Smearing of Epson dye prints in archival sleeves

[daniel_taylor]

I was thumbing through a photo album tonight that contains a mix of

8x10's printed on Epson's dye photo printers (780 and 8xx something)

and Epson's pigment R800. I noticed a couple of my prints seemed soft,

prints I didn't remember being soft. So I proceeded to inspect the

images in Photoshop and reprint a couple and discovered, to my initial

horror, that on the old prints the ink along dark edges was smearing.

 

Naturally I began to wonder what had happened and was thumbing through

my album furiously trying to find other prints with the same problem.

After inspection I realized that only the dye prints, all from a

couple years ago, had the problem. (These happen to be my last

remaining dye prints as once I got the R800 two years ago I began

reprinting, and just never finished this album.) My oldest R800

prints, just shy of two years old, appear to be identical to fresh

prints off the same printer. Tomorrow I'll have a chance to reprint a

couple of the dye prints on a friend's dye Epson, but I know they did

not look like this when new.

 

So my question is: has anyone else seen this with Epson's dye based,

6-ink photo printers? The album and sleeves are archival from Light

Impressions, and the album has not been abused (i.e. extreme heat,

cold, or humidity). Everything I have framed is off the R800, so I

can't comment on framed prints. Some friends have a few of my old dye

prints framed in their homes, so I'll have a chance to inspect those

this weekend.

 

Even though all the R800 prints seem fine, including ones just as old,

and even though I know chemically pigments are far more stable, I'm a

bit worried now. Light Impressions has a good reputation, but is there

some unforseen reaction going on? Is it limited to dyes? Or do Epson

dye prints just have yet another problem with their longevity?

 

I'll be blunt: I do not wish to continue recommending or using Epson

printers if the pigment printers have the same problem. But I also

don't want to overreact if they don't. (Stupid Epson should have

trashed the dye technology back when they discovered the ozone-fade IMHO.)

 

Forgive the print scan quality below, I just wanted to show the

problem. I didn't edit the scans other than cropping/enlarging.<div></div>

[daniel_taylor]

Here's the original photo that section came from. It was the first photo I noticed.

 

Though I enlarged for everyone to see, believe me when I say the smearing impacts the print at normal viewing.<div></div>

[daniel_taylor]

One other comment: looking over these, I'm noticing that it's not a universal "smearing", and that it appears to involve discoloration as well.

 

I wonder if the light cyan and black inks are breaking down even in the sleeves? As opposed to a physical "smearing".

 

It didn't strike me that way at first because I remember that problem resulting in the infamous, pronounced "orange" look. But is this the first stages of those inks falling apart?

 

I just really want to know if anyone has ever seen their pigment prints do this. I want to know if the R800/1800 are safe.

[daniel_taylor]

One other thing: the background color is not nearly as different as it appears in the scans. (Stupid auto scan.)

[nick_evans1]

Hello

 

Two things.

 

1.Dirty heads or the paper moving very slightly as it move through the printer

 

2. Did you let the print dry before you put it in the sleeve?

I have been told that it can take a few hours for the print to dry fully when using inkjet printers.

 

Nick

[William Kahn]

I wait at least 24 hours before doing anything with an inkjet print.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

You might check what material the sleeves are made of. Just

because some company says their product is archival doesn't

indicate the extent of research taken to test a wide range of

chemical reactions that may occur.

 

I mean they still make mixed metal automobile engine coolant

components that corrode like a cancer throughout if you have

just a small air bubble circulating through the radiator and

engine block. Look at the water pump on a 2000 Chevy Geo.

[jtk]

Dyes remain hydroscopic after printing and drying, pigments are by definition never hydroscopic: ie one of them can be dissolved, one of them cannot.

 

Depending on humidity the inks of both dyes (solutions) and pigs (suspensions) can dry very quickly or take days.

 

The dyes can reabsorb humidity, re-dissolve... the pigments cannot, don't: due to their microencapsulation the pigments were never in solution in the first place, they were in suspension. Totally different concept.

 

Pigments are more archival than dyes, primarily for this reason.

 

Outgassing from archival sleeves may not affect the prints directly but sleeves do maintain contact with the emulsion and they do contain their own microclimates...you wouldn't frame your best directly in contact with glass, without a matte, so you shouldn't expect better from sleeves, which themselves maintain direct contact.

[daniel_taylor]

"1.Dirty heads or the paper moving very slightly as it move through the printer

 

2. Did you let the print dry before you put it in the sleeve? I have been told that it can take a few hours for the print to dry fully when using inkjet printers."

 

Understand that these did not look like this when printed, or for that matter any time during the first few months in their sleeves. (Trust me, I would have noticed.) As a rule my prints stay out for a few days before being sleeved. It's not any issue with the printing or initial handling. It's some form of long term degradation.

 

*****

 

"You might check what material the sleeves are made of. Just because some company says their product is archival doesn't indicate the extent of research taken to test a wide range of chemical reactions that may occur."

 

Light Impressions is well known and recommended by the original creator of this site, Philip Greenspun. (I found out about them on one of his pages on this site.) The sleeves are polypropylene.

 

I'm not ruling out a sleeve/print reaction, but it would be abnormal and presumably unique to Epson's dye set.

 

*****

 

"The dyes can reabsorb humidity, re-dissolve... the pigments cannot, don't: due to their microencapsulation the pigments were never in solution in the first place, they were in suspension. Totally different concept."

 

snip

 

"Outgassing from archival sleeves may not affect the prints directly but sleeves do maintain contact with the emulsion and they do contain their own microclimates...you wouldn't frame your best directly in contact with glass, without a matte, so you shouldn't expect better from sleeves, which themselves maintain direct contact."

 

Though you're right about space being better than direct contact, I wouldn't expect, nor have I seen, regular photo lab prints degrade due to archival sleeve storage. Certainly not to this degree or in this manner. (I have seen minor surface abrasions before, presumably from people handling the sleeves and the sleeve rubbing the print.)

 

I'm thinking it's dye vs. humidity and/or the weak inks in Epson's set breaking down due to atmospheric pollutants. I've double checked a number of the first pigment prints to go into the album, and they are (to my great relief) identical to fresh prints.

 

Looks like I'll be finishing the reprints of the remaining dye prints in this album, which were the my last any way. I think I'll also start slowly replacing dye prints that my family and friends have on display.

 

Yet another reason why Epson should dump their dye ink technology and stick with the pigments...

[ilkka_nissila]

Which paper did you use? Newer dye printers have more stable inks than older ones, and you can use papers such as heavyweight matte or colorlife, which should give a 20-year life to them.

 

I don't know whose inkjet printers you would recommend, the others started using pigment inks way behind Epson, and they haven't stopped making dye based printers either. Business is business, and faded prints mean frequent needs to reprint, which is more business for the ink makers (which are the printer makers). I thought this practice was fundamental to modern business practices.

[daniel_taylor]

"Which paper did you use? Newer dye printers have more stable inks than older ones, and you can use papers such as heavyweight matte or colorlife, which should give a 20-year life to them."

 

The prints are on PGPP and HWM. I never liked the color balance of ColorLife (ironic given the name). Plus while ColorLife helps the ink resist ozone, it is highly susceptible to humidity, something I learned the hard way shortly after it came out. I've never used it since.

 

"I don't know whose inkjet printers you would recommend, the others started using pigment inks way behind Epson, and they haven't stopped making dye based printers either."

 

Having inspected my R800 prints and talked to a few people, I'm still confident in recommending Epson's *pigment* ink printers. I actually stopped recommending their dye ink printers a long time ago over other stability issues and clogging. But I still took Epson at their word that protected in a photo album or glass frame, dye prints would last 10-30 years depending on paper.

 

Here's the deal: I like Epson. They've taken photographers seriously for a while now and have worked hard to improve their products. I love my R800. If I regularly printed >8x10 I would have bought a R1800 without hesitation. I just bought one of their products (not a printer) the other night.

 

But the dye ink set is not stable and never will be. It was bad enough knowing that my old prints could ozone fade and only had a fraction of a pigment print's life in any case. Which is why I had replaced most of them when I first got the R800. Now I find that they degrade in other ways and weren't safe for just 2 years even in photo sleeves? Which means prints I've given to others behind glass may also not be stable, and probably won't last the full estimated time? Thank God I never sold dye prints!

 

This just reinforces my (now old) belief that dyes have no business being in ink jet printers. Epson would be wise to eliminate that technology and make Ultrachrome the default ink set across all models.

 

"Business is business, and faded prints mean frequent needs to reprint, which is more business for the ink makers (which are the printer makers). I thought this practice was fundamental to modern business practices."

 

That's a good way to go out of business. I will always have photos to print. But finding I have to reprint protected photos will not send me and my money back to Epson, it will send me to a photo lab. How many people, upon discovering a degradation issue with a dye print, will simply say "never again" to Epson ink jets? Most people expect that their children and grandchildren will get to enjoy their photos.

 

I've known all along that their dye ink set has problems. So as long as my R800 prints are holding up (which they appear to be), I won't walk away from using Epson products. But it's foolish to keep shipping dye ink technology. Let Lexmark be known for crummy, fading, degrading prints. Epson should be better than that. (Besides, it would give them a huge advantage over the competition.)

[jtk]

"...it's foolish to keep shipping dye ink technology. Let Lexmark be known for crummy, fading, degrading prints."

 

No, it's honorable and smart.

 

Everybody's known for a long time that dye was inferior to pigment. Older Epsons were designed for dyes because pigments hadn't yet come along. Epson's doing the right thing, both in terms of business and in terms of honor by continuing to serve customers with antiquated equipment.

 

Traditional color prints aren't nearly as hygroscopic as dye prints like yours. I too have ancient color prints...a still-good-looking 11X14 Agfacolor (negative paper) that I printed in the Seventies, for example, and lots of large Ektacolors.

 

You can't expect the same good 20-30 year results from ink prints unless you treat them properly, with MUCH more care, which means distancing them from glass or plastic with archival matte spacers, or stacking them in archival boxes with acid-free paper interleaving...not just putting them in sleeves. That the sleeves are "archival" is irrelevant to your problem.

[daniel_taylor]

"Everybody's known for a long time that dye was inferior to pigment. Older Epsons were designed for dyes because pigments hadn't yet come along. Epson's doing the right thing, both in terms of business and in terms of honor by continuing to serve customers with antiquated equipment."

 

I didn't say stop shipping *ink*, I said stop manufacturing the printers and switch the entire line to Ultrachrome.

 

Look, the average person doesn't understand all the catches and gotchas. They read "30 years" and buy a $99 dye ink printer. Heck, there are photographers who sell 1280 prints! Well, they're not 30 year prints. They're not even 2. And while I agree a glass frame with air space between glass and print is best, I'm sure I can produce documentation from Epson that endorses photo albums for maximum print life.

 

BTW, I haven't yet had a chance to check one of the framed dye prints that I've given away, I will this weekend. But I don't see how a glass frame with an air space would help the situation if it's humidity related. Glass frames are not air tight.

 

"Traditional color prints aren't nearly as hygroscopic as dye prints like yours."

 

Then Epson should not make any claims as to print life with their dye printers, period. What user is going to hermetically seal dye prints in a glass frame with a humidity controlled inert gas inside?

 

As I said above, I like Epson. But I've got to criticize them on keeping this technology in production for consumers, the people *least* likely to understand this and protect their prints. I at least understood the typical issues (non-archival materials, ozone fade) and did my best to protect the prints from those. And they didn't make the 2 year mark. Guess what the average person does?

 

I will give Epson credit for at least using pigment in the PictureMate series which is targetted at consumers. I don't think any of the other 4x6 printers use pigment ink.

 

"You can't expect the same good 20-30 year results from ink prints unless you treat them properly, with MUCH more care, which means distancing them from glass or plastic with archival matte spacers, or stacking them in archival boxes with acid-free paper interleaving...not just putting them in sleeves. That the sleeves are "archival" is irrelevant to your problem."

 

The pigment R800 prints, after two years "just put in sleeves", are identical, under magnification, to fresh prints.

 

Which reinforces my opinion that Epson should drop the dye printers and make Ultrachrome universal. There may be an undiscovered weakness in the Ultrachome ink set, but it's clearly not as weak and unstable as the dye set.

[bobmichaels]

I think it's important to realize that 99% to 99.9% of the color print output is either not photos at all or if photos by those who have no concern about archivalness. Epson and others will always address that market with cheap printers with bright colors that don't clog. We are a tiny niche in the printer market. Let's don't overemphasize our significance.

 

I've used nothing but pigments for my personal work for at least four years. And I use nothing but buffered 100% rag paper for final prints. But, I also have an old dye ink printer sitting next to it. I use that dye ink printer for general correspondence because the ink is cheap. The only photos it ever sees is when I have to make a print for my wife from a JPG that one of the kids that they took of their new furniture with their camera phone. And my wife says now nice they look then throws them away.

[daniel_taylor]

"I will definitely try the "photo" setting. I don't use the "standard" Kodak ink jet paper that you buy from target or something. It is the Professional version."

 

Fair enough, but these companies design their inks and papers together for permanence. You could, in theory, mix a 100 year ink set with a 100 year paper from another company and get a couple years.

 

"Please let me know more about testing by Wilhelm, I'm not familiar."

 

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/

 

"So I was thinking I would end up bringing the R1800 since my Epson Stylus Photo 900 does not make the best prints in the world."

 

Don't even get me started on the permanence and stability issues with Epson's dye ink set printers. http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GaZe

 

Needless to say, I would not sell Photo 900 prints.

 

"I do have a Epson Picture Mate that is primarily used for "family" pictures but that might work decently for 4x6's printed from Photoshop. It is very difficult for me to determine how much a print costs on average with my R1800, the inks go at different times."

 

I don't have exact figures, but I've run some pretty large jobs where I purchased all fresh carts and then checked the ink when finished. Cyan and Magenta go the fastest, while blue and red can last a pretty long time. Based on those larger jobs I figure a PGPP 8x10 costs me roughly $2 and HWM costs considerably less, perhaps <$1. Of course prints with certain dominant colors can end up costing a lot more. I have some fireworks photos I will only print at the local photo lab because they suck the black ink.

 

"As far as quality goes I have read people claim that their dye sub dominates any inkjet they ever had. Is this still true with the newer ink jets like the Epson R1800?"

 

I doubt it. That would be the same as saying that a dye sub dominates photo lab printers like the Fuji Frontier. For the most part my R800 8x10's on Premium Luster are identical to Frontier 8x10's I order, and pretty darn close for PGPP. Frontier prints tend to be more saturated, but I can compensate either way in Photoshop.

[kelly_flanigan1]

It is interesting to see folks new to inkjet printing say pigmented inks are new. Jeepers they go back to when computers were just 386's. Pigmented inks are old news, before Clinton was elected president. Pigmened inks are more permanent, and have been used with large format inkjet for about 2 decades. In signage, pigmented inks last longer, but have a lower color gamut. Dyes have had a broader gamut, put fade quicker, this was known before photoshop existed. Yes have more punch, more gamut, and are popular with amateur, short term, indoor, and wilder images.

[daniel_taylor]

My last post above was ment to go to another thread. Phone rang...wrong button clicked...oh well.

 

"It is interesting to see folks new to inkjet printing say pigmented inks are new. Jeepers they go back to when computers were just 386's. Pigmented inks are old news, before Clinton was elected president. Pigmened inks are more permanent, and have been used with large format inkjet for about 2 decades. In signage, pigmented inks last longer, but have a lower color gamut. Dyes have had a broader gamut, put fade quicker, this was known before photoshop existed. Yes have more punch, more gamut, and are popular with amateur, short term, indoor, and wilder images."

 

I don't know if you were referring to me, but I've been playing with ink jets and photos for about 7 years. (Before that I used ink jets, just not for photos.)

 

About 6 years ago was when Epson targetted the print permanence issue with their 6-ink Photo series. Almost immediately the ozone fade became apparent. Back then I didn't hold it against them since they were at least trying, and had moved the state-of-the-art forward in both image quality and permanence, despite the ozone issue. But 6 years is a long time with a technology the company knows is seriously compromised, especially when the same company has developed and deployed something far better.

 

Pigment printers aren't new, obviously, though I would say it's only in the last few years with the Epson models that affordable printers which could match dye printers in photo print quality became widely available. It was two years ago, when the R800 introduced gloss optimizer to an 8x10 printer, that I went pigment and never looked back. Hence, my few remaining fading dye prints which were two years old.

[jtk]

Getting back to the "Subject," dye prints are well known to be more vulunurable to moisture than pigment prints: If your real concern is prints (rather than worrying about Epson), you will reprint with pigment. I don't think sleeves will hurt pigment prints, but they have evidently hurt your ink pints.

 

Epson is no more the ultimate source of archival storage info than is Eastman Kodak or, for that matter, Wilhelm or Zone IV. Nobody's perfect.

 

Storage of prints, no matter how they're made, in sleeves is inferior to use of acid-free paper interleaves, per museums and better galleries.