hobbicolors ink fading

[nikivan]

Am I along in this? I have Canon 9000 I was initially very pleased with the ink from Hobbicolors until I recently found that my pictures are fading with incredible rate. I am suing Canon and Fuji paper and both of them show significant fade only after a week or two. Any comments?

 

[fotofreek]

What kind of light are these pictures exposed to? In frames covered with glass? Have you used OEM Canon ink and exposed the prints made with OEM ink to the same lighting conditions? Need more information.

 

[nikivan]

What kind of light are these pictures exposed to? In frames covered with glass? Have you used OEM Canon ink and exposed the prints made with OEM ink to the same lighting conditions? Need more information.

The images are in my office, they are not exposed to a direct sunlight, no glass cover. Yes, I do have a picture or two printed with Canon ink on the same paper and have been there for much longer time, yet they don't show any visible fade.

 

[Tin Ho]

If your prints faded in two weeks it must be caused by excessive Ozone gas in the environment. It's not caused by exposing to light since you said they were not exposed directly to sunlight. Print the photos again then place them in a same way but in elsewhere like your home. You may see a totally different result. Unless other photos printed with Canon ink were printed at the same time, placed in your office at the same time and same location for a same period of time or the difference may be significant. Dye based inkjet photos can be attacked by Ozone gas and fade quickly. Central air conditioning system is a known source of Ozone.

 

[nikivan]

If your prints faded in two weeks it must be caused by excessive Ozone gas in the environment. It's not caused by exposing to light since you said they were not exposed directly to sunlight.

I think it is, in fact, a problem with the inks light resistance. I can see that some parts of the photographs that where obscured by an object in front of them did not change (I will see if I can provide some scans). The office is facing north, so the light is not that intense, yet the photos are fading rapidly.

Dye based inkjet photos can be attacked by Ozone gas and fade quickly. Central air conditioning system is a known source of Ozone.

I know that. My point is that the rest of the pictures, which are also dye based, are not affected, so it must be the quality of the ink. I was planning to do some large 13x19 prints for a client using this ink. Now I am hesitant. The purpose of this post is to determine if somebody else is experiencing similar problem and what could be the solution. I like the color fidelity of the hobbicolors ink (when freshly printed). I am using ProfilePrism to create my custom profiles I am getting pretty good color accuracy with this ink. Maybe I just need to change one of the colors to another brand, or just give up and select a new brand?

 

[on30trainman]

nikivan,
I have been using Hobbicolors inks in my ip4000 since early Feb and in my newish ip6000D since mid-March. I use Costco Kirkland Glossy Photo paper. I have many test check prints lying around which I haven't seen any fading in - but these were not in a controlled test or any attempt made to have them in strong sunlight. A few days ago I put up four identical prints on a wall that gets some strong, but not direct sunlight, to check out any fading. Put Post-It tags over parts of the print to see if any fading occurs in the more exposed parts. I just made two 8.5" X 11" sheets with two prints each that I am going to expose to full sunlight in the computer room window - gets strong afternoon sunlight. Will cover parts of each print with a Post-It sticky - see what happens over the next few weeks. Hope Hobbicolors doesn't have a bad fading problem - I really like the colors printed. Also am using Profile Prism with very good results - got rid of the greenish-yellow tinge that I was initially getting.

Steve W.

 

[Grandad35]

In (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=729) the UV test methods were outlined in case anyone wanted to extend the fading tests to other ink/paper combinations. It would be easy for someone who uses HC inks to run fading tests so that this ink can be compared to Canon, MIS and Formulabs inks.

The test results indicated that ozone fading was affected by the paper more than by the ink - dye based inks printed on swellable papers had very low ozone fading rates.

 

[neilslade]

I'm not sure what the complaint is--

To avoid fading you must store your photos out of light in albums with photo sleeves preventing air circulation.

As I've stated many times, one can't expect archival quality from any dye ink as used in Canons unless stored extremely carefully, and then
only with Canon ink. I think the estimated life of the series 6 inks was something like 25 years, maybe its longer. You also have to use the papers they recommend, because all papers are not the same in regards to life.

Its a well known fact that after market inks, with the exception of bulk inks like MIS have a limited service period.

None the less
Please see my web page with details about print life and dye inks

http://www.neilslade.com/papers/inkjetstuff.html


I would suspect that Canon's lawyers have done a very good job protecting their interests, so think before you waste your money.

 

[nikivan]

I'm not sure what the complaint is--

Even if I know it is aftermarket ink, I was expecting a little more light resistance than two weeks in normal lighting conditions.

To avoid fading you must store your photos out of light in albums with photo sleeves preventing air circulation.

I remember few years ago there was a big fuss about so called orange shift in Epson 870 and 1270 prints. You sound like an Epson executive from that era. The fact is that seldom you will have these 'ideal' conditions for your casual photos. I am taking a lot of pictures of my kids and I print a lot of them to send to relatives overseas and here in NA. What people do with this photographs is just to hand them with a drawing pin somewhere in the office or at home. I do this too. I also store some of them in albums, but the best ones I want to see everyday, that's normal. Personally I don't like frames. I don't mind reprinting some of the images, or just replacing them with new ones (kids grow up so quickly), but I don't want to do this every two weeks!

I looked at your site even before your post. There is a lot if interesting information and it is nice when people spend time to share their experience with others. I also like to share, so tomorrow I am going to do some scans and post it here, so you can see how bad things are with this ink. I still hope I've got a bad batch and others will not confirm my finding, I had very positive experience with hobbicolors customer support few months ago, when I had to replace few faulty cartridges.

 

[Tin Ho]

Inkjet fade resistance is achieved by a combination of ink and paper together with certain specific additives added to ink and special coating coated on the paper. These additives and coating are Canon propriotary and may be patented. It is not realistic to expect your 3rd party inks to contain similar additives and when printed on Canon paper they would be equally fade resisting as Canon's. The technology involved would have made the ink much more expensive to produce. Once losing the price advantage they won't win your business from you as a 3rd party supplier of ink no matter how good they may be. You won't believe they are good and you won't like the price either.

Use the ink as is and enjoy the cost advantage near nothing comparing to OEM. Besides, It's unlikely an inkjet print fade as fast as you described without exposing the print to a unusual environment. If you store such inkjet photo in an album it probably will last anywhere from 5 to 10 years no doubt. It is quite common that you won't detect visually difference in two years.