Image Permanence of Ink Jet Print System for Portrait

Abstract

Thanks to the improved technology with high quality in high speed and to competitive prices of mega-pixel digital cameras and high resolution scanners, color ink jet printers have popularly filtered into our daily life. We expect that the color ink jet printers, both in professional and high amateur markets, will take an important role to pull the digital photographic industry.With this background, Seiko Epson Corporation has developed the portrait printer “Gemini” system. With a set of 6 pigmented inks, this system enables us to print on ink jet media with high quality and with very good image permanence and to use them as commercial photographs.In this report, I will explain the good stability of ink jet media printed by the Gemini system focusing especially on light and gas that are believed to be the more important factors than water, heat, humidity and plasticizer.