Inkjet Pigments

Our most recent pigment printer, the 44" Z3100 with Vivera pigments, have much improved longevity over any traditional color chemical photographic process ( type C,  Cibachrome or dye transfer as examples ) as well as the other pigment inkjet color inks available today. A framed print from this configuration, color or black and white, printed on practically any good media is rated at > 250 "Wilhelm years" in daylight for 12 hours a day in normal viewing illumination. We always suggest that our clients become familiar with Wilhelm's test data since this organization is a major consultant not only to Epson, HP, Canon, Microsoft, etc, but also to various international museum conservationists, the American National Standards Institute, and the Museum Of Modern Art NY among many others. Tests have been completed for all the most common HP, Epson, and Canon ink sets and oem media, as well as conventional process like Cibachrome and Type C print technologies. It is important to realize that the degree of permanency, fade, color shift, etc, is greatly effected by many factors, including media type, optical brighteners present in that media, the degree and intensity of daylight illumination, long term relative humidity, and whether or not the artwork is being protected by glass or plexi, or a uv coating over tme. Our company has always considered the stability of media and the inks we use to be of a major consideration in everything we do. We rationalize Wilhelm's comparative data as a method of comparing one brand of color output to another and view these relative annual figures as one way of comparing this set of inks in a comparative way to another.

In addition to Wilhelm Research as a reference point, we are now very happy to see the emergence of a new, far more interesting and totally independent testing facility, Aardenburg Imaging, to be testing the inks and media we use. Directed by Mark McCormick-Goodhart, a leader in the scientific print imaging community, his organization is the co-developer of the more accurate and more useful I Metric system of print longevity testing. And, unlike other such organizations, Mark is not being funded by the big inkjet corporations like Epson, Canon, and Hp. He is doing this very detailed testing solely from the support of individuals who pay a small fee to join his website and may submit samples of paper/ink combinations of their choosing. Mark is giving us a lot more information about all of the factors of print fade and color shift than is published on similar website charts. Anyone interested in learning more about his methods and seeing the results of his ongoing tests on a wide variety of ink/media combinations should pay the small fee he charges to join and view this data. As new papers and ink combinations become available, we are hoping this website and his organization will become the defacto standard for communicating this kind of valuable information in the near future. New tests for alll the brands of  pigment inkets are in progress and when they reach their maximum levels we will be comparing that to Wilhelm's already published data.

Check it out at - http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com, follow it and PLEASE JOIN.