Yet Another - Canon Ink Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter BobS
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Here is some good info on Sensient Canon BCI-6 inks from some heavy testing
here with my i9950

These inks showed no visible difference printing with genuine Canon or the
Formulabs equivalent
BCI-6 Black
BCI-6 Green
BCI-6 Red
BCI-6 Cyan
BCI-6 Photo Cyan

BCI-6 Magenta: In my i9950 this ink appeared to be identical (it doesn't
seem to use it much, relying heavily on the BCI-6PM), however experience in
my i865 (no 6PM) showed it isn't an exact match. You will not pick the
difference in a colour photo, however you will get a slight green cast
printing a black and white photo.

BCI-6Yellow: Like the BCI-6M, you will not notice a difference in a colour
photo, however in a black and white image you will find there is a colour
shift. It's hard to decide which looks best though. Net result, the Canon
Yellow is be a slight darker yellow.

BCI-6PhotoMagenta: This ink of Sensient (Formulabs) is a complete joke
(seriously, it is really bad). You can print with all Canon inks but this
ink and you get a shocking green cast in black and white, and a obvious
green cast in colour photos. Skin tones look sickly dead.

There is hope however if you need PM. You need to buy bulk ink and some
empty carts (not the pre-filled cart). Simply mix their Photo Magenta with
their Magenta in a ratio of about 95% Photo Magenta and 5% Magenta. If
anything tend towards 6-7% Magenta rather than less than 5%. This will
result in not only fantastic colour prints, but even with all the other
little problems like the Yellow and Magenta, a more accurate Black and White
image than even with all Canon inks.

What is a joke however is that I can work this out but Sensient can't, or
won't.

Regards

Guy Barwood
 
--
Ron Cohen

Ray R said:
I still don't understand. The i850 uses black ink for photo printing.
Your site says don't mix dye and pigmented inks. For color the i850
uses dye inks. The only choice you offer is pigmented black.

http://atlascopy.com/refills/bulkcanon.htm offers a choice for the BCI-3
of either dye or pigmented ink. Thier tech support says to use the
dye ink in the i850. Which is correct mixing pigmented black with color
dye ink or using all dye based ink?

Thanks
Ray
Click to expand...

On the i850 for photo printing, black is a mixture of the three color inks.
The pigmented black is only used when a plain paper (text is assumed) mode
is selected. On the i850 photo black is not an option. Perhaps the easiest
way to see it is to look directly at the printhead carrier. There are slots
for only four tanks. The black (pigmented) tank is physically larger than
the three color tanks. Were you to use a photo black (dye based) ink, which
of the three colors would you remove - Cyan, Magenta or Yellow? I think what
may be confusing to you about the warning statement from the alotofthings
page is that while a number of Canon printers used BCI 3e tanks, only a very
few had the option to also use a separate photo ink print head. This is
where the potential for using the wrong ink could be present. If someone
refilled a photo black tank with pigmented ink, then not only would the inks
not mix properly on the sheet resulting in poor results, printhead damage
would also be likely.
The following is a copy from a posting by John Mills of WeInk. I found it by
doing a google search. I think he fully explains the i850 black ink issue.
=== start of copy ===============================
John Mills Jul 12 2003, 4:02 pm show options

Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers
From: "John Mills" <[email protected]> - Find messages by this
author
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 23:02:58 GMT
Local: Sat, Jul 12 2003 4:02 pm
Subject: Re: Ink consumption question for Canon i850 owners
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If you use the i850 in plain paper standard or High Resolution Paper
standard mode then all true black is handled by the black cartridge.
Any
grayscale other than black is a mix of both black and colors.


Photos printed in plain paper standard mode or High Resolution Paper
standard mode also use the black cartridge for true black in the
photos, however what looks black to your eye may not be black to the
driver and any off black color will be a composite of the colors.


On all other modes the black is composited by the 3 colors.


=== end of copy ===============================
 
Did you use there cartridges? or their bulk ink?
I have never seen the problems you mention in bulk ink, but know there have
been problems with the arrow cartridges.
 
On the i850 for photo printing, black is a mixture of the three color inks.
The pigmented black is only used when a plain paper (text is assumed) mode
is selected.
Click to expand...

An interesting hypothesis. One problem is that CY and M ink will not
produce black. It is not within its color gamut. The darkest color CYM
can produce is a dark muddy gray. To test the hypothesis I used
photoshop to print gray scale gradient from 0 to 100%. I looked at the
result under a microscope. Up to 80% gray it is composed of CY and M
dots to produce gray. Above 80% it is black dots to produce darker gray
and black. So at least on my i850 black ink is used to print dark
colors in photo mode. An examination of dark areas on a photograph
shows a mix of colored and black dots. This is true for either photo
mode or plain paper mode.

Now as to the type of ink the BCI3-eBK uses I emailed Canon. A received
an answer within hours even though it was Saturday. The issue of mixing
inks was ignored, but they stated that the black ink is pigmented and
the color ink is dye. Very good tech support from Canon.

My i850 produces very nice prints using Canon pigmented black or dye
based black ink. I can't see any difference. My conclusion is that on
the i850 using a mix of dye and pigmented ink is not a problem. Maybe
it is because of the small dot size that not much mixing takes place.


On the i850 photo black is not an option.
Click to expand...

It is an option for me, but using dye ink does nor appear to give any
different results.
 
It is their bulk inks. They even sent me some replacement bulk ink PM to
test and it had the same problem. Do you have a printer with the PM? Have
you printed black and white photos?

I've done a lot of testing over two printers (i865 and now i9950) comparing
their ink to genuine Canon.
 
it is right too, if you read all of the page I linked to it explains one of
Canon's page is wrong and another of their documents for OEMs says it is
dye. I just hadn't read the full page myself.
 
actually if you read the alotofthings url fully, which I have now, they go
one to explain why the 6BK is dye, not pigment as the Canon tables tries to
say it is. Basically the Canon table gets it wrong and another Canon
document gets it right...

However that doesn't change the fact that with my i865 I never fed more than
a dozen pages of plain paper or HR-101 through it, 99.99% of all its
printing was 6x4 photos. After printing a few hundred 6x4s the BCI-3eBK was
near empty (from brand new). So I really don't care what people try to say
about dye and pigment not mixing, and the 3eBK only being used for text etc,
you can't ignore what happens in front of your eyes.

Oh and exactly the same thing happened with my i850 before that.
 
Yep, I read it - kinda convoluted and a bass-akward way of saying - "it's
dye ink" so that's why I went to the manf site for reference. Interesting
thread going here and I've been reading a lot of the sites that have been
mentioned here and in another color management related post.

Think I'm gonna go back to B&W film and use flat stones and chisels for my
output......."Flintstone Prints" - now that has a ring to it........;-)

Bob S.
 
My printer is an S820 with 6 tanks, so use PM. Am not sure I ever printed a
black and white. Have never noticed a difference in color, but will look
again since I have a set Canon OEM's. Never heard of BCI-6 Red or Green,
but then my printer is sort of old now.
 
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