The wall of shame, the fade test for Epson inkjet images. If you use a cheap inkjet color printer your nice color pictures are likely to fade quickly (and permanently). Definitely not archival ink.
We were so proud to have a new Epson inkjet printer in our office. We even bought two of them. We liked the color at first and went and bought a third one. After all, they were so cheap.
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But then we began to notice that the cost of the ink was more than the cost of the printer. We found out that the printers did not function well unless you spent more money and bought a PostScript RIP to make the printer actually function.
We found out the printer did an awful job on plain paper. You had to spend a fortune and get special inkjet paper to achieve good prints.
We noticed the printer used an excessive amount of ink, as though it were calibrated to use as much ink as possible. This caused the costs to rise beyond reasonable expectation.
Within a few month we were surprised to notice that the colors were fading. The pictures lost that slick glossy look that the Epson advertisements promised.
Yet our office had no windows. No sunlight came in. The lights were UV shielded too. Yet the beautiful inkjet printer images faded.
It took us a long time to realize that buying a cheap inkjet printer was the worst digital imaging equipment mistake anyone can possibly make.
We began researching what we should have bought instead. This search was part of the foundation of what today has grown into the Digital Imaging Technology Center. F.L.A.A.R. today is consultant for companies large and small. We work hard to help other users of digital imaging equipment from making the same mistakes that we did at the beginning.
F.L.A.A.R. now maintains 12 different web sites with over 500 pages of reviews of digital imaging equipment. All of this started in large part due to the shock of finding out that the glossy advertising claims for these inkjet printers were, to put it politely, potentially misleading.