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Canon’s new Chromalife 100 inks, claim an extended life and good resistance to fading from light, gases or high humidity. Although the Canon Pixma iP5200 is marketed as a photo printer it uses only 5 inks and two of them are blacks. Missing are the light cyan and light magenta from the older inkset so the photo quality prints this printer produces have been a revelation to me. OK a little of the subtle tones - especially skin tones - of the S9000 have gone but the difference is small, and at last Canon have cured one of the biggest weaknesses of the S9000 and all the others using the same BCI-06 inks - poor black density. Compared to the maximum black of either a conventional photo print or an Epson or hp inkjet photo print Canon blacks always looked gray in comparison, but not anymore. The other problem with the older inks was fade resistance. Canon themselves used to claim 25 years but with Chromalife 100 inks they claim up to 100 years but only if stored in a photo album. The figures are 30 years for framed behind glass and only 10 years for what Canon calls “unprotected”. Interestingly Canon’s view is that most fading is due to interaction with gases in the atmosphere, not exposure to light.
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