HP printers and 3rd party ink

<p>Anthony Brookes post on his now ageing HP printer prompted this. I have just purchased an ink refill kit and used it on consumer grade HP and Canon printers. I did not expect any success for photo printing. But I am staggered by how well the home injected cartridges have worked. Further, the kit came with cleaning fluid. Leave the print head bit of the cartridge in the solution over night and then let it dry naturally resting the print head on paper towel. Refill the cartridge and do a test print. In my case I got clear, smudge free results first go on both printers. I am not suggesting for a minute that I am getting professional results but when I want that I pay someone with an expensive printer to do it for me. My A4 prints of my two sons look just great and will make a nice Christmas present for their granny's. As an aside, HP printers are cartridge fussy as most know. I have to punch a few buttons to get the refills recognised on the HP printer, a consumer C4580. As I need to do this every time I print it is now easy to remember. But the Canon MP450 (I think!) just shrugs its shoulders and prints regardless. The HP delivers marginally better results using HP paper, generic glossy photo paper doing the job but tending to 'bleed' if the print is not allowed to dry in a warm room. </p>

<p>What is the fade resistance of the inks?<br>

Many economy refill inks kill print heads after a year or two.</p>

<p>Can't say for the inks I have just used. I am really looking at budget as opposed to high end prints. </p>

<p>I have had very bad success at refilling HP printers, most recently I tried one with the 564 5-cartridge system. It seemed to work perfectly and gave excellent picture quality, but every time I leave the cartridges in over night they're sucked dry the next morning. </p>

<p>I've given up on HP and I've been having great results with a canon printer and third party ink cartridges from eBay. I use a profiled monitor and paper manufacture iccs and the results are close to (but not quite exactly) a perfect match. The Canon OEMs are a tiny bit better at colour fidelity, but if you look at the two prints separately, you can't tell which is which and the non-OEMs are $1.50/cartridge.</p>

<p>In terms of longevity, that's hard to judge because it takes so long to test but I think the paper matters more than the ink, or at least as much. I did some prints about 2 years ago on dollar store paper and non-OEM ink (it cost about 40 cents per 8x10 for ink and paper) and they looked great out of the printer but faded to look like sepia within 6 months. After seeing them fade, I tried a print from the same ink on HP Premium Plus paper (the older swellable version), and then cut a 1/2 inch strip off the edge. I've kept the strip in darkness and the rest of the print in front of a bright south-facing window, and after 18 months, it looks as good as the day I printed it and when I hold the strip I cut off next too it, it looks like there has been no fading at all. I've also printed on Staples supreme photo paper (faded beyond use within 6 months, but not nearly as bad as the dollar store paper), inkpress metallic gloss (still looks great after a year), and inkpress eco matte (noticeably faded after a year but still not too bad).</p>

<p>I would be interesting to try all these papers with OEM Canon inks to see the difference, but I'm probably not going to bother buying the ink and then waiting 2 years to find out.</p>