I was looking forwards to these test results, but as the months rolled by I changed sides, because I wasn’t expecting the outcome to be as poor as this, I wanted to test to destruction and I did. 3th party pigments are on average 100 times better.

On topic again: as Hat proved again, many 3th party (black) dye inks fade while you're looking at it. In my experience good ink on crappy paper is much better than crappy ink on good paper. I speak about resin coated papers, not cast coated, the latter is really bad stuff. Except for the surface structure from some distance the colours and contrast are now very acceptable compared too more expensive papers. I abandoned 3th party inks almost completely (again by hoarding OEM inks or switching to bottles as for the Maxify).Īfter seen the quality enhancement on the former papers I made custom profiles again for some very cheap stuff I bought in the past and were poor with 3th party inks. Of coarse these papers have OBA's (a print in our bedroom still glows in the dark after 5 years), and the surface is less 'artistic', but do you want results now or after 75 years in a museum ? I also buy sometimes off-brand papers sold (in Europe) as Innova, Olmec, Pro-Line.Īlso the glossy papers sold (in the past) by Aldi and Lidl are for me of good quality. I am a cheap guy too, but hoarded brand papers of reasonable quality (kind Ilford Smooth Pearl, HP Advanced Photo Paper, stuff most 'experienced' photographers wouldn't touch ) together with Hahnemuhle and the like.

Black ink printer test page