Digital BW, The Print

"siiaam" <s-i-a-m@...> wrote:
>
> how do carbon inks compare to Epson's K3 inks in terms of quality. I am fully aware that carbon has a far better longevity than dye. But apart from that is there a real benefit over OEM ink?

The K3 inks are very good.  Just looking at longevity, the 100% carbon inksets will fade less and have almost no color shift.  I summarized just a small snippet of some Aardenburg Imaging fade tests at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/AaI-30MLuxHr.jpg  Looking just at the 50% gray patch in the selected tests, the K3 and 100% carbon inksets all had an I* of 100.0 (the top rating), but the delta e of the 100% carbon inksets was lower.  In the long run, the color pigments in B&W prints will fade faster than the carbon, causing, among other things, color shifts in the B&W prints.  Note that most of the third party B&W inksets are not 100% carbon.  Rather, they have color blended into the carbon inks.  Prints made with them will show more fade and color shifting than a 100% carbon inksets.

See http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ for full tests and further information.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com