7 day fade test of Museum black w/Selenium grays
2002-11-30 by dgabbe2001
A week ago I got my new Museum black & Selenium PiezoTone 1280 carts. As posted prior in this group, the original black faded & shifted all too quickly. After reading the reports here, I tried testing one of my prints and found that in 7 days, the blacker areas developed an ugly magenta tone. I print w/the piezo driver. This time I'm a bit more organized w/a standard fade target I made up. The target is a large continous gray scale and 21 step wedge printed twice on letter size paper. One side is covered and I tape the thing on my kitchen wall. After 7 days, I visually examined the target and did not see any noticable fading. I don't see any magenta shifts in the black areas either. This is astounding because after 7 days the original PiezographyBW inks do fade. While I don't have a densitometer, I have been conducting this visual testing for 2yrs. I've found 1wk, 1mon, 3mon, and 1yr are pretty good indicators for how prints will age. I will say this is the first time I've conducted the test w/a gray scale rather than an image. As soon as my 2nd set of carts arrive, I'll try printing one of my test images to see how it holds up. If someone is interested in measuring my target, please contact me offlist. Regards, Dave G.