In article , Ken Hart
wrote:


Have you considered off-brand ink cartridges? I have a Canon Pixma ix
6820 and once the original ink cartridges ran out, I purchased off brand
with no problems. I am using "Office World" brand from Amazon.

off-brand ink is an incredibly bad idea for several reasons, including
worse colour, higher potential for clogging and also invalidating the
warranty. some printers use chipped cartridges to prevent that, which
would need to be bypassed, further adding to the hassle.

The original poster is not in the USA, so his country may be different.

cheap knock-off ink is of lower quality, regardless of country.

However, the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C.A. 2302) forbids
the conditioning of a warranty upon the purchase of any product or service.

warranties cover manufacturing defects, not intentional user damage.

also, as you said, he is not in the usa, which means that act does not
apply to him, so why even bring it up?

If your printer uses chipped cartridges, and you buy off-brand chipped
cartridges, the chip will be ready for use from the supplier- no hassle.

the point you fail to understand is that off-brand ink quality is not
only lower, resulting in poorer quality prints, but can potentially
damage the printer, including clogs and other problems.

Off-brand ink has the potential to be variable in quality.

not only the potential, but *is*.

So does brand
name ink.

nope. oem ink has a reputation to maintain and is *very* consistent
from batch to batch.

off-brand ink has lower quality control and no reputation to keep. the
colour is not consistent among batches and certainly among brands. it
also might prematurely fade and may even run. professionals would never
consider using it.

Generally, very generally, if the cartridge is well packaged,
and the third party conducts itself in a professional manner, generally,
the cartridge is more likely to, generally, be good.

the quality of the packaging or the conduct of the manufacturer has
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the quality or colorimetry of
the ink. what an absurd claim.

as i said, third party inks will at a minimum require calibration. if
they are used with the printer's profiles (which is what usually
happens because people don't understand anything about colour
management), the results are guaranteed to be less than ideal, often
much worse. cheap inks are also more likely to fade faster and may run.

at a minimum, the printer will need to be recalibrated each time.

I seldom use my printer for photos- I have a full darkroom in the basement.

then you're ending up with poorer quality photos, another bad idea.

a decent photo printer with a digital workflow will do a significantly
better job with a lot less hassle than a darkroom ever could.

I will not discuss this with you. You are wrong,

i am not wrong.

unlike you, i understand the technology. you do not.

you're simply yet another uninformed film luddite who refuses to accept
the fact that modern technology has moved well beyond what never was
all that good anyway.

modern inkjet printers have a wider colour gamut and a wider dynamic
range than chemical prints, which means they are capable of producing
much better results than anything coming out of a darkroom ever could.
full stop.

this is something that can be objectively measured and not a matter of
opinion.

one such example of many:
https://www.insideimaging.com.au/wp-...04/Gamut-Compa
rison-Chart-Inkjet-Vs.gif

from the above graph, it's quite clear that the gamut of the printer is
significantly larger than kodak photo paper, which means the printer
can accurately reproduce a *lot* more colours.

and that's just the printer. images from digital cameras also have a
larger gamut and wider dynamic range as well as lower �e, so the source
is also better than a negative or slide.

tl;dr digital has long surpassed film in every metric.

but the horse is dead;

it definitely is and has been for years, but not in the way you wish it
to be.

it's not worth my effort to beat it any longer.

of course not, because you do not understand the technology and you
know it. you can't refute anything, so you run away, as usual.

maybe one day you'll consider learning something new rather than repeat
the same old long disproven myths.