Digital BW, The Print

I've already done a seat of the pants window comparison with the Rosemere ink and Claria and one of the cheap third party inks too. On matte paper the cheap ink was faded in less than 2 days. The other ink held up fairly well to blue wool 4 and Claria showed little fading when the test stopped at BW4. I'll see if I can find the data, it used a Heidelberg 135 patch chart and Spectrolino/Spectroscan for measuring. It's an RGB chart through an RGB printer so I'm not sure how pure the black patch might be.

Now from the past I know Noritsu was using Epson pigment inks in their printers, so they may still be using it. Years ago several of us tried to buy the ink from any source and it was closely guarded as if national security depended on this ink. There was no way to get it regularly and the printshops that owned these printers could not sell it because of the company watching their supplies. Obviously Epson didn't want to let out bulk ink at prices that were so low compared to cartidges, and at $100 for 500ml they are still making large profits on the ink since it costs them pennies per liter (might be a slight exaggeration).

All in all Claria still seems to be the holy grail by which all other dye inks are compared. And sadly few companies seem to care about trying to knock them off the top.