Digital BW, The Print

Hello,

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? While I am reading that the greyscale is longer and smoother which can be seen in the print others disagree... Unfortunately I can't do any side by side comparisons. Hence, I'd love to hear some thoughts of the experienced users here.
I like cotton papers and color printing is not important to me...

Has somebody tried the piezography inks with refill cartridges for the Epson 3800? If so, are there any complaints?

Thanks.

Stephan

"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