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Fellow members:
We are getting close to posting our findings on the fading of 3rd party inks (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=634).
We have been in contact with a few ink suppliers to discuss what it would take to improve the longevity of their troublesome colors so that their inks would be competitive with the OEM inks. We will not directly quote what we were told, but it boils down to “Bulk ink is a very price competitive market. The ink formulators have the technology to improve the longevity, but it would increase the price of the ink (perhaps double the present price) such that no one would buy it.” They feel that the vast majority of their customers are printing throwaways, and that longevity is of no concern to most people. They may be right, but it would be interesting to find out how many people ARE concerned about longevity. Please reply to this thread with a short note as to whether you are or are not concerned about longevity. If there are sufficient numbers who are concerned, perhaps they will listen.
I will start by stating that I am interested in improving the ongevity of my 3rd party inks.
Last edited by Grandad35 (01/11/2006 11:39:01 am)
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I am not concerned about longevity.
My photos remain forever in their best quality in their digital media. Photos that I print are meant to "live" less than 5-10 years. After that, I'll print them again, this time with a much better printer.
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I have all my original negatives from 35+ years ago.
My digital originals are backed up on multiple CD/DVD's.
I have no concerns about the ink 's age limit.Hell, ten years from now it might be obsolete anyway.I know I will 
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I for one would be interested for a couple of reasons..
1. CD format is even less reliable than printed pictures so all you talking about printing your stuff off again in 5 years may be getting a nasty surprise in time.
2. There are a huge number of photos I'd like to print off for my grandparents and with my CIS I can afford to do it at a much lower cost compared to getting a few thousand regular prints done at Jessops, etc...
So, yeah I'd imagine there WOULD be a market but I'd wager it would be a lot smaller than the existing one. Of course that's a smaller one than the current refilling/cis market. IMHO anyways.
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websnail wrote:
...1. CD format is even less reliable than printed pictures........
Have you any firm information about reliability?
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I am concerned about longevity. Even at twice the price (still reasonable), I would appreciate the longer life. A friend printed a photo which faded in a matter of months without being subjected to extreme light - I don't have the original and therefore am lost as to replacement.
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I agree with fish that I would like to have the option to purchase non-OM that has longer longevity BUT I would not like to sacrifice the lower cost inks for everyday and throw-away prints.
Bottom line: I would like to have the option of both lower cost (and less long-lived) inks for every day and more expenisve (but longer lived) inks for more permanent prints. I want my cake and eat it too. :-)
That being said, if I had to only choose one it would be the lower cost ink. I can always print with OEM cartidges for the "very special" prints that need to permanent.
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pebe wrote:
websnail wrote:
...1. CD format is even less reliable than printed pictures........
Have you any firm information about reliability?
No.. nothing but personal experience..
Amongst other things I've used burnable CD's for a whole slew of things including backups of various things, including ghost images for clients PC's and lately I've found a slew of my CD's contained a number of read errors that no amount of cleaning would resolve.
These were obviously important CD's and were stored carefully but they were still unusable so I'm a lot more wary and I took a lot more time to purchase my next set of CD-R media...
I'll be honest it seems a lot of my guy feeling on this are based on something that turned out to be something of a farce within the CD-R community but I still have my doubts as to just how secure the media is.
Perhaps this would be a perfect opportunity to shift this particular offshoot discussion to another seperate thread so people can share their experiences properly and keep it all on topic.
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Just raed an article yesterday to the effect a cd is not a very long lived media and that
tape storage is much better. But I would be very interested in longer life prints even if
the inks were more expensive. After all, why print something that will fade fast?
Of course the other variable is the photopaper so one must look at the entire parameter set.------ink, paper, and the way the print is stored.--------given the high profits in OEM ink R&D is somewhat affordable. With the new chipped Canons showing perhaps the shape of the future. Small incremental ink improvements that won't be backwards compatable to previous printers.--great OEM marketing but very consumer unfriendly. And with a built in disinsentive for the OEM to improve the ink as fast as technology allows.
The only way I can see to break that OEM grip would be for various third party ink manufacters to combine forces on R&D on longer lasting inks. Such third party research could also put more market pressure the OEM's also so that the consumer is not so adversely affected by marketing considerations.
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websnail wrote:
pebe wrote:
websnail wrote:
...1. CD format is even less reliable than printed pictures........
Have you any firm information about reliability?
No.. nothing but personal experience..
Amongst other things I've used burnable CD's for a whole slew of things including backups of various things, including ghost images for clients PC's and lately I've found a slew of my CD's contained a number of read errors that no amount of cleaning would resolve.
These were obviously important CD's and were stored carefully but they were still unusable so I'm a lot more wary and I took a lot more time to purchase my next set of CD-R media...
I'll be honest it seems a lot of my guy feeling on this are based on something that turned out to be something of a farce within the CD-R community but I still have my doubts as to just how secure the media is.
Perhaps this would be a perfect opportunity to shift this particular offshoot discussion to another seperate thread so people can share their experiences properly and keep it all on topic.
I have had problems with CD-R and CD-RW that didn't burn properly and some that would play on my own machine but not on another. I have assumed this to be faulty media in the first case and differences in laser alignment between different machines, for the second case.
But I have not experienced a disk that has deteriorated with time - perhaps it's yet to happen to me!
I agree it warrants a thread of its own, but there seems no section to cater for CDs on this forum. Perhaps a 'misc' section could be introduced?
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