!!!warning!!! pictures are large so it will take time to load!!!
Ok here is my results. I probably took it a little far but I wanted to be surprised. The test I did was to try to see if a photograph printed from the Canon Pixma pro9000 would be destroyed if someone were to spill water on it. I believe I got good results and tried to do it in a controlled environment.
I used 2 different types of photo paper
The off brand (well I’ve never heard of them)
Printworks: Premium Glossy Photo Paper 4×6 9mil 93brightness (yeah no weight listed on the box)
name brand
Canon: Photo Paper Plus Glossy 4×6 10.5mil 72lbs 92brightness
I started out by Printing out the same photo on 8 4×6 pieces of paper, 4 on the canon and 4 on the off-brand. I let them sit for about 28 hours (they recommend 24hrs)
I would let the liquid sit on the paper for about 15 seconds, giving ample time if something did drastically happen (when you are working) to clean it up as soon as possible.
Here Is a picture of all the photos printed out the off-brand on the left and canon on the right. This is before I began testing.
Close up of the off brand
Close up of the canon
As you can see the photo graphs are lab quality, This printer was a very very good purchase.
Testing Time
I Decided to try 4 different tests (hence the 2 sets of 4 pictures)
test 1: Splish splash taking a bath….
The First test was to just try water droplets on the pictures, I wanted to simulate what would happen if you had a small splash near the pictures.
Here is a before picture of dropping the water on it. This is the off-brand paper
This picture was taken just after the water droplets hit the paper (maybe 2 seconds after) if you look closely you can already see that the ink is coming off of the paper.
This was kind of a shock at first but you will soon find out why I still support this printer.
Here is after I took a paper towel and dabbed it to try to dry it, the ink came right up. On almost all the dots it was able to pick up the ink all the way so all I had left was the paper. It was also very very sticky so I couldn’t rub the water off.
Still with test 1 and the water droplets.
Canon Paper
Oops I screwed up and forgot to take a before picture. Anyway’s this picture was taken when the water drops were on the photo. Hmm… I don’t see any ink come up yet!
After Picture: This is after I dabbed the paper towel to dry it off as much as I could, there is still some water residue on the picture. As you can see you can see the water residue
left over, But the ink is still there, and it is not smudge. I was really impressed by this, I didn’t know that the kind of paper you use can have such an impact on the actual physical
quality of the picture. I am still very happy with my purchase, and I also know that now will know not to buy any other brand of paper besides the canon for the canon printer.
Test 2: Oops I knocked over a whole cup of water. oh geez not the pictures.
This is my spill test. I am going to quit rambling on about each photo and let you decide for yourself. I will let you know of anything cool and what pictures and brand (off-brand)
or canon) above the photo it pertains to.
Water spill: off-brand photo paper. before
Water spill: off-brand photo paper. during #1
Water spill: off-brand photo paper. during #2
Water spill: off-brand photo paper. After
Canon Testing
Water spill: canon photo paper. before
Water spill: canon photo paper. during #1
Water spill: canon photo paper. during #2
Water spill: canon photo paper. after
Test 3: That brand new bottle of soda exploded all over the place!
Soda spill: off-brand photo paper. before
Soda spill: off-brand photo paper. during #1
Soda spill: off-brand photo paper. During #2
Soda spill: off-brand photo paper. after
Canon Test of soda spill:
Soda spill: canon photo paper. before
Soda spill: canon photo paper. during #1
Soda spill: canon photo paper. During #2
Soda spill: canon photo paper. After
Observation: I believe that the soda on the canon paper did take up some ink, right near the top middle. So the soda was able to penetrate the ink bond with the paper.
Test 4: Why the heck is there a swimming pool next to my photos!
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. before #1
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. before #2
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. during #1
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. during #2
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. During #3
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. After #1… Oh cool look at the ink it the pot! (another experiment awaiting) oh wait…its not supposed to do that. Doh!
bucket of water: off-brand photo paper. After #2. I had to have another picture in there just to show how much it got screwed up. (yes my camera is in focus)
Canon’s Turn
bucket of water: canon photo paper. before #1
bucket of water: canon photo paper. before #2
bucket of water: canon photo paper. during #1
bucket of water: canon photo paper. during #2
bucket of water: canon photo paper. during #3
bucket of water: canon photo paper. after, so huh did I even put it in the water? I cant remember ???
Finished results:
All Tests: off-brand photo paper. Finished
All Tests: canon photo paper. Finished
So… I have decided my purchase was a very wise investment, also I learned that I will always use Canons photo paper with their printers (by the way I now have a box of printworks premium glossy photo paper, 71sheets in the box, if anybody is interested will sell for cheap!). What surprised me most about this experiment was that when I submerged the canon photo paper into the bucket no ink came off of it, the water was still crystal clear. Hope you all learned from this experiment, I sure did and I am glad I did it. If I were to sell prints I would have no problem to guarantee my prints, how long I don’t know. Thank you for reading my review and experiment. Please leave some feedback, so I can improve upon it next time.
Thanks
Jason
You can also view the pictures on my flickr