Printer putting too much ink on page?

[fish]

Token,

With OEM inks were your prints acceptable/good? If you switched to refill ink and have been having unacceptable results with the same paper, switching to better paper may be okay, for now. At about a dollar a refill, refill ink costs are not an issue but expensive paper may be. Consider using better paper or use a different pigment ink to minimize or eliminate bleed problem.

 

[Token]

Well, when I was using OEM inks, i don't remember this happening, however, i may be wrong, as i probably wasnt looking for it. But i do suspect that it is the ink. Unfortunately, i have a lot of my current paper (several 500 sheet reams). Can any one recommend a better pigment ink that is easy to obtain in Australia?
Thanks

 

[pharmacist]

I use very cheap paper and I am very happy with KMP pigment ink. Not sure you can buy this type of ink in Australia, but the black is very good, crisp and really deep black. It does not run from the paper and does not bleed. It is also very highlighter resistant.

I skip the Hobbicolors PMT-BK pigment ink in favour of this marvellous pigment ink from KMP.

 

[Tin Ho]

Pharmacist: I have no access to KMP ink so I can't comment on it. I remember following a pointer to look at their web site and their prices. I remember that their price was quite expensive. But that's fine if you really need the quality and are willing to pay for it. Such expensive ink should be printing top quality black text but not wasted on printing photos or color images on plain paper. How about just use OEM PGI5 or BCI3e-bk ink cart to print photos on plain paper? Do you know what I mean?

Token: Do you really need to print all the black of your images with the black pigmented ink? You can easily set the media to Matte photo paper and print the same thing on your plain paper. You printer will use all the dye inks to print everything (including all the black) of your image. I can't see any reason to want to print all the colors with dye ink but all the black with pigmented black. Since the pigmented black ink is not photo ink you will have a gamut issue on top of the blurring problem. And the black pigmented ink will cost you a lot more than the dye ink too.

 

[pharmacist]

Tin Ho,

Not sure what the result is from mixing C/M/Y inks to simulate "black" from his IP3500 (4 cartridge configuration, NO dye black !!!). Is 33 for 1 liter expensive to you for the KMP pigment ink ? I think this is very reasonable.

 

[fish]

33 euros for a liter is very reasonable - I heard good things about KMP pigment and wish I could get it. Price of ink is not an issue when refilling.

Token, I believe that Inktek is of Korean mfr. Are you able to get it in Oz? Inktek was actually more expensive than other brands (per ounce) but if it works ....

 

[Tin Ho]

Pharmacist: People don't normally buy a liter of ink at a time. It's more like 100 - 200 ml at a time. At such a quantity I believe the volume price does not apply. At almost $45 US dollars a liter it would probably be $15 for 100 ml. I am very puzzled here why people want to print the black part of a color image or photo with a black pigmented ink while the rest of the image is printed with dye ink. There is a gamut mismatch and an ink type mismatch. And it only costs you more to give you a poor result. I can not find a single benefit or reason in doing that.

Token said he uses a cheapest plain paper for the print job. That says the quality of the prints isn't a big deal to him to begin with or he would have used better quality paper. If you want to print with expensive KMP pigmented black ink on such prints you are like putting premium gas on a Porsche to drive on a unpaved farm road at 10 MPH. It would be funny to complain that the gas can't get you faster than 10 MPH.

BTW, I have used Korean Inktek pigmented black ink before. It worked fine. But Canon OEM is significantly better.

 

[lin]

Pharmacist: I have no access to KMP ink so I can't comment on it. I remember following a pointer to look at their web site and their prices. I remember that their price was quite expensive. But that's fine if you really need the quality and are willing to pay for it. Such expensive ink should be printing top quality black text but not wasted on printing photos or color images on plain paper. How about just use OEM PGI5 or BCI3e-bk ink cart to print photos on plain paper? Do you know what I mean?

Token: Do you really need to print all the black of your images with the black pigmented ink? You can easily set the media to Matte photo paper and print the same thing on your plain paper. You printer will use all the dye inks to print everything (including all the black) of your image. I can't see any reason to want to print all the colors with dye ink but all the black with pigmented black. Since the pigmented black ink is not photo ink you will have a gamut issue on top of the blurring problem. And the black pigmented ink will cost you a lot more than the dye ink too.

Tin Ho, the reason canon place the extra pigment black ink is to enhance the printing of black text so that it's give the black text a sharper look. And images may not necessary meant photo images. When a user select plain paper mode, majority are trying to print documents that may have text as well as images such as a bar charts, graphs, tables or pictures where black text may be overlay these images.

Of course, selecting Matte Photo Paper will solve the bleeding issue with text over color background as it will now use the black dye ink instead of the pigment black ink. But pigment black ink not only gives sharper text on plain paper to improve readability but also water-resistance to misminimize accidental smudges with wet hands or spill and the text becomes unreadable. This is why people want to use the pigment black ink when selecting plain paper to print documents (that has text &/or images).

User of course, could consider the use of coated inkjet paper to improve the black text bleeding issue when printing text overlay a color background. However, it really depend on the accessibility and cost of such coated inkjet paper and the user intended use.

 

[Tin Ho]

Lin: you made an excellent point here. Quality of text is perhaps the reason. If in your mind quality is important then why print with cheapest plain paper? That's contradictory to the goal. Try Epson Presentation Paper and print what you just described with dye ink only. That will really show the merit of an inkjet printer. There is no doubt it will give you the optimal print you can get for your application. When a cheapest paper is used then everything will fall short of quality. I don't think printing the black with black pigmented ink will improve anything. It only makes quality worse.

The only advantage I can think of is it is water resistant. But other than the black everything else is still not water resistant. When you apply high lighter over the black text with color background you will blur the color background still. Besides, I believe there was a post to this forum recently that not all black pigmented ink do not smude by high lighters. All but one black pigmented ink (which one I don't remember) still smudge.

The black pigmented ink is not necessary darker either. Dye ink can be very dark too. But for ip3500 the black pigmented ink may be indeed darker than a composite CMY black. The black pigmented ink is sure designed for printing black text on plain paper. I print stick on labels with black pigmented ink all the time. The labels may be exposed to moisture or rain sometimes. Being water resistant is the main feature of this ink.

Inkjet technology is a blessing for many of us. We do need to understand that it still has its weakness that the print heads can be easily clogged as one obvious issue.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I believe there was a post to this forum recently that not all black pigmented ink do not smude by high lighters. All but one black pigmented ink (which one I don't remember) still smudge.

The only pigment black ink that I could find that would smudge when you used a highlighter on it was Canon's OEM BCI-3eBk. See my report on this subject.