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03/19/2003 12:18:15 AM · #1 |
| I am wondering how reliable generic brands can be and if anyone has had any experience with www.ink4art.com. They have great deals on paper usually, but my s900 needs ink all the time and they are selling 2 6 packs of Canon compatible cartridges for 40 bucks. this sounds like a great price but i'm wondering if there is a big quality difference in the inks. any info would be greatly appreciated. |
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03/19/2003 12:48:54 AM · #2 |
I have the Canon S820 and I think it's exactly the same as the S900 except for the print speed. I bought the starter kit from inkjetgoodies.com last November. The kit comes with six new cartridges that are designed to be refilled, six 125ml bottles of ink and six shot needles. It costs about $75 dollars but it is enough ink for 10 refills. I've refilled 4 times so far without a hitch. The colors are exactly the same as Canon ink and I have never had a clog. I'm looking at a print from last Nov. and it still looks great, no fading at all. I highly recommend them. I found out about them Here
Good Luck. |
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03/19/2003 01:27:26 AM · #3 |
Hey Achiral,
Generally speaking, generic brands âcanâ be reliable. I know of many companies that use them on a routine basis as a cost saving measure. Keeping in mind that the needs of an office environment are most often far less critical than what is required when printing graphics of even a moderate quality. The generic brands make no claim as to their ability to match the hues and running properties of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM)âs inks, let alone the ability of the cartridge itself to perform exactly as the OEM intended. Dependability of consistency is what you should consider if you are thinking about the generic brands.
What you view on your monitor is red-green-blue (RGB) in order to print the image to a common printer, the file must process through a Raster Image Processor (RIP) program of sorts to change the three colors of RGB into the four colors the printer can understand: Black Cyan Magenta Yellow (CMYK). This change of three colors into four colors is usually done with the help of color management profiles. They are pre-set by the manufacturer to match a calibrated set of ink/cartridge.
It is possible to build your own ICC color management profiles to compensate and re-align the calibrations for each color, but there is no guarantee the generics will be the same each time you buy them. The OEM spends a great deal of effort to insure the profiles will be consistent with the ink/cartridge every time you buy them.
I highly recommend if you are trying to duplicate prints with any accuracy to stay with the original equipment manufacturer. Youâll save yourself a lot of headaches. But if you are just printing for your own needs and you are not absolutely critical of color consistency with the end product you may not notice a difference at all. â I hope this is of help, Good Luck.
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03/19/2003 01:44:54 AM · #4 |
Gotcha,
I know what you are saying but I have followed this very closely on the dpreview forums and the people over there take printing pretty seriously. I have never heard anybody complain about the inkjetgoodies ink. By the way I am not associated with them in any way, just a happy customer.
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03/19/2003 01:57:30 AM · #5 |
| No problem Rcrawford, My caution to Achiral here is consistency. Even as the cartridge is used, it will wear down over a short time. Eventually, the ink will begin to distribute differently as it is applied from the worn cartridge. So to expect an old cartridge to print the same as the new one.... the problem might not be a concern, unless you are trying to insure that each print is the same as the last one. It's all a question of your needs. If you are printing 300 prints for the same customer, he may not be happy with how the first print doesn't look the same as the last one. But if you are only printing one or two at a time.... and you have no need to match them exactly in the future... you might be ok with it. |
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