Inkjetcarts (Image Specialists) ink incompatible with Kirkland paper?

[jonalava]

I recently bought a refill kit from ebay seller named Inkjetcarts including 6 spongeless refillable carts for my Epson R220 and 4x 6 oz. bottles of dye ink. Seller certified his inks were made by Image Specialists specifically for this printer. First set of carts was DOA (bad chips) so I send them back and got a new set. Second set worked great, but here is the problem with the ink. When printing on Kirkland paper, dark areas that use shades of dark blue showed a lot of bronzing. I tried many ink brands before with this printer (G&G, MMC, Colorful, Printrite and Skyhorse) and none showed this problem on Kirkland paper. I agree that color balance of these other brands was way off (except MMC and Skyhorse) but at least, there was no bronzing. I wonder if this ink is really made by Image Specialists. Back when I was using a Canon IP3000, my main ink was Image Specialists (bought from MIS) and I never had this problem, always with the same "made in Switzerland" Kirkland paper.

I contacted the seller about this and at first, he was defensive and told me I accusing him of selling inks as Image Specialists when it was not. He reassured me that it was. I am willing to believe it, but is it possible? Also, he asked for pictures of my test prints. He then replied with pictures of HIS tests using Epson and Staples paper, without any signs of bronzing. On both my tests and his, it was clearly visible that Image Specialists ink didn't match (in terms of colors) the OEM one. With my Canon, I was used to great color accuracy using Image Specialists inks. The seller concluded that my paper was incompatible with his inks and that I should get some other paper made to work well with OEM inks, then it should work well with his inks.

But isn't Kirkland paper widely compatible (in terms of not showing signs of bronzing)? And why are the colors not as good as say MMC or Skyhorse compatible carts?

Anyway, after loosing too much time with this, I threw everything away and went back to Skyhorse cheap carts.

Any opinions or observations of Image Specialists inks on Kirkland?

Thanks!

 

[Tin Ho]

Is it only the black ink that has the bronzing look? I have seen 3rd party dye based ink that showed bronzing. It was caused only by the black ink.
It was the dye used in the ink that caused bronzing. It was more visible on some but less on some other paper. Bronzing is only visible on glossy photo paper. The ink I saw was for Epson R200 and R300. It wasn't Image Specialists ink. I was able to get a replacement black ink from the same 3rd party source that did not cause bronzing. So I made a conclusion that it was a bad ink. Unfortunately I do not know the brand name of the ink.

 

[Tin Ho]

Bronzing is a brownish reflection of light from dark (black) area of the photo printed on glossy photo paper. Its brownish color is a show stopper for a
otherwise beautiful photo. It has been said that it is the accumulation of color dyes on the surface of the glossy photo paper that makes a brownish reflection of light. The black dyes should have penetrated into the paper rather than accumulated on the surface. Pigment based ink is known to cause severe bronzing when printed on glossy photo paper. Dye based black ink should not cause bronzing.

 

[fotofreek]

I had an Epson stylus 900 several years ago (dye based inks). I bought some Kodak glossy paper on sale and tried it with Epson OEM inks. It took days to dry, and I had bronzing in the dark areas. My Canon i960 and ip5000 with dye based MIS inks have no problem with epson glossy photo paper or Costco Kirkland glossy photo paper. Grandad35 can tell us if these two papers are the same type. I think they are.

 

[jonalava]

In this particular case, there was no bronzing in the black areas of pictures, only in the dark blue areas. Reflection of light when viewed from an angle was more of a magenta color, even if the color was blue when in front view.

Is it still called bronzing?

 

[Tin Ho]

In general it is called bronzing for such uneven reflection of light from glossy photos. Normally the reflection of ;ight should be from the photo paper's glossy surface. If the ink itself forms a layer from the dye material on top of the paper the reflection will be from the dye layer. Such reflection will be uneven from different block of colors. Bronzing is a common problem from printing on glossy photo paper by printers using pigmented ink. Some Epson printers use a gloss enhancer to coat a glossy layer of the enhancer over the entire print surface to make reflection even when printing on glossy paper. Epson R800 and R1800 are examples of printers that have gloss enhancer in a separate cartridge.

Bronzing should not occur on Canon printers. Canon printers use dye based ink only for photo printing. If a 3rd party ink shows bronzing on a Canon printer the ink is incorrectly formulated. It uses wrong dye materials to formulate the ink. You probably have got a wrong set of ink for your printer. Kirkland brand of glossy photo paper should not be blamed.

 

[jonalava]

Thanks for the info Tin Ho.

Today, the seller contacted me by email and changed his version. He told me he just did some test with Kirkland paper and there was no sign of bronzing at all. Also, he tells me he can't see the bronzing effect showed in my pics of test prints. Maybe he has some kind of condition that doesn't allow him to see the bronzing effect.

My conclusion : I probably got wrong ink or contaminated ink.

But the seller wouldn't assume any responsability and he keeps telling me his inks are perfect and everyone else love them except me. So I am the problem. I am the crazy customer.

I thought everyone here should know, except if you are ready to deal with and accept what you receive from Inkjetcarts.

 

[lolopr1]

All I can say is TOP TOP of the line service and SUPERFAST shipping. I've ordered from several items (Refillable Cartridges) and I will never cease to be impressed by the excellent customer service they provide. Awesome service!!!

 

[mikling]

I have printed hundreds and hundreds of images on the Kirkland paper with the correct Image Specialists inks for the R220 and never saw bronzing. However, the inkset for the R260/380/580 can sometimes show bronzing on certain papers and Kirkland Professional Glossy from Costco is one of them.

 

[Tin Ho]

I have printed on many different glossy photo paper, from dirt cheap to over priced, and the popular Kirkland paper. I never seen a single occurance of bronzing using Canon OEM ink. The bronzing has something to do with ink. My only experience with bronzing was from using a set of after market prefilled ink cartridges made in China. The black ink was the only one that had bronzing. Costco used to sell some Kodak photo paper as well. In fact the Kirkland brand is much better. It suffered fairly minor bronzing only. The bronzing on Kodak paper was unbearable. But it had no problems when printed with Canon OEM ink. I believe a Google search will probably yield a lot of information about the ink/paper bronzing problem.