Saturday, October 15, 2011

Printer Ink Study Project 3


 Week 3 projects for the Ink Challenge were to damage printed photos. Do you have a cat?
We have two. And on more than one occasion a nosy cat poking around my work area has dumped over a glass of water.  I could easily imagine a drink being spilled on my photos. I expected that if this was to happen the photo would be ruined.

For the test today I printed out pictures using the HP brand ink on HP photo paper and compared them to the Refill Ink printed on brand X photo paper.
  • Test 1: Sprinkle water on both photos; wait 60 seconds and blot off. Within 15 seconds I could see the brand X paper begin to swell and in 30 seconds there was yellow ink leaking on to the paper towel. When I blotted the photos after one minute the HP looked as good as new while brand X was warped where ever the water sat. Brand X did dry and the color appeared slightly darker in the areas that had gotten wet. 
  • Test 2: Dunk new photos into a bowl of water; then let dry naturally. (Somehow this seemed like what I would find after the cats ran through.) HP photo curled initially on the sides but when dry was nearly flat with no water marks. Brand X photo warped and curled and dried this way. The photo below does not show the 3 dimensional warping of the paper as well as I'd hoped. Trust me, it is obvious. Also, note the difference in colors. Print on left is HP brand, the print on right is brand X and the colors were obviously muddied after their dip in the water.

  •  For fun I also dumped some coffee with creamer onto an HP photo. I waited 30 seconds and attempted to blot the coffee. It was sticky and did not easily wipe so I wet a towel with water and then wiped the coffee off the photo with only a small mark. I also used my finger nail and a file to try and scratch the photo. My finger nail made barely a mark on either brand print. The file did scratch the prints but the color remained on both.
I found the results this week to be very surprising. We have printed many, many pictures over the years and I have never thought about the brand of photo paper. It does make a difference. Week 3 = HP wins handily!

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