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Printer

New ChromaLife 100 Canon Printer Inkset 186

Posted by Hemos from the archive-forever dept.
Mark Goldstein writes "Some exciting news today for everyone who loves the speed of Canon printers, but hates the fact that they don't have archival-quality inksets. PhotographyBLOG reader Phil Aynsley has sent me a translated version of a page from Canon Japan's website, which talks about a new ChromaLife 100 inkset using BCI-7 dye-inks, with promises of 30 years light-proofness under glass and 10 years antigas fading when used with Canon's "genuine photograph paper". Let's hope it leaves Japan and reaches the rest of the world soon. " The archival issue of printing is a big one for people thinking long term - this would definitely be cool.
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New ChromaLife 100 Canon Printer Inkset More

New ChromaLife 100 Canon Printer Inkset

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  • Stocks go up! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In other news, revenue goes up due to the high price of their special paper.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:04PM (#11008966)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:printer reviews? (Score:2, Informative)

      by iocat ( 572367 )
      I've used them all and like Canon the best. The dual black inks (one an ink, the other a pigment for photos) is a really nice feature, especially if you print a lot of text. Unfortunately, Canon no longer seems to be supporting this feature in their current line of printers, all of which seem to be strictly photo printers. Bummer. You can still find the i860 on their site, but you have to search for it.

      • Re:printer reviews? (Score:2, Informative)

        by pfriedma ( 725399 )
        The PIXMA 3000, 4000, and 5000 All replaced that line of printers and offer 4 (C,Y,M,Bk) for the 3000 or 5 (C,Y,M,PBk,Bk) inks for the 4000 and 5000.
    • I've bought Epson, Lexmark, HP, and Canon stuff before. I've gotta say I liked Canon the best, as far as the quality, lifespan, and corporate policies. Anyone else have the same preference (and/or hatred of of one).

      I have bought all the same except Lexmark as they were the first to underprice their printers and overprice their ink... Now it seems that all the printer manufactorers have found that it is more profitable to own the hell out of their customers with cheap hardware and expensive ink.

      I have go
    • I haven't been keeping up on printer news since I worked at Best Buy a couple years back. But when I was working there, I was intimately familiar with the consumer models of the big brands.

      I have to say that, at that point at least, Canon was most popular, because their quality was good considering their low prices. Though it also might have had something to do with the in-store sales rep they had. But HP was miles ahead of the competition in quality, if you could afford their ink. Epson couldn't seem

      • Quality is a subjective thing. I have worked in digital imaging for over a decade, and I would say that what people look for ina colour printer will vary enourmously depending on the type of output they are intending to produce.

        HP is fine for PowerPoint presentations and Excel charts, but in my personal opinion their colour space sucks for photo printing or any type of realistic continuous tone images - they look murky. Comparitively speaking, the Epson and Canon colour profiles work much better, especiall

    • I wanted reasonable photo output at a good price and bought an i560.

      You can get non-canon cartridges for it for under $2 that produce pretty reasonable results - pushes my cost per page down so low that i can print away to my hearts content :)

    • Re:printer reviews? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Phat_Tony ( 661117 )
      I have an extremely intense hatred of HP's drivers for Macintosh. Which is too bad, because I otherwise love their equipment. They have really taken a beating and kept on going, with very high quality performance, in my experience. (Which entails three printers, one scanner, and one all-in-one.)

      Without the HPIJS [linuxprinting.org] or GIMP-print [sourceforge.net] drivers, my HP's would basically be paper weights, HP's drivers are so bad.

      Still, after a long history with them, I've switched to Epson. Never buying HP again. I love that the o

    • The last canon I had , a bubblejet, was a flaming piece of shit. Got it for christmas along with a scanner cartrige several years ago, and in its lifetime it probably printed about 20 pieces of paper, if that. Ink simply would not come out of the printer after a certain amount of time, regardless of newness of the ink carts. The scanner cart however, worked fine.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I could really use one of those, or I could someday.

    The problem with digital cameras and our bloody, damned computer media is that I take so many more pictures, but hard drive corruption, decaying optical discs, and flash drive failure have a habit of winnowing my useable image files away from time to time. I've lost enough pictures permanently that sometimes plain old traditional archiving seems like a smart idea.

    If I was more than an amateur, I'd be racing for something with archival ink. At least, of course, until somebody comes up with an electronic medium that has the durability of a marble block.

    • the durability of a marble block.

      Er, I'd rather have the durability of granite. Marble, on the whole, is very porous.

    • Re:give me permanence or give me bit-death! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eln ( 21727 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:13PM (#11009049)
      A properly stored CD will last at least 30 years, making it superior to this technology as far as longevity is concerned.

      Digital media is really the only way to keep things around for a theoretically infinite amount of time, as you can copy it from one medium to another an infinite number of times without any loss of quality.
      • A properly stored clay tablet will last at least 2000 years, making it superior to CD technology as far as longevity is concerned. (And of course there is stone tablets which has an even longer life span).

      • Re:give me permanence or give me bit-death! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:52PM (#11009349)
        Um .. I hate to burst your bubble, but can I remind you about the dutch group (name escapes me and I can't be bothered to google, and I was sure it was reported here) who stored a variety of CDs away for 2 years and found significant degredation in over half of them? You may argue that CDs are archival under good conditions, but how many of them are actually stored under good conditions.

        As for perfect savings of digital data, the data is only as good as long as someone has the desire to copy from an older to newer medium. Once that desire is not there, your data is practically useless after 2 or 3 generations of memory devices have come along. And this hampers future generations from handling data that we archive now. Just look at the number of 8 inch floppy drives around, and think about how hard it is to re-copy the data on them. Now extrapolate that 100 years down the track. Plus once the mechanisms are no longer readily available, the desire to replicate them drops off. How many people think that data on 8 inch floppys is as inmportant as what is on their 200+GB drives now???

        One of the reasons I still shoot B&W film (even though I have a D-70) is that I know a negative is more likely to be readable/appreciated by the least technological means well after I am long gone and pushing up the daisies

        • Um .. I hate to burst your bubble, but can I remind you about the dutch group (name escapes me and I can't be bothered to google, and I was sure it was reported here) who stored a variety of CDs away for 2 years and found significant degredation in over half of them?

          I find this remark highly dubious. I have CDRs ( cheap 0.05 cent no-name ones) that i burt over 5 years ago that I still regularly use. And I most certianly have *not* taken good care of them - half of them don't even have cases, I just toss t

          • I find this remark highly dubious. I have CDRs ( cheap 0.05 cent no-name ones) that i burt over 5 years ago that I still regularly use. And I most certianly have *not* taken good care of them - half of them don't even have cases, I just toss them in a drawer.

            The degredation is in single bit errors. Because of the error correction coding on CDs, you can collect quite a number of bit errors and the CD will still work perfectly. But when it does go bad, it's sudden and unrecoverable (well, that sector is

          • I think you missed my main point.

            Who copies my data when I am dead?

            Is my data somehow less worthwhile if I am not around to copy it? Compare this with mediums that do not need to be replicated in order to be accessed (ie books, paintings, negatives).

            Look at works that have been overlooked for centuries and then found to be relevant/important. How would they have faired if the climate of the time had been "Well if you think it's important, then *you* copy it".

            Building systems that are not inherently
            • It's a garbage collection mechanism. If no one gives a damn about your data, entropy garbage collects it. If you really think your data is so important, you just need to convince human society that it's worth paying the refresh costs on the memory... Shakespeare did it, why can't you?
        • A lot of people don't understand that current (last 20-30? years) black and white negative that have been properly processed and stored should last *hundreds* of years. this is why for a long time disney would archive their color movies by making three black and white copies based on channel separation (red image on one spool, green on another , and blue on a third).

          as a side issue, a lot of talk goes into forgotton formats. i'm not sure that it will be a real big problem in the future as we have to
        • You're likely right about this however, you can buy "medical" grade blank CD-Rs. They cost more than your standard ones but, TDK claims that the have a 100 year life expectency. Here's a link [synetexinc.com] I found that explains the difference.
        • One of the reasons I shoot digital is so that my photos can be appreciated by far-flung relatives before either of us is long gone and pushing up the daisies. A few photos may be of value to future generations, but most of the benefit is for those alive now.
          • Hmm .. I'd still argue for the benefit to future generations. Some of the most interesting photographers from history were only documenting what was around them. At the time what they were doing was not really that interesting compared to special events etc. Yet now, after they are dead, their works are forming important historical records. How do you do that with instantaneous digital?

            And yes, I also shoot digital - why do think I have a D-70???

      • Re:give me permanence or give me bit-death! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:57PM (#11009392)
        Or a properly stored Mitsui [mitsuicdr.com] (MDM-A) Gold Archival CD will last for over 200 years.

        They're much more resistant to light, scratching, and plain old entropy than other CD's. They're the only digital media certified by the Library of Congress, and most other libraries, as an "archival medium."

        Here's some more info [inkjetart.com] and a place to buy them.

      • Maybe you can keep your digital pictures in pristene condition, copying it from one medium to another, but what happens if you don't keep up this vigil? Or what happens if you die suddenly? Would your survivors know where to look in your hundreds of gigs worth of data? Would they even realize that there were pictures to be found? Most likely, the digital record of your life would just be thrown out.

        My family has many photos from generations ago - its easy to realize that when you find a shoebox filled
    • Get a raid set. This company has some good ones:
      http://www.accusys-store.com/
    • If you want traditional archiving, make prints and put them in albums. Digital is great for being able to share pictures in a timely manner. It doesn't help a lot for photos to outlast the people you want to share them with.
    • If I was more than an amateur, I'd be racing for something with archival ink.

      Errm, it already exists. Fuji Crystal Archive paper, printed with a Fuji Frontier, is rated to last 150 years.
    • You are a fool. Using ink is a garunteed way to lose data. Keeping hot backups (on a RAID on a seperate server) will garuntee no loss of data. And it can be a lot less expensive in the long run.
    • Traditional archiving creates such big files. Anybody know how to run a gzip on a box of pictures?

  • Paperless office?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by teiresias ( 101481 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:05PM (#11008971)
    so much for the paperless office (although that was a pipe dream anyway.)

    At least, the Canon office will be printed "genuine photograph paper" with 30 years light-proofness under glass and 10 years antigas fading.

    I'd be interested what their results are without Canon's "genuine photograph paper".
    • so much for the paperless office (although that was a pipe dream anyway.)

      We are doing our very best to make that happen here where I work. All student files are put onto the document imaging system *after* they withdraw from the college.

      We would LOVE to make it completely paperless (and are ~50% capable of doing just that) but the problem is that a lot of people are weary of not having a physical piece of paper to handle when doing their jobs. It's very hard to break them of their desire for that. Per
  • It is rather simple with automated remote backups.

  • Another Slashvertisement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:11PM (#11009025) Homepage
    This is a news site, not a product review site. Paying subscribers shouldn't be subjected to advertisements disguised as news.

  • Photographic Preservation (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:11PM (#11009030)
    Or, if you don't want to buy your own archival printer, or would like books instead of just prints, or need scanning and/or restoration, take a look at these guys: The Family Reserve [familyreserve.com]

    Disclaimer- I am very much affiliated with them.

  • What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xv4n ( 639231 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:12PM (#11009038)
    If the print start to fade, you just print it again!

  • Is this new? (Score:5, Informative)

    by AIX-Hood ( 682681 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:19PM (#11009096)
    Epson has had this type of archival ink available for at least 6 months, as I bought one and the output is spectacular. I'm not sure why this is story is newsworthy.

  • Easy and (Almost) Permanent Prints (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BenEnglishAtHome ( 449670 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:19PM (#11009103)

    If you want to turn your digital image files into real photographic prints that will last a long, long time, try San Miguel Photo Lab. [bestlab.com] No, regular silver prints on photographic paper won't last as long as platinum prints, but, hey, a couple of hundred years should be enough.

    I don't have any relationshiop with the lab, but I've seen their work and it's amazing.

  • For archival properties, use archival processes (Score:5, Informative)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:20PM (#11009106) Homepage Journal
    If you want archival prints, get them printed in a traditional photo-lab. Many 1-hour labs can turn your digital photos into photographic prints, made with the same paper and chemicals regular prints are made from.

    These should last 30 years easy if taken care of and kept out of the sun.

    If you want 200 year prints, you can probably get digitals put on IlfaChrome (formerly CibaChrome), which can last centuries if treated properly.

    • Re:For archival properties, use archival processes (Score:5, Informative)

      by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @02:43PM (#11009828)
      Ack! Many traditional photo lab prints are FAR from archival. Many will fade horribly in as little as ten years under normal display conditions! Read up on Henry Wilhelm's [wilhelm-research.com] research.

      From the Bettman archives to the collections of the JFK presidential library, even the finest quality pictures have often suffered horrible degradation even under excellent storage conditions. Things have gotten a lot better in the past several years, and a lot of labs use either Fuji Crystal Archive or Kodak Duralife papers, which do last quite well if treated properly. But be sure you check it out, don't just assume! For example, my step mother just bough very expensive professional studio portraits of her granddaughter, and they came back on papers that are known to degrade terribly in as little as 10 years.

      In general, for most of the history of photography, assume things won't last unless you know otherwise, because it's generally proven to be the case.

      If you don't want to research a place near you that uses quality, long-lasting processes, I believe that, among other places, Walmart uses Fuji Crystal Archive paper for all their prints.

  • Why bother with a Photo Printer anyway ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MyTwoCentsWorth ( 593731 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:21PM (#11009118)
    I can print a 4x6 digital picture for 19 cents at Costco, and it goes up to a 11x19 inch for 2.99. No Costco around ? Try Wal-Mart for 24 cents, CVS for 29 cents, etc.
    Other than the "I need it right now so I'll pay twice the price for a bad quality picture which fades fast too" factor, why would anybody pay a ton of money for a printer and then pay again in EXPENSIVE consumables, when they have a better choice.
    Happy printing.
    • a. Costco isn't everywhere.
      b. Some of us don't trust the minimum wage button-pushers for color accuracy.
      c. It's a fun hobby and a great way to learn the various aspects of color management and printing.

      The photos I print myself come out orders of magnitude better looking than those I get printed at the drugstore because I manage and profile the entire process myself from photoshop -> qimage.

      If you want pro-quality color repro with archival longetivity, use a service like mpix or white house custom c
    • Other than the "I need it right now so I'll pay twice the price for a bad quality picture which fades fast too" factor, why would anybody pay a ton of money for a printer and then pay again in EXPENSIVE consumables, when they have a better choice.

      If you're printing snapshots of your dog, you're right, you'll go to Costco. However, I don't think this article was targeted to you.

      People who know what they're doing can make massively superior prints on an ink-jet printer, when compared to those shoveled out

  • Costco Prints (Score:2, Informative)

    by filmotheklown ( 740735 )
    I've always been concerned with archiving and until just a few weeks ago shot everything on 35mm negative.

    With the purchase of a digital camera I found that I can take the memory chip to Costco and for $0.19 per print create 4x6 prints on photo paper (developed and printed like normal 35mm prints). I did it as a test and found that the photos (snapshots) were by and large comprable to the 35mm point and shoot I had been using. (haven't made anything larger than 4x6 yet)

    While actual photo prints don't l

  • What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by retro128 ( 318602 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:23PM (#11009136)
    You can take your flash media into just about any place these days and have the pictures on it produced with the same machines they use to print negatives. And the cost is about $0.20 per print. At those prices, why mess with lousy inkjets?

    http://tinyurl.com/58g98 [tinyurl.com]

    • Re:What's the point? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @03:01PM (#11010015)

      Hmm, let's see.

      - A good inkjet print, like with Epson's Ultrachromes, will last as long or longer.
      - Good inkjets now produce sharper prints than any photographic process except the laser exposures of the Durst Lambda. [digital-photo-lab.com] The newest generation or the next may surpass even it. Oh, and good luck finding a local lab with one of those anyway.
      - With an ICC-based Color Management system, you can get more accurate color from your digital files on an inkjet than you can with any traditional photographic print.
      - With newer printers like the Epson R-800, you can get wider color-gamut prints than any photographic process.
      - You could do all of this at home, anytime you like, without going anywhere. If you want to touch-up the print and redo it, you don't have to drive home to your computer and back.
      - I don't have time to look this up for other printers, but the marginal cost of a 4 x 6 print with Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper and Ultrachrome inks on a desktop Epson printer is $0.31. Buy third party inks and papers, and I bet you can get it down to under $0.20.

      Need more reasons? If you make many prints to amortize the cost of the printer, and are comfortable with the technology, is there any reason NOT to make your prints at home?



      /unbiased information

      Incidentally, this is where I throw in a shameless plug. If you want high quality, and maybe additional services that are hard to do yourself like making hardbound photo albums, and photo websites, and archiving, but you don't want to buy your own equipment and figure it all out yourself, try The Family Reserve. [familyreserve.com]

    • Amen, brother. My photos are all "archival" as long as they're digital. Aside from some catastrophic event that wipes out both my web server (several miles away) and my home PC at the same time, I don't foresee much "fading" or other degradation. The idea of transferring digital data to analog (paper) and hoping that it lasts for hundreds of years seems backwards to me. But what do I know...

  • Great, they're only four years behind Epson. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:30PM (#11009197)

    Epson released the first Archival printer, the 2000p, in the summer of 2000. And it was rated for 200 years light-fastness. It was followed in 2002 by the very popular Epson 2200, which used a newer 7-color archival pigmented ink set, prints up to 13 x 19, uses roll paper, does borderless printing on many sizes, and prints at 2880 x 2880 dpi with a minimum 3 picoliter droplet. It produces more crisp pictures than any photographic process except the laser exposures of the Durst Lambda [digital-photo-lab.com].

    They folowed that up in 2002 and 2003 with four large format archival printers of comparable print quality, the 4000, 7600, 9600, 10600, printing up to 44" wide by 100' long. All of these are rated at 100 years light-fastness.

    Now, in 2004, they've released their third generation of archival printers, starting with the R-800, which is the first pigmented printer to produce true glossy prints without "bronzing," has a wider color gamut that any other consumer level printer of any photographic process, prints borderless sheets as well as CD's and DVD's, and prints at up to 5760 x 1440 with 1.5 picoliter droplets. These prints are also rated at 100 years.

    Don't get me wrong, it's nice that Canon's bringing on the competition, but is a new 30-year ink set four years after Epson's really big news in the industry? Epson dominates here, and with their huge range of printers that take ink sets good for 100 years or more, this isn't a very aggressive step for Canon.

    • This is news because Canon and Epson each have their strengths.

      Canon printers tend to be significantly faster then their same-generation Epson counterparts, and tend to do a little better with color reproduction. Epsons, on the other hand, are much better for longevity and certainly produce better black and white photographic prints.

      I've got three printers at home now, and each serves a different function. I'll probably buy an Epson for B/W printing as soon as I can find a place to hide it so my wife

      • and tend to do a little better with color reproduction

        You need to actually watch some of the reviews over the past few years, and current year that are done by photo professionals.

        Epson is always the quality leader. You are right their photo printers are not always the fastest, but they always score the highest for quality.

        And I'm NOT talking about the 4 color non photo printers; I am talking about the photo printers with 6 or 7 inks.

        You will also notice that reviews by computer nerds that have no idea
    • Epson uses pigment-based inks for their Durabrite line, which can be vulnerable to scratching and other mechanical damage relative to dye based prints. A good process, but not perfect. A dye-based ink that isn't as fugitive strikes me as an improvement.
    • The problem that a lot of people have with the Epson Ultrachrome inks is that they have a smaller color gammut vs. traditional dye based inks used in other printers. This makes pictures printed w/ the Ultrachrome inks appear dull and flat compared to Canon and HP.

      Not to mention, Epson still doesn't sell a wide-carriage printer (capable of printing larger then 8.5x11) using Ultrachrome inks which doesn't have the bronzing problem on glossy paper here in the US. Apparently they've announced one for the J

      • Re:Great, they're only four years behind Epson. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @04:16PM (#11010769)
        "nobody knows if a wide carriage version of the R800 will ever come to the US"

        A wide carriage version of something better is certainly coming, and it will surely include the new higher quality gloss. They aren't going to just stop development with the current generation of printers. Anyway, the "bronzing" is only visible when the image is held at certain angles to the light, and those are the same angles where you get glare off glossy paper anyway. But it is admittedly a weakness. However, if it actually bothers you, you can fix it right now off any Epson print with an archival glossy protective spray, like PremierArt Print Shield or Lyson Print Guard Spray.

        And no, the R800 does NOT have a wider color gammet then any other consumer level printer. Dye based inks are still superior in that regard. The only thing the R800 does is add an 8th tank of "gloss enhancer" which helps reduce but doesn't completely eliminate the bronzing effect on glossy paper- it doesn't change the gammut.

        Well, thanks for correcting my statistics on the Epson 2200, I did have some numbers wrong. But I'm surprised you'd be so nitpicky on that, and immediately follow it up contradicting me with complete misinformation about the R800. Since the R800 has 1.5 picoliter droplets and 5760 x 1440 resolution, they no longer have to use "light" colors to achieve smooth gradients. So they dropped light black, light magenta, and light cyan from the Ultrachrome inkset, and in place of those three, they added Red, Blue, and gloss optimizer. With the addition of red and blue inks, the R800 can cover almost the entire SRGB color space, plus a whole lot more green and blue. Epson claims [64.233.161.104] it prints a 19% larger gamut than HP's dye-based Photosmart 8450. Can you name any printer that covers a larger color space [epson.com.au] than the R800, without going up to giant professional printers like the 12-color Colorspan DisplayMaker Mach 12?

        • All I know is that Epson didn't announce the US version of the wide-carriage R800 at Photokina which is where they have historically announced US/European printers for the next 6+ months. While I'm sure sooner or later Epson will provide us with such a printer, it will most likely be at least 6 months.

          Sorry, but a "protective spray" doesn't fix the bronzing issue. Surely if these protective sprays had this great 2nd feature they'd be marketed as such. At least you're the first person I've ever heard to

          • Well, the i9900 does give the R800 a run for it's money on gamut. The i9900 has a better green gamut all around, and beats the R800 on dark reds and pinks. But the R800 has a significant advantage in blues, indigos, and violets, as well as saturated yellows and yellowish greens. It's hard to tell which color gamut covers a larger total volume in an animated 3D rendering, but it's a close call. They both certainly have their advantages and disadvantages. I have to admit I haven't kept up that closely with C

      • I also wanted to add that pigment based inkjet inks from DuPont have now also surpassed the color gamut of dye-based inks on professional [delawareonline.com] as well as desktop printers.
    • I bought a canon instead of replacing my workhorse 1270 epson.Even after checking Wilhelm print longevity [wilhelm-research.com]. Why?

      The color. The epson pigment inks just don't have the pop of the canon dye based ink (especially in the greens). The epsons look good till I compaired them side by side.

      My experience is anything I've framed from the epson 1270 which is dye based like the canon, has lasted. Some of by unframed stuff from the same printer hasn't and has shifted significantly in a little as 3 years.

      And by conver
  • While 30 years sounds pretty good, it's still well shy of Epsons claim of 100 years for some pigment inks - read Epsons' paper on lightfastness here [epson.com].

    All particular claims of durability rely on a known combination of ink and paper though, so if you are looking at a printer and relying on claims of durability be sure to factor in paper costs as well!
  • epsons ultrachrome (non archival is considered lightfast for 75 years (85- a hundred except yellow tends to fade a bit earlier) now, if you use their archival inkset add on about 25 years and lose a little bit of color accuracy (yellow again) what i see that is important is which print heads does it use, as far as i know most of them use old technology epson, yes even roland and hp. micropiezal technology. epson is far ahead of the game and is hell bent on putting these companies in their wake, theyve been
  • It does not surprise me to see the typical geek reaction: "Gee, digital media is the way to go", "scan and burn your documents to CD/flash media".

    I will get modded as troll, but the truth is that the "Paperless Office" is still an unachievable dream: so many transactions and processes require an actual piece of paper as proof.

  • Will this work with existing Canon printers? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @01:51PM (#11009346)
    The main problem companies have had with switching to archival inksets is this: the most effective known way to make archival inks is to use pigment based, as opposed to dye-based, inks. But pigment ink particles tend to be much larger than the particles in dyes. (Dye particles are 1-4 nanometers, pigment particles are 50 to 200 nanometers.) This usually changes the viscosity of the ink solution, and the larger particles can more easily gum up the print heads.You can grind them up smaller, but the smaller they get, the less archival they become.

    One reason Epson is so far ahead in archival printing is that they're the only company using piezoelectric diaphragms in their print heads. Everyone else uses thermal print heads, which heat the ink in order to spray it out, which tends to gum up the print heads more easily anyway. In fact, every other brands' heads gum up so easily that they put disposable print heads on the print cartridge, where Epson printers come with permanent print heads. (Obviously, this allows them to make a killing on ink compared to the competition). This may be why Canon's only advertising a 30-year ink as opposed to Epson's 100-year Ultrachromes- they may have to grind up the pigments smaller to stop them from clogging in their thermal print heads.

    So I wonder if these will be plug'n-play replacements for Canon's current printers, or if they're going to come out with a whole new line you have to buy to use these?

    • Bzzzt. Only HP printers include the print head in the print cartridge. Both Epson and Canon seperate the two. On Canon's higher end printers (like the i9900) the print head is user-replaceable... dunno about the lower end models.

      Also, Canon is advertizing 100 year life for photos stored in an album w/ this ink. 30yrs for under glass (think picture frame) and 10yrs in open air.

      Honestly, I really really hope that you can use the BCI-7 inks with existing Canon BCI-6 printers (I bought a i9900 just last w
      • Additionally, most of the higher end HPs have separate print heads. Both the 7110 multi-purpose on my bookshelf and my DesignJet120 (24" 6 color) have separate tanks and heads.

        Most of us who own Epsons wished that the heads were replaceable, so we wouldn't have to throw away the whole machine every year or so when the heads get permanently clogged.

    • In fact, every other brands' heads gum up so easily that they put disposable print heads on the print cartridge, where Epson printers come with permanent print heads.

      Just FYI, the Canon i9100 comes with permanent print heads. You can order a replacement head from Canon and replace the carriage yourself, but the print heads aren't embedded in the ink cartridges. Epson heads can be replaced, too, but you have to send the entire printer in; it isn't a DIY job.

      --- SER

  • If you want a print that will really last a while, covert it to greyscale, interpolate the image to an 8x10 300dpi, then invert it. Print it on a sheet of transparency. Finally platinum print [bhphotovideo.com] it. Platinum prints last as long as the paper they're printed on and they look freakin awesome. Archive that! Daguerreotypes are also permanent, though they're made on glass plates which can break, plus the process is more cumbersome for somewhat less spectacular results.
  • In my opinion the purpose of photographs is to keep a permanent record. I'm 38, so with this stuff, my childhood would be fading to black in front of my eyes.
    I'll stick with real chemical process photo prints until then.
  • I'd like to point out that Canon isn't even close to being second to market here. The catch is, that all the other competitors provide third-party inks that also only work on Epson's piezoelectric inkjet printers.

    There's Lyson, [lyson.com] InkJet Mall's generic, [inkjetmall.com] Luminos, [lumijet.com] Jet Tec, [jettec.co.uk] and Media Street. [inksupply.com]

    I'm probably missing some, too.

  • 30 years is archival? Not. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @02:25PM (#11009641)
    This is a joke, right? 30 years life is NOT archival. I've seen photographs produced in REAL archival processes that are 150 years old and they look perfect, with no signs of fading. I even use some of those processes myself, and I expect the pigments I use will last longer than the paper, probably something around 400 years.

    I have done a lot of research on this subject, and let me make one thing perfectly clear: There is no such thing as an archival inkjet ink. And there never will be, not unless the fundamental technology of inkjets changes radically.

    Let me explain this to our presumably technically oriented slashdot audience. It requires some familiarity with the famous Milikan Oil Drop Experiment, which should be well known to anyone who studied physics. Perhaps some of you even performed the experiment in your high school physics class as I did. Fortunately we won't have to do any of the measurements, the analysis is strictly qualitative, not quantitative.

    Milikan's experiment involves a vapor of oil drops suspended in an electric field between a cathode and an anode. The experiment had to use oil drops, because the surface of oil drops is ionized. If you do this with a neutral-pH substance, like distilled water, the droplets will not suspend in air inside the field. You would have to add significant amounts of salt or some other ionizing substance to the water to get it to interact with the electrostatic field.

    And that's exactly how all inkjet systems work, from the fancy Iris to the lowliest piezoelectric inkjets. Small droplets of ink are propelled by electrostatic fields. The ink droplets must contain an ionizing agent or nothing will happen.

    Unfortunately, ionization is the enemy of pigment. Ionization is the catalyst for oxidization, and causes fading. This is why some of the early Epson "archival" inks underperformed their rated lives. Testing was done by Wilhelm Research, in the clean air of Iowa, but when the inks were released, they were used in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, with high levels of ozone pollution. The ionized inks interacted with the ozone in the air, and the prints faded rapidly, sometimes in mere days or weeks, rather than the expected 80 years. The inkset was withdrawn, and obvious flaws in Wilhelm's accelerated testing methods were revealed.

    If you look at any truly archival photographic process, the fundamental issue is neutralization of ionization. Adding salts is exactly the one thing you should NEVER do if you want to produce archival prints. But that is exactly what the inkjet printheads require for propelling the inks. Until a technology evolves that does not require electrostatic fields to propel ink droplets, inkjets cannot ever produce archival prints. It would contravene the laws of physics.

    I won't even get into the chemical formulation of dyes, and let me make it clear, there are no inkjet "inks," they are all dyes. Inks have a binder, and dyes do not. Dyes cannot be deposited on a surface in sufficient quantities to provide a stable layer of pigment, they merely stain the surface of the substrate. An archival binder is just as essential to archivality as the composition of the pigments. And some pigments are particularly "fugitive," they fade rapidly while others do not, causing color shifts, especially in pale colors where a minor amount of oxidization and pigment loss causes major color shifts. There is no such thing as an archival CMYK dye set. Nobody has ever produced a full-color stable ink set, the magenta colors are particularly prone to fading. If you've ever seen a color poster hanging in a sunny shop window for years, you've seen the shift, the magenta fades away, leaving a sickly bluish-green image.

    Well enough of that. Just realize that whenever "archival" is thrown around in the inkjet field, it's being used as a selling point. Every single person who makes an assertion that their ink is archival has a financial incentive to lie to you. Photographers and art curators have specific criterion for archival properties, and if you go to them and tell them you have a new dye that is archival, and it lasts 30 years without fading, they'll laugh in your face.
    • Although there are electrostatically deflected ink jet devices, the technology used to propel modern consumer "ink jet" printers is heat or piezo, as noted in previous posts.
      • Right, the droplets may be propelled by a different effect, but I've looked at the designs and they all use electrostatic effects to some degree or another, most commonly to direct the droplets straight so they don't stray all over the place and they hit the paper via a straight path. Consequently, the dyes must be ionized for the electrostatic effect to work. If you know of some injket technology that doesn't use electrostatics at ALL, let me see the design and I'll check it out.
        But there's an easier way t
        • OK. Here's [amjet.com] a link to a PDF Material Safety Data Sheet for replacement ink for Epson inkjet printers. Notice the pH: dead on 7.0, with a deviation of plus or minus 1.0.

          I guess it relies on its ionization, except it's OK if it's pH neutral, or maybe a little bit basic, or maybe a little bit acidic?

    • Re:30 years is archival? Not. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) * on Monday December 06, 2004 @03:35PM (#11010358)
      I nominate the above for "best Slashdot post ever".

    • I decided to learn about inkjet dyes and (pigment) inks immediately after reading sashuka's post. I felt it necessary after seeing him so vehemently deny the existence of pigment based ink. After fifteen minutes of light research, the following document revealed the existence of a milled pigment inkjet ink. EPSON's UltraChrome Ink Factsheet [epson.com] provides information in detail. Below are listed some of the clues to this ink's existence... clues which EPSON cleverly hid on their own website!

      It appears that EPSON

      • It doesn't matter if Epson calls them "microencapsulated pigments," the particles still just lie there on the surface of the paper, so they're still dyes, technically speaking. You need a binder to encapsulate the whole layer of pigments, in order to lay down a sufficient amount of pigment so that when they start to oxidize, there's still enough unoxidized pigments to be stable.
        Watercolor pigments use gum arabic as a binder. Oil paints use linseed oil as a binder. House paints use latex as a binder. No bind
        • You may be have professional training archive printing to your credit, but your willingness to use logical fallacies in your rhetoric lends one to see it more as a rant. The most glaring fallacy is that of Poisoning the Well. [adamsmith.org] Basicly your statement "if someone declares their inkjets are archival, they have a financial incentive to lie to you" while possibly true, has nothing to do with whether or not pigment based inkjets do or ever will exist. You're simply trying to discredit any opposition before it ha

    • Re:30 years is archival? Not. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Phat_Tony ( 661117 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @07:12PM (#11012478)

      Do you have any references for this idea that all inkjet printers use ionized ink? It's true that the IRIS (now IXIA) printers use continuous-flow inkjet printing, where the ink is ionized and the droplets are "steered" by running them past charging plates and deflection plates. But most inkjets use thermal printing, where the ink is rapidly heated in the print head to make a bubble, which pressurizes the ink and squirts it out the nozzle. It is only aimed based on careful positioning of the print head. Epson, and some high-end professional printers like Roland, use piezoelectric printing. The piezoelectric effect is where a mechanical stress occurs in a material due to an electrical charge. A small piezoelectric diagram forces the ink out through a narrow (10 micron) orifice. Again, dot-placement is controlled by careful print-head placement, not by electric plates guiding ionized ink.

      In fact, while Epson and HP's ink formulations are not known, there are many third-party ink sellers who do list their formulations, and they tend to be rather clear about the fact that they de-ionize [cjenkinscompany.com] the [transload.net] carrier [inkcartridgesworld.com] (water) before making the inks. And they don't add anything ionized. Yet, these non-ionized inks work with these printers. How is that? Fuji also mentions [finepix.de] that only a few expensive large-format printers use ionized ink.

      Even if the inks were ionized, it is entirely unclear that oxidation would break down the large color particles in pigment based inks like Ultrachrome inks. Your arguments fail to address this. Pigmented inks are what were used in classical oil paintings, many of which have been displayed without glass since the renaisance, probably without significant fading. During this time, they've been heavily oxidized. You do not present any case that adding an ionizing agent to the ink would accellerate the breakdown of the pigments to make the inks significantly unstable. Do you have any research, or math, or arguments as to what makes you think that the addition of any ionizing agent would break down any conceivable pigment too quickly to make it stable?

      "I won't even get into the chemical formulation of dyes, and let me make it clear, there are no inkjet "inks," they are all dyes. Inks have a binder, and dyes do not. Dyes cannot be deposited on a surface in sufficient quantities to provide a stable layer of pigment, they merely stain the surface of the substrate."

      Yes, that's why, at least with dye-based inkjet inks, the paper is critically important to the life of the prints. The paper is the binder. There are two main types of inkjet photopaper coatings. Microporous coated papers provide the least protection against oxidation. Still, good microporous papers, like the microcermaic coatings invented by Asahi Glass, allow large amounts of ink to be deposited with quick drying and without smudging, and the more ink, the more it can oxidize without changing. They use tiny ceramic (alumnia sol) particles in a silca gel, which rapidly sequesters the ink. Viewed under a microscope, this paper looks like jagged mountains. This is how they gather enough ink to "provide a stable layer of pigment." That's why these papers are usually used with more stable inks, they don't protect the ink much, but they take a whole lot of it into the paper.

      Swellable Polymer papers use a nonporous coating of organic polymers that are water-receptive and SWELL TO SURROUND THE INK after it hits the paper. The majority of the ink is completely protected from direct air exposure. How do the inks oxidize, then?

      Kodak has managed to combine these two approaches in their latest Ultima Picture Paper [photographyblog.com], which both takes a heavy coating of ink and en

  • Wake me when they last at least as long as their copyright.
  • Canon still has no decent linux drivers for their printers....
  • Let me tell you why.

    Inkjet printing is directly related to digital originals... noone does an inkjet print from film.. AFAIK and why would they?

    Digital originals can be stored, backed up and copied to unlimited numbers of archival repositories; backup floppies, backup zip, backup CD backup DVD. backup Hard Drive, backup Flash... and through the miracle of lossless duplication (whether the original is a lossless of the raw data or not).. you can keep a backup copy of the digital original for as long as you

  • 10-30 years is LONG TERM and ARCHIVAL? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @04:06PM (#11010666) Homepage
    Huh. Somebody needs to visit the Long Now foundation [longnow.org] and recalibrate their idea of what "long term" means.

    Thirty years is "archival?" The crappiest stuff in the world will last thirty years. Canon is bragging about thirty years?

    And that's probably an exaggeration. There are probably a lot of asterisks about humidity, and what kind of glass it is stored under. (A lot of those CD-R's that manufacturers said were going to last a century are starting to fail in less than ten years).

    Light purple spirit duplicator documents will last thirty years. Even if they're a lighter purple than the day they were printed.

    Books printed on World War II paper have lasted more than thirty years.

    Any old black-and-white photo will last a century, easy. After a hundred years or so it may not have a full rich Ansel Adams tone scale, but you can see that your baby has Great-Grandma's dimple just fine. And that's the one that was sitting in that leather frame on Grandpa's office desk for all those decades...

    So, these inkjet photos. Sure, you can always print them out again... except that our supposedly permanent digital media are, of course, only permanent if we are vigilant conservators ready to recopy everything over to a new format every decade or so as technology advances.

    Two hundred years from now historians are going to know more about the 1800s than they do about the 2000's.

  • inkjets not archival (Score:3)

    by mrm677 ( 456727 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @04:10PM (#11010719)
    If you want an archival color print from either digital files or traditional negatives, go to a lab that uses Fuji Crystal Archive paper in the traditional RA-4 process. Your print will last a 100 years and doesn't have to be underneath glass. In fact I recommend this even if you store your digital pictures on a RAID-5 array backed by tape. There is something to be said about the permanence of a print versus the permanence of digital bits.

    Personally, I bought my wedding negatives from the photographer and did all the prints using traditional B&W silver halide paper in my basement darkroom. Fiber-based paper toned in Selenium will last 200 years or more. Heck I even printed the color negatives on B&W paper and they look great.

    I have family pictures that are 80 years old and look fantastic. The sad part is that Joe Sixpack's treasured family pictures, created on inkjets or even shoddy photo labs, will not be viewable 80 years from now.
  • Some one already posted about the lifespan of hp's vivera inks, but the only two replies implied that hps testing was questionable. The truth is that hp doesn't do their own tests, they hire a 3rd party that is an expert in image testing. The company they use is Wilhelm Research
    (http://www.wilhelm-research.com/about_ u s.html). All of HP's long-life figures are from this source, and the previous post was correct, up to 117 years behind glass with HP's new ink system and hp premium plus paper, and 70+ year

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