Epson has been claiming that the 1270 inks offer "gasfastness" equal to the inks of earlier Epson printers. To test that, I enlisted the help of another list member, who printed my test image on several types of paper using his Epson 900, and on Epson Photo Paper and Epson Premium Glossy on a 1270. At the same time, I thought it would be interesting to try to separate the contribution of ozone to other atmospheric conditions. To that end, one sample each of PGPP and EPP, from each printer, went into the pre-ozone test, as well. The results are, shall we say, interesting. I'll have more scans of these images available soon.

Premium Glossy Photo Paper - 1270 Vs. 900: After 1 week in the ozone test, the output from the 1270 printer showed noticeable orange shift. The output from the 900 showed none. After 2 weeks, the 1270 output was significantly worse, both in the grayscale and the light blues and purples. At 2 weeks, the 900 printout showed a slight orange shift in the gray scale, only. But it was only noticeable in direct comparison to the control sample. After 4 weeks, the ozone sample from the 1270 looked terrible. The gray scale has become a brown scale, and the blue and purple squares are noticeably faded. The 900/PGPP sample didn't look any worse than two weeks before.

After 2 weeks in the Pre-Ozone test, the 1270 output had shifted almost as badly as the ozone test sample! The 900 printout in the pre-ozone test hadn't faded at all. And in the office window test, the 1270 print had very, very slight brown shift, visible only in comparison to the control print; The 900 sample showed no change.

After 4 weeks, the pre-ozone 1270 print has shifted as much as the ozone test sample. The 900 sample still shows only very slight shift.

So, in this test, the older inks don't appear to shift nearly as rapidly as do the new 1270 inks in response to air and ozone. Doesn't look like equivalent "gasfastness" to me. Is the difference the cyan ink, the black ink, or both? I'm going to let these samples go for another week or so, and then try to get some more microscope images of them.

Even more interesting is the fact that the pre-ozone test prints from the 1270 shifted virtually as fast as the ozone test prints. The pre- and post- ozone samples were literally within 2 feet of each other. Exposed to the same temperature, air flow and humidity. This makes me question Epson's emphasis on ozone, although I have to admit I have no way to measure ozone levels. But the 900 inks didn't shift at all in the pre-ozone test.

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