Costs
Part of 5 things nobody tells you about ink testing methods
Ink testing supplies compared: cheap tier versus expensive tier
Cheap and costly ink testing supplies compared side by side, covering named papers, light boxes, cards and viewers and what each tier actually buys you.
What to take away
Most ink tests cost pennies because the paper is already in the bin. The expensive tier is not a better version of that. It asks different questions with tools that hold a measurement steady over months. Ink testing supplies compared: cheap tier versus expensive tier splits into named tools on both sides.
- Cheap tiera Rhodia No. 16 pad, a Sakura Pigma Micron 01, a sheet of Canson Mi-Teintes, tap water and a window. Under $25 total.
- Expensive tiera GretagMacbeth SpectroEye or X-Rite eXact, a GTI PDV-2e viewing booth, an X-Rite ColorChecker Classic and a Canon CanoScan LiDE 400. Roughly $3,000 and up.
- The cheap tier answers feathering, bleed and splash resistance. The expensive tier answers color drift and fading rate.
- Buy the swatch book before the instrument. An X-Rite ColorChecker Classic is about $100; an X-Rite eXact spectrophotometer is about $2,000 used.
- Write the method down. A cheap test with a stated limit is usable; a cheap test presented as equivalent to a lab is not.
Where the money goes
Cheap tier
- Paper
- Rhodia No. 16 pad, about $6; Canson Mi-Teintes sheet, about $1
- Test pen
- Sakura Pigma Micron 01, about $3
- Control ink
- One bottle you already own
- Water
- Tap
- Light
- North-facing window
- Color reference
- None
- Capture
- Phone camera
- Measurement
- Your eye
- Time per test
- Ten minutes
- Question answered
- Feathering, bleed and splash resistance
- Repeatability
- Low; one sheet, one day
Expensive tier
- Paper
- Same papers, cut to 2 cm squares
- Test pen
- Same pen
- Control ink
- Same
- Water
- Distilled, about $2
- Light
- GTI PDV-2e viewing booth, about $1,200
- Color reference
- X-Rite ColorChecker Classic, about $100
- Capture
- Canon CanoScan LiDE 400, about $90
- Measurement
- X-Rite eXact, about $2,000 used
- Time per test
- Ten minutes plus calibration
- Question answered
- Color drift and fade rate
- Repeatability
- High; calibrated light and color target
The cheap column is dominated by paper. The expensive column is dominated by instruments that answer questions most writers never ask.
Cheap vs expensive ink testing
Cheap tier
- Paper
- Rhodia No. 16, $6
- Light
- North-facing window
- Colour reference
- None
- Capture
- Phone camera
- Measurement
- Your eye
- Time per test
- Ten minutes
Expensive tier
- Paper
- Same pad, 2 cm squares
- Light
- GTI PDV-2e, $1,200
- Colour reference
- X-Rite ColorChecker, $100
- Capture
- Canon LiDE 400, $90
- Measurement
- X-Rite eXact, $2,000 used
- Time per test
- Ten minutes plus calibration
Why a cheap tier is a legitimate answer
Federal digitization guidance is candid about this. FADGI publishes low cost metrics and measurements for analog-to-digital converters. It notes that the highest level of testing requires expensive equipment. It also sets out what can be measured usefully without it.
That is the model to copy. A cheap method with stated limits is a real method. A cheap method presented as equivalent to the expensive one is not. Say which you used.
What the expensive tier looks like
Research instrumentation shows the scale. The University of Iowa's paper project published CAD drawings of the positioners and the accessory for its handheld spectrometer. The equipment needed for repeatable measurement did not exist off the shelf. It had to be machined.
That is the world you are opting out of, and opting out is the right decision for almost everyone. The point of knowing it exists is to stop shopping for a middle tier that does nothing useful.
The cost that is not money
Time is the real constraint. A feathering comparison with the Rhodia No. 16 pad and Sakura Pigma Micron 01 takes ten minutes. A lightfastness test takes a month, because the Canson Mi-Teintes sheet has to sit in the window and you have to look at it on a schedule.
Four tests run badly in one evening produce nothing you can use. One test run properly, with the date and paper written on the back, produces something you will still trust in three years.
Matching spend to question
- Which of two inks feathers less on Rhodia No. 16cheap tier, ten minutes, using a Sakura Pigma Micron 01 to draw lines.
- Does this ink survive a splashcheap tier, one day for full drying on Canson Mi-Teintes.
- Will this fade in a sunny roomcheap tier, one month, plus an X-Rite ColorChecker Classic for reference.
- What pigment is in this inknot available at any hobby price. X-ray fluorescence, the method the Iowa project used, is a laboratory service.
- Is this document a forgerya laboratory question, not a hobby one.
Price the question first and the shopping list becomes short. The general cost-per-page arithmetic for writing supplies is in pricing by the page, and the test procedure these numbers apply to is in what an ink test involves.
Common questions
Is it worth buying sample vials of many inks?
Only after you have a control paper and a routine. Samples bought first become a drawer of unlabeled bottles. Buy one 2 ml vial of a color you have seen in person, test it on the Rhodia No. 16 pad, and write the date on the vial.
How much paper does a year of testing use?
Less than one pad if you cut the samples small. A Rhodia No. 16 gives about 80 sheets; a year of weekly tests at four 2 cm squares per sheet uses a fraction of that. Testing is a small consumer of paper compared with actually writing.
Should I pay for a colorimeter?
Almost certainly not. The X-Rite eXact and similar instruments answer a question about exact color that very few people writing by hand actually have. If you need a reference, the $100 X-Rite ColorChecker Classic gets you most of the way.
What is the most expensive mistake in ink testing?
Buying inks to test rather than testing the inks you own. The second is free and answers the question you actually have. The first fills a shelf and leaves the original question unanswered.
