Inkjet Fixative Sprays

In my previous blog I discussed how with some photographic printers, such as Epson Photo Stylus printers for example, you have two types of black ink; one for matt papers (MK) and one for glossy (PK).  I also discussed what happens when you print on glossy paper using matt black ink and suggested this could be fixed using a fixative spray.  In this blog I will discuss the merits of the most easily available of these sprays.

So to recap, the problem with using matt ink on glossy paper is that is does not penetrate the surface of the paper and will rub off.  It also produces a matt finish in areas of the image where mainly black ink is used.  Using a fixative spray 'fixes' the ink so it will no longer rub off and can help cover up the unevenness of the glossy surface by applying a sheen to the matt areas.

The most readily available brand of fixative spray on the internet is a brand called Giant.  They produce three types, Matt, Satin and Gloss.  Each 300ml can retails at between £6 and £12 depending on where you shop.  There are other brands on the market but they need hunting out.  Another common alternative is cheap hair spray which you can get the same quantity for less than £2.

I tested the gloss and satin versions of the Giant fixative and compared them with a supermarket own brand hairspray.  I printed a couple of images on glossy photo paper and allowed them time to dry.  One using my Epson R3000 printer with pigment inks and one on a standard Hewlett Packard photo printer using standard dye based inks.

I sprayed a section of each with the Giant gloss fixative following the manufacturers instructions taking care to mask the areas I did not want sprayed so I had a clear line between the coated area and the uncoated.  You must use this stuff outside as the fumes are very pungent. After leaving for 10 minutes to dry I looked at the results.  The finish was duller than the original gloss of the printed photo except over the matt black areas.  The overall finish was smooth and even but not really a high gloss finish I was expecting, however, the black ink was certainly well fixed and would not rub off.  The instructions on the can did say a second coat could be applied so I gave it another light spray.  This time the finish was less glossy once again but still very even.  I would say the overall finish was most satin than gloss.  One the image printed using the HP printed with dye based inks there was a noticeable colour change although that lightened as it dried but didn't go completely.

I then performed the same test with the Giant Satin fixative.  The results were amazingly similar and if anything I would say the finish with the Satin spray appeared actually slightly glossier but that could be my imagination as I was expecting it to be the reverse.

There is a YouTube video advertising this stuff and there the guy using the spray seems to saturate the images with the spray when he applies it so I thought I would give that a go as well.  Initially it appears to give a good gloss coating that way but once it dries the finish is rough and uneven, so stick to the manufacturers instructions.

Last I tested the hairspray.  This dies a lot faster and is not so pungent in use as it is designed to be used indoors.  Once dry the results were evenly glossy and it even improved the shine on the matt black areas.  The black ink was fixed and would not rub or wash off.  A second coat could be applied within minutes if required.  On the HP prints though, there was a marked change in colour far worse than using the Giant fixative.  This did not reduce at all upon drying.

I also tried the Giant sprays on photographic matt papers to see if you could turn a matt print into a glossy or satin one.  The answer is 'No'.  Perhaps if you were to use up a whole can of the stuff with repeated spraying it might work but clearly it is not intended for this and the result is not very pleasing at all.  Hairspray will fix a matt print but there are also matt fixative sprays available should you need them.

Conclusion
On the face of it it would appear that hairspray is the outright winner here.  It is cheap and in the short term seems to give the best results on pigment prints if you want a gloss finish.  If you are happy with a satin finish then either the Gloss or Satin spray will do.  I say 'in the short term hairspray is the winner' because the fixative sprays claim they incorporate colour fixing properties preventing your colours from fading over time and also have an anti-yellowing formula.  The same cannot be said about hairspray and it is quite possible that it will yellow with time.  As for the colour fastness, well, pigment inks are not supposed to fade anyway.

ooOOOoo

Well it's been five weeks since I wrote this and since then I have had my test images stuck up in my south west facing study window to see if they yellow.  It may be too early to say but so far neither the fixative spray or the hairspray has shown any signs of yellowing.  All the images have curled up though and when I tried to flatten them out by bending them the other way, those images that were given a second coat of either the fixative or hairspray, cracked across their surface. 

Matt Black v Photo Black Ink

Most of my colour printing is done on photo matt papers but I do occasionally use glossy papers too.  My Epson printer utilises two full black inks.  One for matt papers called Matt Black (MK) and one for glossy papers called Photo Black (PK).  On my previous Epson printer (R2400) if I wanted to switch my media from matt to glossy paper I had to unplug the matt black ink and plug in the photo black.  the printer would then perform a head clean to remove any residual ink before printing.  My new Epson R3000 both blacks are installed but switching between them involves the printer flushing out the old ink from the tubes so there is no cross contamination.  Either way, it wastes ink so you don't want to be doing it too often or just for the sake of a one off print.

So what happens if you don't switch?
Well if you are using Epson ink with Epson paper then you probably haven't gone to the trouble to get any custom profiles created.  In which case you are stuck with switching inks as you cannot select any of the glossy paper profiles if you have matt black ink installed and vice a versa.
If you are using quality third party paper the manufacturers will supply generic profiles for that paper for your printer.  They will be on the paper manufacturers web site somewhere usually called ICC profiles.  You will need to select the paper & your model of printer and probably either MK or PK ink.  The profile will then be made available for you to download and install.  This is not a custom profile but normally these will be close enough.  For custom profiles you normally have to print of a set of colour patches which you send away to be read by a spectrometer and the resulting profile will be e-mailed back to you.  Once you have your profiles you can select them no matter which type of black ink you have installed allowing you to print on either matt or glossy papers with either matt black or photo black ink.

Matt Paper with Photo Black Ink
If you print on mat papers with photo black ink the results can look a bit flat.  The high absorbency of the paper means the black ink soaks in more and looks less black, more very dark grey.  As a result there can appear to be a lack of contrast in your images. If you are going to regularly use PK ink on matt paper I would recommend getting some custom profiles made up for each matt paper using PK ink and if you make sure you use them each time it will largely compensate for this problem.

Glossy Paper with Matt Black Ink
Printing on glossy paper with matt black ink is not generally recommended by ink manufacturers.  The ink looks dull (matt) on the surface while all the coloured inks will retain their gloss.  You will notice this when you tilt the image to reflect the light.  The ink will also not penetrate the paper so the black areas can be rubbed off.  Having said that, if you look at the image flat on you will not see any difference in colour or contrast from a glossy print printed with photo black ink and you can solve the rubbing off problem by spraying the image with fixative spray.  You can even get fixatives with a glossy finish so eliminating the matt texture of the black areas.

Verdict.
Swap the ink over if:

• you are going to be printing an image for sale or exhibition
• you are going to be printing a large volume so making it worth changing.

Leave the ink as it is if:

• you are just printing the off image for yourself 
• the images are not of high importance.

Ideally, you need to use the right ink for the right media if you want the absolute best results but we don't always need that level of perfection, do we?

Epson Stylus Photo R3000 printer

My printer died, long live the printer!  Up until recently I had been using an Epson Stylus Photo R2400 A3 printer for all my printing needs.  It was brilliant.  Unfortunately, printers, like all things on Earth, are not immortal and the inevitable happened.  It gave me an error message to say that 'components in your printer have reached the end of their service life'.  Yes there are fixes for this but all are temporary unless you are willing to fork out £200 to have it serviced by Epson.  I decided I wasn't so bought a replacement; the R3000.  

The blurb was impressive.  Droplet size nearly half the size on the R2400 means finer gradients and less gain when it's not wanted.  New Vibrant magenta inks providing better colour and having both the black inks (matt black and photo black) installed all the time meant no messy change overs.  In practice a lot of this appears to be mostly spin.

Good Points

• First I have to say that having both inks installed is a good idea and means I am more likely to print on glossy papers occasionally where as I am mainly a matt paper person.  It has it's drawbacks however which I will list below.
• The LCD display on the printer provides very helpful information with pictorial step by step instructions when needed.
• It's quiet, very quiet compared to the R2400 probably because the ink compartment does not move with the printer head while printing.
• It is easier to load think papers in this machine than it was in my R2400.  No more mis-feeds and if it does it tells you exactly why and how to sort it.
• The ink cartridges are just over twice the size of the R2400's ink cartridges which means less time spent replacing ink cartridges and hopefully less ink wasted in spent cartridges, but they are twice the price. 
• A real bonus - you can keep printing right up to the point the the ink cartridges run out without fear of ruining a print because the printer will just pause the printing while you change the cartridge and then continue where it left off.  You won't be able to tell where it paused.  This saves a lot of wasted ink and or paper.

Bad Points

• Switching between the black inks uses up a lot of ink by default.  The printer flushes the tubes that run from the cartridges to the printer head of any remaining ink and these tubes are quite long because the cartridges do not travel with the printer head as they used to in previous models.  You use 1ml of ink switching between Photo Black and Matt Black but 3mls switching back the other way!  That's a lot of ink from a 24ml cartridge and a lot of money wasted.  
•  The printer does not retain the settings you last used after it has been switched off but reverts to it's defaults once switched back on.  This could be a problem if you wanted your printer to keep to the Matt Black ink as the default is Photo Black.  So once you turn it on it flushes out 1ml of Matt Black ink and there is nothing you can do about it but think about all the money you are wasting and knowing you will have to waste a further 3mls switching back again.
• You can't leave the printer on for more than 8 hours without touching it as it will power off.  It is a good thing to have a auto power off option on a timer but to not allow you to leave it on permanently if wished is annoying especially as it doesn't retain it's last used settings once powered off.  
• It's bigger than my old R2400 which for me is a bit of a problem as it had to fit in an alcove and now it's a bit tight, but at least I don't have to feed paper in from behind.

Fixes

There is a fix for both these issues however but they're not exactly well publicised particularly the ink issue.  If you bring up the printer menu on the printer's LCD panel you can scroll to 'Setup' then select 'Printer Setup' and then 'Black Ink Change Settings'.  Here you can select 'Economy' instead of 'Standard' which is the default.  You will get a warning about possibly losing image quality but believe me, you won't notice it and it will save a lot of ink.  It still performs a short head clean but it's much quicker than it is on 'Standard'.


As for the default settings you can get the printer to stick to Matt Black but you can't save it as a default as such.  To do this in Windows you need to go to your 'Start Menu' and 'Control Panel'.  Select 'Printers'.  find the Epson R3000 and highlight it. Right click on this printer and select 'Printing Preferences'.  You will see the same dialogue box you get when you send something to it for printing but the difference is that here it will remember the settings even after the printer has been switched off.  In fact, the printer doesn't even need to be on to do this.  Set it to Matt Black or what ever default settings you want.  You can even set the paper type you most use but that is not so crucial.   Now when ever you turn the printer on it will remember these settings.  Just remember though, if you change the ink during printing from whatever you have set as the default and turn the printer off when it comes back on it will change back to the default you have set so if, for argument sake, you, like me, have set your default to Matt Black, but you have a stake of glossy prints to print and so you switch it over to Photo Black, should you not finish printing the images but decide to come back to it later, if your printer is switched off in between you will need to go back into your printer preferences dialogue box BEFORE you switch your printer back on to prevent it returning to Matt Black ink.  Why, oh why, could it not simply retain the setting it had when it was last used????

Over-all Impressions

I have to say I was expecting something amazing from this printer on reading the blurb and reviews.  Certainly a big step up in terms of quality from my R2400 so I was a little disappointed when I saw the results.  I printed an image that was identical to the last image I printed on my R2400 using the same paper.  I could see no discernible difference between the two.  OK, maybe if I had taken a strong magnifying glass to it I might have been able to see that the R3000's print was smoother but who looks at photo's that close.  Both images showed excellent detail and colour in my opinion.  The R2400 is no longer in production as it was superseded by the R2880 which is still being sold in tandem with the R3000 but cheaper.  The only real practical differences between the two is that the R3000 carries both black inks where as with the R2880 you have to manually unplug one and plug in the other and the larger ink cartridges in the R3000 but it not certain this will save any money.  So, what it comes down to is how much are you prepared to pay out for these two features?

PermaJet Continuous Flow System

I run an Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printer and up until recently I was using Epson K3 inks in it with both Epson paper and Permajet papers.  I had custom profiles made up for the PermaJet papers but used Epson's own generic profiles for the Epson papers.  I recently purchased and installed PermaJet's continuous flow system called Eco-Flo after months, if not years of deliberation.  I did it because I was fed up with being fleeced by the price of Epson inks especially as you end up throwing away so much of it.  The PermaJet inks are a 5th of the price of the Epson ones and you never have to waste any of it.  They are still oil based, glychee inks and still have the same longevity.
I've had it installed a while now so feel ready to write a review. 

First thing to note - It takes far longer than the 15 minutes suggested to replace the cartridges.   It took me over an hour.  Still, I was kind of expecting that.

Second, changing between the matt black ink and the photo black ink is not a simple operation.  It's quite fiddly and you MUST make sure you close off all the ink feeds with the clips before you start or you could damage the system.  You then have to remember to release all the clips again afterwards before printing.

    The best thing about the system is you no longer feel you are wasting money when you run off proofs or test strips.  In fact, printing on the Epson R2400 is now cheaper than on my old HP deskjet that I used to use for every day web page and letter type printing.  hense I have now sold my HP and use the Epson for everything.

The cost of the system is a non event.  If you add up the cost of buying all 9 PermaJet inks you discover you are not actually paying anything for the system.  It's a bit of a no brainer in that respect.  Added to that, once installed, should you decide you don't like the results you can revert back to the Epson inks as PermaJet include full instructions not just on how to install their system but on how to remove it.  They even recommend keeping your old ink cartridges for this purpose.

Downside is that you have to install it all in one go even if that means most of your original Epson cartridges are still viable.

Printing quality is a bit of a mixed bag.  The system comes with a complete set of generic profiles for PermaJet papers but I did not find these to be particularly good.  I use either PermaJet paper or Epson.  PermaJet offer a free profiling service for their paper and a paid service for other manufacturers papers.  The paid service cost £20 for one or £30 for two profiles however there is a bulk offer where you can buy vouchers (one per profile)and 5 will cost you £35 plus £5 postage.  I think the postage here is outrageous as the vouchers are only embossed business cards and all five on require the cost of a second class stamp to post.  Further more, they could easily be sent out electronically for nothing.  PermaJet defend the need to charge £5 postage defiantly although they don't really have an argument.  So, in a nut shell, a block booking for 5 profiles will cost you £40.

    I sent off for 8 custom profiles, 4 Epson papers and 4 PermaJet.  They come back pretty quick and the results are much better than the generic profiles.  The colour is very good however, the contrast and clarity is better when using Epson ink on Epson paper with the generic Epson profiles.  If I had had custom profiles for the Epson papers when I was using Epson inks not doubt the images printed on that system would have beaten the PermaJet system on colour as well.  Having said that, unless you have the two versions to compare side-by-side you probably would not notice the slight drop in quality with the PermaJet inks.  Having said that, there is more detail in the shadows of prints printed with the PermaJet inks using the custom profiles but this was reversed if the generic profiles were used.

Verdict - If you do a lot of bulk printing or proofing then the PermaJet Eco-Flo system is certainly for you.  If, on the other hand, you mainly print for galleries and competition then you migh be better off sticking with the Epson inks and just getting custom profiles made up.  In an ideal world I would have two Epson R2400 printers, one with Epson inks and one with PermaJet. 

Will I be switching back to the Epson Inks? - Unlikely unless I have problems.  I'm very happy saving money and ink and the very slight loss of quality, for me, is not worth worrying about as it is more noticeable with fine detail photography than the portraits I do.