Testing several brands of Gloss Optimizers for Epson

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did already quite some testing with gloss optimizers - with a R800 printer some time ago, and with a P400 printer, the main focus was on inks and papers - which combination gives the best look - in regards to bronzing , gloss differentials between inks and inks and paper and the effects of a GO overprint on dye inks. I'm doing complete overprints with GO on printouts as a separate print job, this creates a uniform coverage of all areas - printed or unprinted alike.
I did several postings on this subject

www.printerknowledge.com/threads/profiling-and-such-some-observations.11687/#post-98809
www.printerknowledge.com/threads/gloss-optimizer-and-fading-of-dye-inks.11608/#post-97640
www.printerknowledge.com/threads/epson-p400-gloss-optimizer-and-such.13311/
and other comments here
www.printerknowledge.com/threads/ocp-gloss-optimizer-smells-horribly.9174/

I'm doing a comparison this time of 4 brands of GO - by OCP, Inktec, ink168.com from China via Aliexpress and premium-inks.com via Alieypress. These GO's were part of inksets for the R2000 I ordered from China.
Yes - the Inktec GO has a specific chemical smell - the other three are neutral.
I can measure the gamut - differences in the gamuts with and w/o GO overprint and I can measure the black level as one data element as well.
I cannot measure the gloss and bronzing behaviour with any instrument at home, this comes to a personal judgement only.

What did I do - I measured the gamuts of these inks w/o and with GO overprint and I printed a black patch with a 1x and 2x GO overprint.
It was this test that the GO of premium-inks.com barely had any visible impact at all , not on the black, not on the unprinted paper - nothing, this GO was useless and is discarded already. That's what can happen with unknown products from China, they perform good or not so good or not at all. But would you think you have test the GO for its effectiveness - you better do when you buy another brand than you currently use.
What does a GO overprint do on pigment ink prints - the black level improves and the gamut changes, increases slightly which I have shown already in detail in my previous postings.
Let me show you the gamut changes with these 3 GO's

These are the gamut plots at L=50 with these colors

blue - no GO applied
red - OCP GO
green - InktecGO
yellow - ink168 GO

The gamuts increase slightly at this lightness level with an GO overprint, but not by much, these changes are not visible in printouts, even in direct comparison.

The changes are wider at a lower lightness level - here at L=15

The ink168-GO - yellow gives the widest increase vs. the uncoated blue line, this increase is visible in printouts, there is more detail definition in the shadow areas.

And the gain continues to the black level:

no GO - 11.85
OCP GO - 7.57
Inktec GO - 12.01
ink168 GO - 9.47

These are improvements which are visible - directly and in comparison of the black patches against each other.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I took a photo of 3 black patches with no, 1x, 2x GO overprints which show directly the visual improvement of the black levels, the shot was taken indoors with indirect daylight coming from the top

When looking to these patches at incandescent light from the side most patches appear to get a brownish tint - (difficult to take a photo shot) - only the 1x patch with the ink168 GO appeared to be the most neutral under that light condition. It's subtle effects but visible when looking for it. This effect is visible in the data - the b-value of the L*ab values of the blackpoints show this

no GO - ab -0.17/-3.23 which is a pretty neutral black level - slightly on the cool side
OCP GO - ab 0.39/-0.59 very much neutral
Inktec GO - ab 0.12 /-2.00 almost neutral
ink168 GO - ab -1.03/-5.35 shifting to a cool black which looks as the most neutral black under lamp light

Be aware that these numbers - and the neutral look - can be very different with a different black ink and on different papers, this is just a snapshot of those materials I'm using for this test.
I did as well a 2nd GO overprint to look for its impact, there is not much except that the white paper turns visibly yellow with a 2nd OCP GO overprint, the other GO's don't do this.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

P.S. I recognize that the company ink168.com does not exist anymore on the internet, premium-inks.com does - with an address in the U.K., the bottles, the labels appear to be the same as I got the R2000 ink set from China via Aliexpress some time ago.

 

[websnail]

P.S. I recognize that the company ink168.com does not exist anymore on the internet

In case it's relevant... I've noticed that some aliexpress brands lose their name and become a generic label but the store remains so if you still have a link to the original site, assuming that ink168 wasn't a direct link:

I did some digging on the wayback machine and found the company name was: "Guangzhou Boye Digital Technology" if that's of any use.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

@websnail - thanks for checking around; I ordered a R2000 inkset from an Aliepxress shop about 2.5 years ago; I looked up that purchase order but the shop does not exist anymore, and I was screening the current offers for such an inkset if labels on the bottles by ink168.com are still visible on products offered by some other store or company. It's not a problem for me, I still have enough InkTec and OCP optimizer. I wanted to show with my posting that gloss optimizers are not all alike, they have an effect beyond the gloss effects, they can impact the black or white level of an ink/paper combination or the gamut as well.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I finally found a supplier of the GO I was happy with several years ago - by a Chinese company 168.com. There is no internet representation anymore but I found a supplier of a R2000 inkset which includes just this GO, and I placed an order for a special set of bottles 8 x GO 100ml from this company, it apparently still exists, one way or another, and I got enough GO for the next time to 'survive' . I did some special tests with GO's as reported above, I'm using the Octopus-office GO on glossy paper on dye inks (in some cases) for the improved UV/ozone protection, and this Chinese GO together with pigment inks.