BEWARE OF PAPER TIGERS

[Anonymous]

Beware of paper tigers
They might look the same as the genuine article, but they could let you down
feb06WHEN
it comes to home photo printing, there’s a feeling among consumers that
printer manufacturers recommend their own ink and paper because this is
how they make more money out of the deal.
But the major
photo-printer makers say the reality is simple: they’re acting in our
best interests by matching their printers, inks and papers through the
entire development and manufacturing process to give the best results,
reliability and longevity possible.
Connect asked the big three in
home-photo printing — HP, Canon and Epson — the question: “Why should
consumers always use your paper and inks with your printers? And what
happens if they don’t?”
These were their answers:
CANON
SOME
photo-paper brands may claim compatibility with Canon printers, but
they don’t usually deliver the same results or the simplicity of using
Canon photo paper.
Canon has dedicated considerable resources to the
research and development of Canon inks and photo paper to ensure Canon
printer owners consistently and easily obtain best-quality photos.
The
combination of Canon’s ChromaLife100 inks and selected Canon photo
papers allows photos printed at home to last as long as, if not longer
than, photos developed by labs.
HP
INK and photo paper are more than just “consumables” — they function as key components of the printing engine.
Because
HP carefully co-designs the printer, ink and photo paper together as a
system, the net result of using HP inks and papers is maximum
reliability and ease-of-use during the printing, and the best print
quality in the full sense of the word “quality”.
Consider the reliability/use of the printer.
A non-HP ink can potentially cause a multitude of unforeseen problems (short term or long term) within the printhead/cartridge.
Glued
areas can slowly delaminate because of chemical incompatibility. Tiny
channels and orifices can get plugged because ink designs are not
“torture tested” with the same rigour as HP inks — and after all,
because only HP engineers truly know what is inside the printhead, only
HP can design the full set of tests for predicting real-world behaviors.
A
non-HP photo paper can have slight amounts of curl or friction behavior
when grabbed by a printer roller that is just out of the allowable
specification for that printer.
So 10 sheets may print fine, but the 11th might misfeed.
The
result may be as benign as a slightly crooked print — or slight
“banding” within the print — or may be as severe as a paper jam that
may damage the printer or printhead.
Now, let’s consider the quality of the output.
A
non-HP ink will, by definition, not use the exclusive colourants
contained in genuine HP ink. So colours are different than what was
intended by the engineer who designed and optimised the “colour maps”
in the printer.
And, perhaps more seriously, the display permanence
of the print will be much less than what is obtained with the
innovative colourants used in genuine HP inks.
If one looks over
Wilhelm Imaging Research’s results, genuine OEM inks typically outlast
aftermarket inks by a factor of 20X or more in terms of the print
longevity.
These comments can also be made, in general, about the HP photo-paper advantage.
There are countless reasons why the HP ink/paper/printer system provides the best solution.
Aftermarket inks or papers can come close in some attributes, but in the overall range, they do not even come close.
Consumer Reports, a highly respected publication, concluded that aftermarket inks represent false economy.
EPSON
TESTS show that third-party inks require more head cleaning on an inkjet printer and cause more blockages than genuine inks.
Hence, though the initial purchase may cost less, you get to use less of the ink for printing.
Every ink has some fixed and some variable characteristics — viscosity and temperature are two key ones.
Every type of paper has its own characteristics — absorption rate and permeability are two keys ones.
To
achieve optimal print quality, every printer vendor programs its
printer drivers with the known characteristics of their own ink and
paper types.
Epson printers, for example, have a look-up table of
how viscosity of the ink in the printer (known by the printer talking
to the chip on the ink cartridge) varies with temperature, and the
printer also has a small thermometer to measure ink temperature.
When
these are known, the printer automatically varies the droplet size and
shape — and sometimes angle of firing — to match the current
viscosity of the Epson ink, so you get an optimal printing result
according to the type of Epson paper the ink is being applied to.
If
either the ink or the paper is not genuine Epson, then their precise
characteristics are unknown to the printer; they are alien substances.
The
printer will then apply ink to the paper in the way that is optimal for
Epson ink and paper, which in all likelihood will not be correct for an
alien ink-paper mix so the result will be of less quality.
Quality here means not only the immediately obvious quality of the print, but also fade, water and scratch resistance.
Again the printer vendors formulate their inks to get the maximum print life with their recommended printing papers.
As
you can see from Wilhelm’s independent testing
(www.wilhelmresearch.com), print life of more than 100 years is not
uncommon for Epson’s pigment inks on Epson papers.
No third-party
ink vendor makes pigment-based printing inks for the consumer market.
What you get is third-party vendors offering replacement cartridges
filled with dye-based ink for Epson printers designed to use pigment
inks.
A quick check of the Wilhelm site again will show you that dye
inks do not last as long as pigment inks do on their matching papers.
The third-party vendors do not tell their customers they are replacing pigment ink with dye. 

[Author]

February 27, 2006 at 10:36 AM