The Evolution of ChromaLife Inks

[EpicRuin]

Hi all,

I recently sought advice from this community regarding swapping CLI-551 inks (ChromaLife 100+) with GI-53 inks (ChromaLife 100) for cost-saving reasons. Having completed the conversion, everything appears visually similar so far. However, I haven't printed enough with my starter ChromaLife 100+ cartridges for a thorough comparison.

I have not conducted any fading tests on my prints, which are currently stored stacked and separated by glassine paper.

I've recently stumbled across a post on another forum (https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4721590) that sparked my curiosity about the evolving changes in the ChromaLife 100 ink series. This led me to question whether the ChromaLife 100 inks have undergone significant "corrections" over time, specifically the black fade issues, see the quote below (from another printing community forum)

"The Chromalife 100 ink set would have been a respectably lightfast dye-based inkset except for the black ink. The black ink is fading severely and turning very reddish in color on the Canon Photo Paper Pro media as can be seen in the AaI&A test report. Because the black Chromalife 100 ink has so severe a fading reaction, it would likely suffer similar fade on other microporous media. For what it's worth, max black is not a tested color patch in the current industry-sponsored testing methodologies (2011), so this fading would not have not been accounted for in those tests. However, Canon is undoubtedly aware of the issue and has since released a newer inkset called Chromalife 100+ so be on the lookout for the "+" sign in the name of the inksets for Canon dye-based printers because it's a newer Chromalife formulation than what I tested."

I am aware that some fade tests have been conducted and discussed here on the forums, and I've tried to understand them as best as I can. It appears that the GI-53 inks perform "well" when paired with quality paper, and I am currently happy with my own prints, but I'm looking for any further insights.

Moreover, I am intrigued by the speculation that the GI-53 inks might actually be a covert version of ChromaLife 100+ (see the link to dpreview at the top). The theory suggests they've been upgraded to the 100+ standard but are not labelled as such, potentially for marketing reasons. Does anyone here have thoughts or evidence that supports or challenges this speculation?

I'm eager to hear any experiences and any additional information anyone can share on this.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Just use the search function on this forum for 'Chromalife' and you'll get plenty of hits, there is even a link to older entries at the bottom right on the last page 'View older results' . I'm not an active Chromalife ink user but you can assume that Canon will not reveal details of their marketing program for the Chromalife 100 (+) inks and how they keep them apart.