 9% black ink + 91% gloss optimizer
LM: 6% black ink + 94% gloss optimizer

If my understanding is correct, this would mean
- if C=30% and LC=9% then the dilution would be around 33% for the light cyan
- if M=18% and LM=6% then the dilution would be also around 33% for the light magenta

costadinos calculation for diluting the black ink is different...regarding the light colors he says:
"...and 2+1 parts dilution of the Cyan and Magenta for their Light counterparts..."

@pharmacist and @costadinos
I am not sure: should I dilute to 33% of the pure M + C color ... or to 66%...??

 

[The Hat]

The best approach to mixing your inks is to first make a swatch of the two light colours that you wish to reproduce.

Then mix the pure ink into the optimiser in measured amounts and take a swatch at each stage till you get the exact colour, don’t attempt to mix the optimiser into the pure ink or you’ll end up with awful lot of ink..

 

[pharmacist]

I think The Hat's approach is the best method. Anyhow: using a profile can even out this problem very effectively if the ink is not diluted appropriately. I once diluted LM with M to make a stronger version of medium magenta and after profiling in my CcMmYK printer, the results are exactly the same.

 

[martin0reg]

Thanks for your suggestion. "Swatch" means ink applied on paper, right?
I will try that, though it might be difficult to apply it exactly the same way resulting in the same color density on the paper...

Costadinos method was (see link above)
"..I came up with the dilution ratios by visually examining the original inks (very rough method) and diluting black ink until the opacity looked the same. And this is where someone with maybe an optical densitometer or more willing to experiment can help improve this further..."
While I don't have to compare the opacity of color and black but simply two colors, I will try it this way too.

BTW it's this sort of ink / cartridge: ebay item 121474905422 (plus a black one)
I am curious how it will print out...