Pigment Ink Printing

This is the "Gold Standard" for Gallery and Archival quality prints.

Pigment inks are made up of solid particles suspended in a liquid carrier, offering exceptional longevity, water resistance and lightfastness, with better UV resistance than dye-based inks. Colours are stable immediately after printing and relatively insensitive to environmental factors.

This makes pigment inks suitable for professional-level printing, especially for fine-art prints, with deep blacks and colours that remain stable over time.

Their durability also makes them suitable for printing on textiles or other applications where resilience is critical.

Need to know:

Pigment inks sit on top of the printed surface rather than permeating it as dye-based inks do. This means that dye-based inks more accurately reflect the character of the paper – and, if pigment ink is used on glossy paper, careful handling may be required because the ink may come off if scratched.

Mood and Tone

In theory, the more ink colours, the wider the colour gamut (range) the printer is able to reproduce.

Professional printers use the largest number of inks (up to 12).

These extra colours are likely to matter to professionals who are selling their prints - art gallery's who are showcasing reproductions where the original artwork is too fragile or damaged to be exhibited normally or, for artists exhibiting their work, all of whom require absolute colour fidelity.

These extra colours are designed for a wider colour gamut and greater colour accuracy for demanding professional applications such as producing large, gallery-quality prints for display or sale.

For example: the Matte Black delivers greater black intensity and better reproduction of shadow details on absorbent papers than Photo Black, which is formulated for use on glossy papers.

Frequently asked questions about Dye based printing

Should I convert my image to CMYK before sending them to StudioOneLab?
Although our Pigment Ink printers work with CMYK and in our case 6-8 other Pigments colours too, remember your images are in RGB. You should not perform a CMYK conversion yourself in your image editing software prior to sending your image to us - We know and more so our colour management software knows how to do the appropriate conversion to ensure the best results.
How does Pigment Ink Work
Pigment inks sit on top of the printed surface rather than permeating it as dye-based inks do. This means that when pigment ink is used on glossy paper, more careful handling may be required because the ink may come off if scratched. We only print on Premium Coated papers from Canons Pro Line, ILFORD, Hahnemühle and various Baryta Photo Papers.
Can I handle Pigment Ink Prints - Whats the longevity?
- Pigment prints are durable and of a high quality but remember that Pigment ink sits on top of the paper and    may come off if scratched or mistreated.
- These prints are ready to be sold on from you as the artist/custodian as final art works - be sure to inform your    clients of handling and storage requirements - we cannot be held liable for prints/artworks once they the leave    the Studio.
- We can recommend very good framers with the expertise to handle high quality pieces in     Johannesburg let us    know and we'll connect you with them.
- Canon's LUCIA PRO pigment inks used exclusively used by us on your Pigment Prints is light-fast for 100 years and gas-fast for 50 years (meaning the inks do not fade in the presence of ozone and other atmospheric gases)
- These prints are suitable for and meet Archival standards right away.
Gallery and exhibition use - what to know.
Congratulations on your show - these high quality Pigment Prints are Gallery and Archival Quality.
That means they are suitable to be used for exhibition or showcasing of prints to take orders for, and are even ready to be sold on as is, as the final works.

If you decide to do a limited number prints, talk to use before hand, we'd love to reproduce these Pigment Based prints as the final artwork for delivery. Talk to us so that we can price correctly and ensure your prospective, clients/patrons/collectors can receive their signed for copy matching the exacting standards they've already seen at a gallery or exhibition of your works.
I have my own specialty paper and want to print on that - Can you assist?
In short no because our workflow is setup for very high quality repeatable results. We can print on some verified photo stock, mainly from Hahnemühle and Canson Infinity when available, but these will require separate ICC profiles and additional setup - there are exceptions:
- We cannot print on fibrous and or rough paper stock that will most likely damage our machines print heads.
- We wont print on, for example Epson Photo Stock, while results might be assumed to be mostly similar, we print exclusively on Canon Machines, with Genuine Canon Inks on exclusively Canon Photo and Pro Papers that are lab tested and have verifiable results as well as ILFORD Galarie which we have a long line of experience using especially for B&W prints.
- Lastly, but more importantly we cannot provide any kind of guarantee on light fastness, fidelity with regards to colour quality or overall durability on paper stock that we cannot trace with a manufacturer.
I want to save costs on my Art Exhibition and don't need larger than A4 or 8x10 prints?
We would always recommend that any exhibition, no matter the size of the artworks being printed be done with Pigment Inks. It is not economically viable for us to print smaller than A4 with our Pigment systems so we unfortunately do not accept works for Pigment based printing smaller than A4 unless its a sizable series production run of 50 prints or more. If cost and volume is a concern have a look at our 6 Colour Dye Ink Printing Option, to understand the pro and cons.
Why are these Pigment Ink Prints considered Archival Quality?
Archival quality prints, to art gallery standards, must be light-fast for 100 years and gas-fast for 50 years (meaning the inks do not fade in the presence of ozone and other atmospheric gases) when stored correctly and printed on suitable paper/media. With Canon LUCIA PRO Inks a further Chroma Optimizer (CO) which is used when printing on glossy / semi-gloss paper, optimally controls the light that determines the colour appearance in order to faithfully express the original colours, especially for blacks without blurring.

ArtLab - Lets talk about Pigment Ink Printing