Major Ink Longevity Research Programme now FREE

I just got the following great news. Mark H. McCormick-Goodhart, Director of the ink longevity research programme at http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/news.html has just announced that the subscription fees to the website are being dropped, making all the research available to everyone for free. I’ve been a member since the very early days, and found in invaluable as a printer in selecting (or ignoring) third party inks for use in my printers.
I’m actually in the proud position of having the WORST EVER performing sample in that programme. An Ink I played around with in the early days was a dye ink off eBay called “Signal Inkjet”. I got one batch of 600ml (6x100m bottles), which cost me $10. It seemed ridiculously cheap, and sure enough, the results matched the price. The prints were only good for a few months before visible fading and colour shifting kicked in. Once I saw the results coming out of Aardenburg-Imaging, I quickly switched back to Claria OEM inks (I was on a dye printer at the time) which was showing much better results.

I eventually got and Epson R2880, and as a result of this research, I settled on Inkjetfly inks, as they have longevity and colour gamut approaching that of OEM inks for a fraction of the price. I’m printing all of my on photos now (and also for some friends, club competitions, etc.) and we’re very happy with the results.

Also, if you’re interested in the research, you can also submit your own samples. It’s very interesting to see your own samples put through the light-fade tests, and you can be confident that the results are accurate and measured in a way that can be compared consistently with the other samples under test.

Have a look at Mark’s website, and take a look at the longevity test results. It lists a huge amount of printer/paper/ink combinations, invaluable for someone who’s looking to use third party inks at either an amateur or professional level.