Testing by Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) has revealed that the permanence of prints made with third-party inks is “far inferior” to prints made with the inks from printer manufacturers.

 

May 29, 2006: Testing by Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) has revealed that the permanence of prints made with third-party inks is “far inferior” to prints made with the inks from printer manufacturers.

The results of recent tests can be downloaded from http://www.wilhelm-research.com/hardcopy/hardcopy.html. The study, which was carried out in the USA, examined a range of store-branded inkjet cartridges, cartridges refilled at franchise refill shops and other “aftermarket” ink sets, along with third-party inkjet photo papers. The photos printed with the aftermarket products were submitted to exactly the same testing regime as those printed with the inks and papers from printer manufacturers Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark. Whenever possible, WIR matched the highest grade of a brand of photo paper with the same brand of ink cartridge.

Permanence ratings or less than four months were found for several products, compared with ratings of more than 23 years for the most basic products from inkjet printer manufacturers and more than 70 years for the most durable of the manufacturers’ ink/paper combinations. “As a group, the aftermarket inks and premium photo papers in this study had among the lowest WIR display-permanence ratings of any products ever tested by our lab,” said Henry Wilhelm, WIR’s president and founder.

Wilhelm suggests consumers purchasing third-party inks and photo papers may be quite unaware to the limitations of the products they are buying because hitherto there has been no scientific evaluation of these products. “If meaningful permanence information is not available for the inks and papers purchased by a consumer, he or she will have no idea at all about how long the prints will last. In this situation, the consumer is flying blind,” he is quoted as saying. Note: Many of the products tested in this study carry different brand names from third-party products sold in Australia. However, the implications of the WIR study are valid for Australian consumers as at least some of the inks tested are likely to be sold locally under different third-party brand names.