Paul Verizzo
Print Addict
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2011
- Messages
- 427
- Reaction score
- 88
- Points
- 173
- Location
- Sarasota, FL, USA
- Printer Model
- Canon ip4500, 9000 MK II, PRO-
Be prepared to be astounded!
The test:
Printer: Canon PRO 9000 MK II. Printer settings were appropriate for the Canon paper, others were just “Glossy,” and “Matte,” except as noted. No attempt was made to tweak the color profiles, density, etc.
Inks: Genuine Canon
Test Image: From TSS, a photo source, I used their multi-frame color test image, tweaked it so that the whitest white squares were at 0, and the blackest blacks were at 255, RGB. Then the same was changed to B&W, and both put into one image. View, download from here: http://1drv.ms/1ziPm9H
Papers:
Ilford Classic and Smooth,
Royal Brites double sided matte
Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi-Glossy,
Canon Photo Paper Plus II Glossy,
H-P “Everyday” Glossy,
H-P “Premium” Glossy,
Arista (relabeled Premier Brand?) Lustre
Per Ilford, their papers were printed set to Photo Paper Plus II, High quality.
The two H-P papers and the Ilford Classic are “swellable polymer” papers, best for dye inks. I think the Royal Brites is too, if for no other reasons the age of the product, the price, and not instant dry. All others are microporous.
Storage: Prints were exposed to air for several weeks, then piled in a ziplock bag and put on a shelf. Moved around sometimes, no direct and barely indirect sunlight due to another shelf layer inches above the storage one. Coastal Florida, no air conditioning (you read that right!) for approximately five years.
Photographing the images: I chose to photograph instead of scan the images so that they were in a typical ambient light environment and inkjet prints are so sensitive to light differences. My Konica-Minolta A2, bright day outside, indirect light, all images with the same exposure setting, white balance for cloudy day.
Comparison to fresh prints. Not particularly valid because the four that I did were on a Canon iP4500 with generic ink cartridges. I need to close a few eBay deals for more genuine Canon ink before I do more fresh prints on the 9000.
Viewable images: http://1drv.ms/1z1G6mt (OneDrive) Double click on any image, it will open in a dedicated photo browser. Any color cast is due to any number of factors, the chore at hand is to compare one image with another only.
The first four images (with penned notes in the middle) are four of the papers with generic inks in my iP4500. All very sparkly and bright, albeit the Royal Brites needs to have the curve adjusted, too red to be perfect.
The next batch is readily identified by the image using up only half the page, and the paper type readily seen in large computer printed letters.
The last photos just have some handwritten notes on them. Not sure of their heritage other than “old, too.”
The very quick summary:
Overview: The B&W portions of the test image, same as the color portion except monochrome is where the differences become instantly noticable. (The best frame to compare papers is the one farthest on the right and second one down, between the arch and the fingers.) This is true both on new prints with some dry time, and the aged prints. While the color portions might well pass the “Looks OK” test, the right side tells you what has changed. Just like the old B&W photo papers but even more so, the native tints and warmth will vary with paper and printer settings. Since the only drift was towards the green, that tells us it’s the magenta dye shifting.
The envelope, please............There were only two papers that did not suffer from monochrome grays turning to greens:
El Cheapo Royal Brites Matte, more about this paper, below.
Ilford Galerie Classic.........which of course, is no longer made.
That’s it, folks. One paper no longer made, the other a cheap craft market paper only in matte and letter size.
Is there a best of the rejected prints? Yeah, but “best of the worst” isn’t exactly a compliment. In order, the three best rejects are Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl, Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi-Glossy, and Arista/Premier? All are microporous papers. I was disappointed that the H-P Premium Glossy, a swellable polymer paper, didn’t do better.
Here’s sort of good news for the B&W printing crowd: Setting the printer on grayscale, a test print on H-P Everyday paper after five years had a warm tone but no green shift. I’ll have to try this with some other papers, although not with a five year wait! Very reminiscent of the old warm tone or selenium toned prints of yore.
Valuable Lesson: Definitely set you printer to Grayscale when printing a B&W image!
There are distinct differences in the brightness of the paper stock, too, that seem to have been exacerbated in storage. The brightest were Royal Brites Matte and Canon papers. The Ilford Smooth was one of the darkest, and the H-P papers were in between.
Burning question: Surely laying stacked like they were is something close to being in an album, behind glass, or even laminated. Not saying the same, but in those directions. Minimal to no air circulation. Certainly UV didn’t have had anything to do with the results, and this is proven by a complete lack of fading.
The only contributory factors I can think of is the polyethylene bag, but really! Or, perhaps the various vapors still outgassing or from the papers themselves? If either case, then keeping the print alone would change all this. Your ideas welcome!
Not Surprising: You can’t go terribly wrong with Canon papers! But even within the fold, there are differences. Why Canon never made swellable polymer paper is beyond me, unless the "instant dry" is more important than the long life they so struggle to achieve. They never made a pigment printer until just a few years ago. Too strange.
About that Royal Brites Matte paper: I have no recollection where I got my first box from, eBay? I instantly fell in love with it; inexpensive, heavy weight, print on two sides, and noticeably forgiving on color accuracy. No matter what printer or inks, the results were always just fine for home use. Putting 2, 3, or 4 images on each side, much handier than a stack of loose 4x6's, or whatever. Little did I know it would do so well on this test.
The official website is at: http://www.royalbritespaper.com/products.php?cat=1&id=10011
As of tonight, 18 December 2014, there wasn't any of the matte on eBay. YMMV.
The lesson that hurts: All effort calibrating your monitor, making custom color profiles, buying the best paper(s) is probably wasted. I know many will disagree because that thinking is so ingrained. But the fact is in the real world the colors in that print will shift not just with time, but environment and light source. Checking all these papers in incandescent light gives a whole different set of results than indirect daylight. The good news is that our brain adjusts the image to look better and better if there is no other reference point. Subjectivity trumps objectivity.
The test:
Printer: Canon PRO 9000 MK II. Printer settings were appropriate for the Canon paper, others were just “Glossy,” and “Matte,” except as noted. No attempt was made to tweak the color profiles, density, etc.
Inks: Genuine Canon
Test Image: From TSS, a photo source, I used their multi-frame color test image, tweaked it so that the whitest white squares were at 0, and the blackest blacks were at 255, RGB. Then the same was changed to B&W, and both put into one image. View, download from here: http://1drv.ms/1ziPm9H
Papers:
Ilford Classic and Smooth,
Royal Brites double sided matte
Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi-Glossy,
Canon Photo Paper Plus II Glossy,
H-P “Everyday” Glossy,
H-P “Premium” Glossy,
Arista (relabeled Premier Brand?) Lustre
Per Ilford, their papers were printed set to Photo Paper Plus II, High quality.
The two H-P papers and the Ilford Classic are “swellable polymer” papers, best for dye inks. I think the Royal Brites is too, if for no other reasons the age of the product, the price, and not instant dry. All others are microporous.
Storage: Prints were exposed to air for several weeks, then piled in a ziplock bag and put on a shelf. Moved around sometimes, no direct and barely indirect sunlight due to another shelf layer inches above the storage one. Coastal Florida, no air conditioning (you read that right!) for approximately five years.
Photographing the images: I chose to photograph instead of scan the images so that they were in a typical ambient light environment and inkjet prints are so sensitive to light differences. My Konica-Minolta A2, bright day outside, indirect light, all images with the same exposure setting, white balance for cloudy day.
Comparison to fresh prints. Not particularly valid because the four that I did were on a Canon iP4500 with generic ink cartridges. I need to close a few eBay deals for more genuine Canon ink before I do more fresh prints on the 9000.
Viewable images: http://1drv.ms/1z1G6mt (OneDrive) Double click on any image, it will open in a dedicated photo browser. Any color cast is due to any number of factors, the chore at hand is to compare one image with another only.
The first four images (with penned notes in the middle) are four of the papers with generic inks in my iP4500. All very sparkly and bright, albeit the Royal Brites needs to have the curve adjusted, too red to be perfect.
The next batch is readily identified by the image using up only half the page, and the paper type readily seen in large computer printed letters.
The last photos just have some handwritten notes on them. Not sure of their heritage other than “old, too.”
The very quick summary:
Overview: The B&W portions of the test image, same as the color portion except monochrome is where the differences become instantly noticable. (The best frame to compare papers is the one farthest on the right and second one down, between the arch and the fingers.) This is true both on new prints with some dry time, and the aged prints. While the color portions might well pass the “Looks OK” test, the right side tells you what has changed. Just like the old B&W photo papers but even more so, the native tints and warmth will vary with paper and printer settings. Since the only drift was towards the green, that tells us it’s the magenta dye shifting.
The envelope, please............There were only two papers that did not suffer from monochrome grays turning to greens:
El Cheapo Royal Brites Matte, more about this paper, below.
Ilford Galerie Classic.........which of course, is no longer made.
That’s it, folks. One paper no longer made, the other a cheap craft market paper only in matte and letter size.
Is there a best of the rejected prints? Yeah, but “best of the worst” isn’t exactly a compliment. In order, the three best rejects are Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl, Canon Photo Paper Plus Semi-Glossy, and Arista/Premier? All are microporous papers. I was disappointed that the H-P Premium Glossy, a swellable polymer paper, didn’t do better.
Here’s sort of good news for the B&W printing crowd: Setting the printer on grayscale, a test print on H-P Everyday paper after five years had a warm tone but no green shift. I’ll have to try this with some other papers, although not with a five year wait! Very reminiscent of the old warm tone or selenium toned prints of yore.
Valuable Lesson: Definitely set you printer to Grayscale when printing a B&W image!
There are distinct differences in the brightness of the paper stock, too, that seem to have been exacerbated in storage. The brightest were Royal Brites Matte and Canon papers. The Ilford Smooth was one of the darkest, and the H-P papers were in between.
Burning question: Surely laying stacked like they were is something close to being in an album, behind glass, or even laminated. Not saying the same, but in those directions. Minimal to no air circulation. Certainly UV didn’t have had anything to do with the results, and this is proven by a complete lack of fading.
The only contributory factors I can think of is the polyethylene bag, but really! Or, perhaps the various vapors still outgassing or from the papers themselves? If either case, then keeping the print alone would change all this. Your ideas welcome!
Not Surprising: You can’t go terribly wrong with Canon papers! But even within the fold, there are differences. Why Canon never made swellable polymer paper is beyond me, unless the "instant dry" is more important than the long life they so struggle to achieve. They never made a pigment printer until just a few years ago. Too strange.
About that Royal Brites Matte paper: I have no recollection where I got my first box from, eBay? I instantly fell in love with it; inexpensive, heavy weight, print on two sides, and noticeably forgiving on color accuracy. No matter what printer or inks, the results were always just fine for home use. Putting 2, 3, or 4 images on each side, much handier than a stack of loose 4x6's, or whatever. Little did I know it would do so well on this test.
The official website is at: http://www.royalbritespaper.com/products.php?cat=1&id=10011
As of tonight, 18 December 2014, there wasn't any of the matte on eBay. YMMV.
The lesson that hurts: All effort calibrating your monitor, making custom color profiles, buying the best paper(s) is probably wasted. I know many will disagree because that thinking is so ingrained. But the fact is in the real world the colors in that print will shift not just with time, but environment and light source. Checking all these papers in incandescent light gives a whole different set of results than indirect daylight. The good news is that our brain adjusts the image to look better and better if there is no other reference point. Subjectivity trumps objectivity.
Last edited:
