Commentary on Pigment Printing Using the Epson Ink Set
In the late 1990s Epson, who had been building inkjet printers for a long time answered the request from printers worldwide to create an archival inkset. They came out with pigment based inks that were archival. Earlier inkjet prints such as Iris and regular inkjet prints were dye based, unstable in light and deteriorated from time of printing. Other forms of darkroom printing such as Cibachrome, Crystal Light by Fuji had taken steps towards a more stable archival printing for color and with proper mounting and UV protection achieved a measure of reduced degradation similar to platinum prints in black and white printing. But they were still dye based and suffered from UV rays whether fading or having color shifts. When Epson came out with the pigment based inkset it changed the rules for printing of all color images. Several other advancements took place which made the new inkjet printing with pigments revolutionary. Nikon came out with a 35mm scanner which was double the earlier size in scanning pixels known as the Coolscan 4000ED with ICE. This took the user to the ability to take 35mm images to 32" x 21" easily. The scans were capable of quality digital images similar to the well known drum scans. Adobe Photoshop over the years had improved the soft wear program to a high degree. Photoshop 7 and later are magnificent tools to adjust the images before out putting them to the printer. These three developments came in a similar time frame and created a new ability that allowed color printing to be thought of as fine art. All major printers are using the Epson pigment based inkset. There is in the market the term giclee which is used for marketing purposes. The giclee print is an inkjet print. It can be printed on canvas, plastic, paper but it is still an inkjet that produced the print. The question for consumers to ask, is the giclee printed with dyes or a pigment based inkjet. That becomes the important criteria as to value. The pigment based inkjet print when kept out of direct sunlight has a life of 100 years before deterioration starts. When an inkjet is properly mounted and protected by UV the life is extended well over double the 100 years.
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Last updated: July 07, 2006 .