Waterproof inkjet is possible

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mistercameron

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I have a friend that works at HP, and given the nature of the business, has access to printers and paper, even for personal projects. I figured I'd ask him to try printing up some beer labels I've been working on to see how good they would come out on a nice printer - both inkjet and color laser.

Well, the first inkjet samples came back with premium paper and photo paper. I coated a couple with hair spray (some artsy people said it could help), then proceeded to drip some water on treated and untreated labels. No running. I then dunked them for several seconds. Still holding. I finally left them sitting in water all day. Still no running or discoloration! I tried one of my home-printed labels and the ink immediately began to run.

See the attachment for what my test results looked like. The top label was printed with my HP printer after a short dip. The bottom 4 labels were printed with the water resistant inks; the bottom row had hairspray applied.

This is what works:
* Premium inkjet paper and photo paper (I'm sure regular paper would work as well)
* Very specific sets of inks, as detailed in this article. My friend used cartridge sets 950 and 951

There were only nearly imperceptible color changes from the water; warping was really the only issue, which is expected.

The thin photo paper is a little tacky to the touch sometimes, but it looks far better than even the premium paper. The colors are well saturated and it just looks nice. No surprise. I still haven't seen the laser prints yet, but I have a feeling they won't look nearly as good as the inkjet prints.

IMG_1201.jpg
 
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