Tom's Hardware Benchmarks Inkjet Printer Paper!

Name: High Print Quality: Color Gamut - Tom&#039;s Hardware Benchmarks Inkjet Printer Paper!
Author: Andrew Ku

by Andrew Ku May 25, 2011 at 11:00 PM

High Print Quality: Color Gamut

Every printer is capable of a "high-quality" print. This mainly involves using more ink. That is why the papers rank in the same order as on the previous page. You can see the effect in the videos. The wire form outline in each clip represents the perceptual gamut volume of the paper when we print using a high-quality setting. The solid gamut map continues to represent the standard-quality print (default setting).

When we start applying more ink to the paper, the color gamut of each paper reacts in a different way. For example, Dynex is the only paper that shows nearly no improvement in the shadows because the paper is close to 100% absorbency. In comparison, HP's Bright White shows a larger improvement in blue and cyan midtones.

Brother Multipurpose Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

Dynex Multipurpose Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

Epson Bright White Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

HP Bright White Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

HP Multipurpose Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

Kodak Everyday Paper, Standard vs. High Quality

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Andrew Ku

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hmp_goose

I'd been taught you feed an Epson Epson paper …
iam2thecrowe

I was kind of in disbelief when I read this article. Its a good try....but far from what is seen in the real world. Speaking from a printer tech's point of view, I can tell you that using the wrong kind of paper in certain printers can give disasterous results. The ink can sit on top, smudge, bleed etc. The manufacturer designs consumer printers with presets for different paper types. The specific printer may put more or less ink, raise or lower the carriage depending on paper thickness, not to mention every manufacturer uses a different type of ink and will react differently with different paper. This article is leading people in the wrong direction. You will only get reliable results from your inkjet printer using the manufacturers correct spec paper and ink and correct settings in your printer driver. If you happen to find one that works well for you that is not stated in the manufacturers spec, then good for you, but don't complain if your prints come out like crap using the wrong paper.
acku

388413 said:

I was kind of in disbelief when I read this article. Its a good try....but far from what is seen in the real world. Speaking from a printer tech's point of view, I can tell you that using the wrong kind of paper in certain printers can give disasterous results. The ink can sit on top, smudge, bleed etc. The manufacturer designs consumer printers with presets for different paper types. The specific printer may put more or less ink, raise or lower the carriage depending on paper thickness, not to mention every manufacturer uses a different type of ink and will react differently with different paper. This article is leading people in the wrong direction. You will only get reliable results from your inkjet printer using the manufacturers correct spec paper and ink and correct settings in your printer driver. If you happen to find one that works well for you that is not stated in the manufacturers spec, then good for you, but don't complain if your prints come out like crap using the wrong paper.

That's very true when it comes to Photo Paper, but there are hundreds of attributes that matter. However, it is possible for brand B photo paper to be have more color gamut on brand A printer than brand A photo paper, if they're optimizing for color fastestness or water proofing.

This was a look at everyday paper where differences are negligible on between multiple brands. We got the same results on Epson, HP, Brother, and Kodak printers. We know there are and we have seen different results with Photo Paper. Such as Canon Photo Paper behaving differently on a Canon printer, Epson printer etc....

I have benchmarks from about 10 more printers of varying brands that line up with the results from the MG5220. For the sake of simplicity, we only presented one.

Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
The prices of the HP Bright White and Multipurpose are switched between the first and last pages of this article. At first I thought that the Bright White was both the best of the bunch and one of the cheapest, which left me wondering if the ink fumes had made the reviewer a little woozy when I saw that the multipurpose got the recommendation.
acku

Quote:

The prices of the HP Bright White and Multipurpose are switched between the first and last pages of this article. At first I thought that the Bright White was both the best of the bunch and one of the cheapest, which left me wondering if the ink fumes had made the reviewer a little woozy when I saw that the multipurpose got the recommendation.

I think magic markers smell better. Fixed!
Dan_H

Seriously? You are benchmarking PAPER? Does the word "obsessive" mean anything to you?
acku

399148 said:

Seriously? You are benchmarking PAPER? Does the word "obsessive" mean anything to you?

Maybe more neurotic than obsessive.
Does the word "KACHINGGGG" mean anything to you?
iam2thecrowe

ackuThat's very true when it comes to Photo Paper, but there are hundreds of attributes that matter. However, it is possible for brand B photo paper to be have more color gamut on brand A printer than brand A photo paper, if they're optimizing for color fastestness or water proofing. This was a look at everyday paper where differences are negligible on between multiple brands. We got the same results on Epson, HP, Brother, and Kodak printers. We know there are and we have seen different results with Photo Paper. Such as Canon Photo Paper behaving differently on a Canon printer, Epson printer etc....I have benchmarks from about 10 more printers of varying brands that line up with the results from the MG5220. For the sake of simplicity, we only presented one.Cheers,Andrew KuTomsHardware.com

Thanks for clarifying that. Just didnt want people to get the wrong idea.
nebun

ackuMaybe more neurotic than obsessive.

it is good....we need to know who manufacures the best paper if we want our prints to last us a lifetime
zybch

No Canon papers?
WyomingKnott

Just to upset Dan_H a little more
I write with a fountain pen. I've got about twenty of them and pick one, plus an ink, at the start of each week. Almost all printer paper is too glossy to take the ink; it sits on the surface so long that I would need to use a blotter.
A paper called "Willcopy Ultra" takes fountain pen ink beautifully. Absorbs it, doesn't bleed. But it's only sold in pallet lots. So, by agreement with my office manager, I buy Staples paper and trade them ream-for-ream.
Dan, whether it's print quality, durability, compatibility with certain inks, or other reasons, people do care. And we spend a lot of money on paper. Any given printer costs me more in ink, and separately more in paper, than I spend for the printer.
sempifi99

This was a fun read, definitely different than reading about motherboards or graphics cards.

What would be a good follow up article is comparing standards in paper and consistency of results. I would imagine results varies sheet to sheet. But what about paper manufactured in different batches. Or paper manufactured at different production facilities.
dstln

Another nice article covering yet another part of daily computing, good work branching out.
Was the various different paper checked to see if all the paper comes from the same place? Like HP gets all of its paper from this mill. Because it would be really sucky if you buy HP paper and it doesn't act the way this 'bench' suggest merely because HP is using a different source for the paper.
gmgj

I really enjoyed your article. I spent a lot of time reading about calibration of monitors and got an appreciation of how complicated the subject of rendering colors is. If I want to print something to keep, I use a commercial service. I do not think there are many of us who could come close to approximating the expertise of a printer technician. For home use, this article gave me more confidence on the process for producing better quality results.

On the other hand, any article on color should start out with the disclaimer that perception of color is a function of the light you see it in. And lighting conditions vary significantly.

I look forward to more articles by you.
dan4patriots

like someone else said, really-benchmarking paper?
clonazepam

I appreciated this article. I still remember the article from slightly over 10 yrs ago when you benchmarked the inkjet printers. It was great at the time b/c I worked at Epson's HQ in Long Beach, supporting all the pro-graphics printers, fiery rips, scanners, projectors, and digital cameras.

I'd like to see a re-visit to the popular inkjet printer technologies employed by HP and Epson.
clonazepam

In addition, another future article can benchmark a manufacturer's printer, ink and paper system (as all 3 are tuned to each other) and how it changes when using 3rd party inks and papers. Also including some of the wilder 3rd party inks / drivers available would be cool too.
for an article about the paper quality and printing there was no focus on the paper and atributes of it. comparing 20# paper to 24# paper will give you very different results, and comparing brand name papers is useless because you do not know what mill is making it for them. I sell this stuff for a living and none of these companies make their own paper they have paper mills make it for them and slap their ream wrapper on it, they could change the mill that makes their paper every other month if they wanted to, unless you know the mill these tests are meaningless. And bright white paper (95-97 bright) will almost always have a strong blue when printing but it is purely because the paper has a blue hue to start with, the way they make the paper super bright white is by adding the blue to it (take a 92 bright and a 97 bright paper and compare them without ink). If you are printing photos, buy photo paper dont use these papers, if you are printing everyday documents almost any paper will be fine, if you want nice paper for reports or school work, buy some 95 bright paper or even better 24# paper. its pretty simple. And the prices shown here are insane, Best buy pays about $26 a case right now for their paper ($2.60 per ream) and the higher quality paper costs about $5 per ream (24# 97 bright), so they are going 100% markup.
rockerrb

You should have tested Hammermill and International Papers paper as well as these companies make paper for all inkjet printers and are considered to be professional level papers.
Lol I been buying HP paper since I ever had a printer. Looks like I made a good choice
I used to work at HP, testing inkjet printers. We had HUNDREDS of paper types and sizes ranging from some super-thin recycled to card stock from tons of manufacturers. We tested them in Hot/Cold/Wet/Dry condition combinations to make sure they'd print well in different areas of the world. It is a hugely exhaustive process. It is nice to see someone on the consumer end taking an interest in it.
It's too bad you didn't test Mohawk Color Copy 98. This is a 24 lb, 98 brightness, super-smooth. It is cheaper than some of the other premium papers. Mohawk is a major brand that sells to the printing trade, not in most retail stores, but any printer's supply company stocks it. It is WAY better than HP's paper, in my opinion, and this is on at least six different printers -- HP, canon, epson, inkjet and color laser. I don't work for any of these companies, but I do a lot of printing.