Digital BW, The Print

When I switched to MIS EZ inks for my black and white printing, in the 
summer of 2004, I decided to do a little test of fade resistance 
comparing my new ink choice against my earlier inks, Lyson Quad Black 
(dyes).  I printed the same image twice on the same page, once with an 
Epson C84 using EZ pigments and once with a Canon S9000 using Lyson 
dyes.  I did this on two sheets, one of Ilford Heavyweight Matte, the 
paper I had been using with the Lyson inks, and one on Epson Enhanced 
Matte that I was going to use with the EZ inks.

I covered half of each page with a very thick (1/8 inch) piece of 
cardboard, so that half of each image was exposed and the other half 
covered, taped the package together and stuck it in a south-facing 
window on 8/4/04, here in Missouri (38 degrees North latitude.)  And 
forgot about it.  The pages got direct sunlight during the winter months 
and part of the spring and fall (don't know exact dates, though) but 
during the warmer months the eaves of the roof gave some shade from 
direct sunlight.  We do have trees in the yard, so even during the 
winter the images did not get direct sunlight all day.

I came across the pages yesterday, 12/4/06.  To my surprise, after 28 
months neither of the paper bases showed any difference between where 
they had been covered and where they had been exposed to light, although 
the EEM had yellowed very slightly overall compared to a fresh sheet 
from a recently purchased box.  I don't have any of the Ilford paper on 
hand to compare to.

The part of the Lyson images exposed to sun showed moderate lightening 
but no change in tone on the Ilford paper and more dramatic lightening 
and a strong reddish/brownish tone on EEM.  The EZ images showed NO 
fading or tone shift anywhere, on either paper.

Not a scientific test by any means, but it certainly reinforces for me 
the choice of EZ inks.  Most of my images end up bound into books and so 
have very little exposure to light.  The slight yellowing of the EEM 
paper base is only noticeable (by me) in a side-by-side comparison to 
fresh paper, and does not detract from the image.  Still, I'm trying 
some Red River matte paper this Christmas printing season, so I may try 
an EZ image on that paper in the window with an image on EEM for comparison.

Cheers,
Kip