The Framers Forum

We use a laser printer to print captions when necessary.

It has just occurred to me that I have no idea how well this will stand the test of time. How quickly will the output from a laser printer fade?

Not sure what system you are using.

I did my own test in Feb that is still running.
I printed a caption using a HPlaser on 200 gram card
then printed the same caption using EPSON 1290 inkjet with pigmented ink on 200 gram card and covered half the caption on each card and placed them in the shop window, which gets the sun for about 3 hours late in the afternoon.

The HP caption is already starting to fade whilst the EPSON is still nice and strong.

The EPSON is supposed to be a 'Fine Art' printer and the ink is advertised to have a life of 30 - 50 years.

Will let you know, only 29.75 years to go. !!!!

That is a surprising result John.

Isn't the laser toner made from carbon? Which is lightfast and inert.

This is the link to Wilhelm Imaging Research who do a host of test on inks etc……you may find some useful information there http://www.wilhelm-research.com/

Rgs

Dermot

Hey John. Yes I am suprised as well.. Maybe we have stronger sun down here. errrr at the moment NOT

Dermot. Thankyou for the link. Very interesting. You are just a mind of information. Anybody who asks a question gets a link. Brilliant mate.

Thanks for the link Dermot. A wealth of detailed information there about printing. However I was unable to see any reference to standard black text output from a laser printer on Wilhelm Research site. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough. Any chance of a link to where this information can be found?

There is a search facility on the site…..I found this which may have some relevant information http://www.wilhelm-research.com/pdf/add ... 6_2000.pdf

I have used an inkjet and a laser printer to produce 100 + captions over a quite a number of years and I have never detected any significant fading of the ink…..the frames are hung in a South/West facing private bar at a facilities in Bray (not a public pub) ….what I have detected that some of the paper I used has darkened….I suspect this is because it wasn’t a great quality paper….some of the work would have been done before I became as acutely aware of the importance of “Preservation Framing” as I’m now.

Nope.

Nothing in there Dermot about black laser print, though the word 'laser' appears twice.

I have a gut feeling that black laser print is lightfast, specially on good quality paper. However, I have been unable to find any hard evidence to verify that this is the case.

Hi,

I suppose what you are doing in theory FN, is a sort of Giclee using inks that are supposed to be lightfast. Not being technically minded in this area, can I give you a quote form the Giclee report that the Guild published re Lightfastness of inks?

A “giclee” print is a piece of printed artwork or photograph produced by using a high quality digital inkjet printer. The first printer in this class was an Iris, and Iris printers still claim to lead the field. Other print machine makers include Epson, Mimaki, Mutoh, Hewlett Packard and Roland. The inks used must be specially formulated and compatible with the extreme fineness of the printer head that spurts jets of ink in minute droplets at a resolution of 1440dpi or more. Epson, Iris and Lyson supply many of the ink-sets that have been tested. The paper or canvas that is used is specially prepared to accept this type of printing mechanism and ink-set. Hahnemuhle, St Cuthberts, Epson and Lyson produce tested papers and canvas

Lightfastness
Early inkjet prints in the mid 1990’s were disappointingly fugitive with noticeable fading occurring quite quickly. Dramatic improvements have been made in the inks used and the paper or canvas substrate. It was found that it is crucial that the combination of machine, ink-set and substrate is compatible and tested as a whole. Recent tests show that the resulting print can be lightfast to very high levels with a minimum of six on the Blue Wool test, or 25 years by Wilhelm Institute tests. The latest test results show life expectancy rates of 100 to 200 years for some giclee prints. When printed on good quality heavyweight art paper the print should possess archival standards of permanence comparable or better than other collectable artwork.

This is only a short extracty from the report, the whole report and test results can be found at: http://www.fineart.co.uk/Printstandards.asp

Hope this helps?

Steven

Maybe another topic could be established for those who wish to share information on ink-jet (giclee) printing.

However, it seems that while there is a raft of data available on the properties of various inks and dies used by inkjets (just ask Google), it is very difficult to find any studies on the quality of (non-colour) laser print.

If it was out there, Dermot would surely have turned it up by now.

The subject of laser printer output is discussed here.

http://www.macintouch.com/printpermanence.html

Apparently by people who know what they are talking about