[Doug Nelson]

By Chris Hardman on Tuesday, July 31, 2001 - 10:46 am:

Is anybody doing archival quality cartridges for HP inkjet printers ?

Thanks

[Marni]

I e-mailed and then just to be sure, called HP to ask this very question. They advised me that they have no plans to offer archival products. Quite frankly, they seemed not to care about my comments about the whole subject. I will be replacing my HP 895 CSE printer as soon as I can afford to. Looks like the Epson 1270 will be the one for me. I have been using Shutterfly to upload my files to and that has actually worked out well. Only problem is that you must send them to them in a .jpg format. The prints I have ordered from them have been very nice. I would rather print my own, however since I am a relative newbee to Photoshop and would like to know how the colors are working out relative to my monitor.


Oh, forgot to tell you that I also did an Internet search to ink company's to find if the cartridges were even refilable with archival inks. I was told NO, that HP has been very difficult to work with. FIGURES!!

[chris h]

Sorry for the slow response to your comprehensive reply. No joy over here Epson seem to have cornered the market. I'll hang in for the time being with my HP printer as I'm not a great fan of Epson printers. Love the scanners though !


Cheers from the UK

[Doug Nelson]

Do some research about pigment inks (HP) vs. dies (Epson). I think you'll find a lot of the pigment inks have very good archival properties even though they aren't labeled 'archival'.

Check the Wilhelm Research link on the resources page, for a start.

[thomasgeorge]

Chris h, As I understand and from my experience, printing on a heavy weight matte photo paper produces prints with a much longer life than using any glossy paper currently in production. I have some which I printed two years ago on a lexmark using the heavy matte type paper and even hanging exposed to the air they have not noticably faded. Tom