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Issue #0811/1 - Colorlok technology is a paper formulation designed to provide bolder blacks, more vivid colours and faster drying time for inkjet printing than standard office papers, with high consistency and quality. So, we put it to the test and found that the differences are marginal and barely worth swapping for – unless you are not using a modern Hewlett-Packard printer or are able to source it at a lower price than your regular paper.

Following last week’s analysis of the cost of inkjet printing against the cost of colour laser printing (article), which referred to the new ColorLok technology for inkjet paper, it seems appropriate to consider the values and benefits of the paper against a selection of its traditional counterparts.

ColorLok technology is currently available from five major manufacturers: Duo, Hammermill, Hewlett-Packard, POL and Rey. Availability is regional, with Hewlett-Packard not only being the only printer manufacturer to be supplying ColorLok but also the only manufacturer to be supplying it on a global basis at this point in time.

Having acquired a supply of Hewlett-Packard ColorLok paper at a price equivalent to our regular office paper (less than £2 per ream), we printed our standard test pages on ColorLok paper, a major global brand and two additional office papers for a reasonably broad comparison.

So, straight to the comparisons

Whiteness

Hewlett-Packard’s ColorLok paper is not as white as other papers. Although not hugely significant, many users are likely to be coming to ColorLok from another paper and the difference is noticeable – not just a minor over-technical numerical statistic from a measuring device – and could be off-putting.

Whitest of the papers on test is the global brand – by a noticeable margin – with the ColorLok paper falling towards the other end of the scale. The main difference between ColorLok and the other less-than-white paper is that ColorLok has a slight yellow hue to it while the other paper has a grey hue.

In comparing these four images, it should be noted that the Photosmart C6280 tends to display an ‘overrun’ as it prints across the paper. By this I mean that there are tails to the ink drops – in these images they appear on the left side of the letters. This phenomenon should not be confused with ink bleed on the paper – it is a printer issue not an ink/paper issue.

By considering this fact though, we see that all of the papers other than the ColorLok paper, mask the ink overrun to some extent – particularly the EV-coded paper. However, the global brand paper (GB coded) masks the overrun by allowing the ink to bleed along the fibres.

Thus, of the four papers, the sharpest images are actually from the ‘other’ papers – coded EC and EV in the illustrations. Which of the two is ‘the best’, is difficult to determine but preference would probably just go to the EV-coded paper.

From these images, it is clear that the surface of the global brand paper is less regular and less smooth than the other three. Hewlett-Packard’s ColorLok paper is not actually the smoothest of the four, this accolade goes to one of the ‘other’ brands (coded EC) but ColorLok is very nearly as smooth and the EV-coded paper is not far behind.

Moving on - text printed on the two non Hewlett-Packard printers is as sharp as text from the C6280 on the ColorLok paper but bleeds severely on all three of the regular papers (significantly worst on the global brand paper). The only imperfection seen on ColorLok is the ink splatter caused by the print head of the printer concerned.

Ink bleed

Black to yellow ink bleed is a problem associated with ink formulation where the inks merge with one another on the paper before the ink has a chance to dry. Black and yellow are typically used as the notable example because of the colour contrast that makes the bleed highly visible.

Hewlett-Packard claims that its inks are formulated in such a way as to minimise ink bleed and that third party inks (in particular) rarely compare favourably. The reality of the situation is easily demonstrated in two ways.

Firstly, by placing a small quantity of yellow ink onto a white surface and then placing a small drop of black ink into the yellow. A good ink will hold its position well for a significant length of time, while a poor ink immediately begins to disperse and merge.

In these examples we see one good ink set and one poor ink set (neither are Hewlett-Packard). While the good inks held this clear and concise boundary between black and yellow for 10 minutes and were only just beginning to show minor signs of dispersal after about 15 minutes, the poor black ink immediately spread and began demonstrating these patterns within 15 to 20 seconds. These photos were taken at about one and two minutes from start.

It is not difficult to imagine how a poor ink formulation will respond on paper, especially if the paper is not particularly fast-drying, after seeing how they react in bulk. The irony of this experiment is that the good ink is a third party formulation while the poor ink is an OEM formulation!

And, secondly, the global brand paper demonstrates significant ink bleed when the test pages are printed on one of the non Hewlett-Packard printers (OEM as in ink bleed experiment above), whereas the ColorLok paper can be seen to hold the ink much more firmly on contact with the paper, meaning that there is a significant improvement in print quality.

When printing using the Hewlett-Packard printer, the difference in ink bleed between ColorLok paper and our global brand paper is insignificant, with slight bleed visible throughout. This result is slightly confused by the amount of cyan and magenta ink that Hewlett-Packard uses to reinforce the black line here. The apparent bleed is mostly droplets of cyan that have been slightly misplaced, giving the appearance of bleed.

Colour Fill

ColorLok is supposed to offer “More Vivid Colours” than regular papers. On this point, ColorLok just does not seem to deliver. We could see absolutely no discernable improvement between the four papers, whether printed on the Hewlett-Packard printer or the other printers.

If there is any difference at all to be noted, it could be argued that it is the global brand paper that gives the most vivid colour fill (very marginal and non Hewlett-Packard printers only) and that ColorLok is just an also-ran. On this point, no illustrations would demonstrate the difference, so none are presented.

Dry time

Here again, we cannot honestly say that ColorLok is providing any measurable advantage to users and may even perform worse.

We printed the 5% black page and immediately used a steady pressure to create a smudge as soon as the sheet emerged from the printer. This process was repeated at 10 seconds after the paper emerged and 30 seconds after the paper emerged (with a new print each time).

What this test shows is that the ColorLok paper actually does not perform as well as the global brand paper. Even after 30 seconds has elapsed the smudging is significant and greater than on the ordinary paper.

It should be noted that the block area was chosen for the test because of the high density of ink placed, meaning slower drying than ordinary text. This allowed some flexibility for timing a smudge test to the degree we wanted.

Cost

Pricing of these papers is difficult to compare partly because they are not all available through the same outlet and also because a list of price of £13 might be quoted for a paper that is actually sold for £2.

Our supply of ColorLok paper was purchased at a cost of £1.88 per ream, excluding tax, and our global brand paper was purchased for the same amount (from a different supplier). One of the ‘other brand’ papers used can be bought at £3.16 (from a quoted list price of £15.91!). The final paper used could not be traced any longer and must be presumed to be out of production.

This places ColorLok at the competitive end of the pricing scale, meaning that it presents itself as a good alternative bearing in mind the proviso in the summary below.

Summary

Having studied comparative prints closely, the moral of this story is that ColorLok is a great technology and offers a very real improvement in black text print quality – IF the printer in question is not one of Hewlett-Packard’s latest Vivera-based machines!! If, on the other hand, you have a Hewlett-Packard printer on your desk, the choice of paper seems to make relatively little difference.

Also advantageous is the improved ink bleed characteristic of the paper formulation.

However, apart from these two factors, the performance of the paper is just a little disappointing. Not only is it not as white as other papers but of the three major claims, bolder blacks, vivid colours and faster drying, we find no benefit.

~End~

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:02 am and is filed under Supplies, Print Technology, New Products, Comparisons, Issues, Third party supplies, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.