Digital BW, The Print

Clayton,

> ... UT7 inks ... slider controls ... on Photo Rag paper ...

>#1 - with all controls at 0 (which I think is just the carbon inks K
>and Lt-K) giving a moderate warm color

The sliders use all the inks.  So, the cold and warm toners are in there.

>#2 - with cool toner settings for a neutral color
>#3 - with warm toner settings for a sepia color

>...put them on my windowsill ... on June 19th

I assume these are inside.

> after 7 months, ... fading, as follows:

>#1 - No toners   - No sign of fading

Again, the toners actually are in there.  This is not pure carbon.

>#2 - Cool toners - Slight fading, visible from 20% - 70%

This would have more of the old magenta in it.

>#3 - Warm toners - Extreme fading, visible from 5% - 100%

Magenta and yellow are the weaklings.  This is the weakest of the inks.

>Some questions come to mind:

>a) Paul, you said recently something
>about the magenta in these ink sets being upgraded.  Assuming these
>inks purchased last June had the older magenta, do you think the newer
>version will eliminate this fading?   

These would have been the old inks, with the magenta that was a problem.
The new toners have no magenta in them at all.  There is a new blue and a
bit of cyan, which is a tough pigment.  Magenta is a historic weakling
according to one of the most active water color testers, and that is
consistent with what I've seen also.

Of course, everything will eventually fade, especially in bright sunlight,
which has lots of UV.

I do not test on PhotoRag, so I don't know how well it does compared to
UltraSmooth, which has been the best matte performer.

>b) I recently (November 30th) purchased a UT7 set in 4 oz. bottles
>with the new ezfill carts.  Will that have the newer magenta, and
>would you recommend I make a new set of prints for a new test?

MIS has told me they've replaced all the old UT7, but I couldn't be sure if
what you purchased is the new or old.

>c) What does this test represent?  The prints are on a south
>windowsill which is covered by an awning.  They get a small amount of
>early morning and late afternoon direct sunlight as it peeks under the
>ends of the awning, and a full day of bright reflected daylight.  Yes,
>it's a torture test, but the fact remains that they did fade and right
>beside them is an Eboni BO print that's been there 14 months and an
>Epson UC (grayscale mode) print for 16 months, both with no signs of
>fading.  So the toner inks do fade in response to light.  Whether this
>amount of light can be translated to 40 years in room light behind
>glass, or something like that, I don't know.  Everyone will have to
>draw their own conclusions.

That the Eboni did well does not surprise me.  The pure carbon -- Eboni and
the carbon midtones -- should do better than inks with color pigments,
especially yellow and the old magenta.  However, like Eboni, the new neutral
UT inks also show an actual increase in density after 600 hours in my
tester.  These -- the pure carbon pigs and the new UT neutrals -- are the
only inks that do this.  The UC inks show fading.

However, the fact that the #1 test strip, with all the inks in it, did not
fade, whereas the toned ones faded much more, seems a bit odd.

That the sepia faded the fastest is not surprising.  Even with the new inks,
if I were not using sepia, I'd replace that with the light carbon ink -- LC
in UT7.  One wants the least amount of color in a B&W inkset.  The yellow is
still in that sepia toner, even thought he magenta has been pulled out,
replace with a red pigment that appears to be better.

That the UC made with color pigs did well is simply inconsistent with my
tests.  A neutral UT7, even with the old magenta, outperformed the UC
pigments in my fade tests.

So, I can't say what the results indicate.  At one point Livick had a UT1
test strip (old magenta) with some coating that he rated at about 500 years
-- the longest I'd ever seen. 

It's a mystery.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com