Inky Terminology

[LizEF]

12 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I'm increasingly inclined to conclude that ‘water-resistant’ and ‘waterproof’ simply cannot be traits of an ink as the substance under review, when the solvent in fountain pen inks is primarily water. Instead, they describe a characteristic of the marks made with the ink on a surface

I expect most of us assume that, if only subconsciously, but...

12 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

and so the type of paper*, the method of application — ... —  and the volume of ink applied (and this is where ‘wetness’ may come into play) could affect it.

Good point, and many of us likely haven't considered this part.  That is, when we see that an ink is labeled "pigmented" or "document" or "permanent", we don't consider that it may behave differently on different papers, etc. and be more or less of those things depending on the details.

 

That said, the review should be including details about the paper(s) and pen(s) used, so at least some of the variables will be known.  But pointing out the nuances to the reviewer might help them to provide better or more accurate summaries of their experiences.

 

12 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

On the distinction between ‘water-resistant’ and ‘waterproof‘ ...

In my mind, waterproof is just the perfection of water-resistance.  And water-resistance can go anywhere from none at all to complete (or perfect, or waterproof).  For those who do water-resistance testing, instructions should include keeping in mind that this is a scale, not a "yes/no" question, and therefore should include some description of observation and conditions.

 

12 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Also note that mechanical erasure may come into play, ... 

Good point, and something many of us likely miss.  I expect each reviewer will have to decide the extent to which they want to go, or what "use cases" they wish to cover, but pointing out this additional form of "resistance testing" can only help the potential reviewer.  It might also relate to doing "smudge tests", which I've never even considered, but given the recent explosion (or so it seems to me) in "super-sheeners", such a test might be more warranted than in times past.  (And that ties directly into the whole saturation question as well, though there are a lot of "ingredients" to smudge-factor, not just saturation and not just the presence of moisture.)

 

Does anyone else feel like we've entered into a rabbit hole?

 

[LizEF]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I'm not sure about that. Going by that sense of the word ‘saturation’, if you added more dye to a fully saturated ink, the dye simply won't dissolve; but if the dye is of a light enough colour, then spreading a fully saturated ink (thinly) on paper would still produce shading, on account of more ink is physically deposited, or allowed to pool and then dry, on some parts of certain pen strokes and intersections of ink tracks.

Hmm.  I'm going to have to find a pale ink that's fully saturated.  Given that this is outside my preferences, I may not have one.  I'm also going to have to ponder a while.  (I might be letting myself be too influenced by what I know about (artist's) oil paints.)  But if this (whether shading in writing, or in overlapping swabs) is not the way to tell if an ink is saturated, then what is?  I doubt any of us has access to instrumentation to make that determination.

 

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I'm not sure about that either. A dull blue-grey is less saturated than a vivid light blue as far as colour goes; that's easy.

 

But the former may just have more dye per unit area covered by ink marks — which may be because the ink is highly saturated, or because the ink was applied ‘wetly’, or both — than the latter. So, when I say a particular writing fluid is an “under-saturated blue ink”, would I be talking about the colour saturation or the dye load?

Well, first, I would hope the reviewer would state what they mean clearly (whether dye load or color saturation, or eve colour saturation ).  Beyond that, while there are some cases where many people could distinguish color saturation (perhaps more easily that dye load - thanks a lot for that previous post, now you've totally got me doubting anyone's ability to judge that), I think that in many cases, it's not so easy - a lot of fountain pen inks are murky, or unusual colors not found on a color wheel, or even multiple colors!

 

It may be that saturation is the hardest of these three to comment on at all!  Lubrication (unless someone has instrumentation) is a subjective expression of one's tactile experience.  Flow can be comparatively commented on once one has enough experience, or if one is willing to emulate An Ink Guy.  But now you've got me seriously questioning this whole saturation business!

[LizEF]

10 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

.... On a similar note, I’ve always maintained that inks don’t shade but it’s the pen that makes an ink shade. Ink is just a fluid and shading is caused by uneven application of the ink on the page (all other factors remaining the same). ...

I think it's a combination of all three.  Perhaps the ink itself is less important than I have thought to date (still gonna have to ponder this), but at the very least, a fully saturated, very dark ink, may not be capable of shading out of a pen - you may have to smear or spread it with something else.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that pens are not capable of spreading it thin enough to see shading...  Gonna have to ponder some more.

 

10 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

The ability to sheen, on the other hand, is a property of the ink (albeit influenced by the wetness of the pen).

Pretty sure we can all agree on this (at least until @A Smug Dill points out whatever we have yet to consider  ).

 

10 hours ago, TheDutchGuy said:

On the other hand... if someone says ‘dude, this ink is wet!’ then I know what is meant. The realisation that it might just be the pen that is wet and not the ink, that writing pressure and choice of paper matter, all of that is instantaneously understood and need not be expressed explicitly.

Except that newbies are probably left gaping, wondering what's up with people who need to say that a liquid is wet! (<--newbie rolling their eyes at the FP weirdos)  For them, it would likely help to have some clear definitions, descriptions, instructions, examples, etc.  And pointing out to the reviewer that they should keep this in mind is probably a good idea - I say that because of the "scan / GIMP" thread, where I suspect the OP has forgotten what it was like to know nothing about image manipulation - reviewers can forget what it was like to be a newbie who thought that all liquids were wet.

[LizEF]

After some consideration, I'm thinking "Saturation" should either not be on any review form, or it should be something other than a rating...  If we mean "dye load", I don't see how any statement can be remotely objective or even meaningful to the average user.  One would need instrumentation and pretty much no reviewer is going to have that.  I personally can't imagine what I would do with this information - how it would alter my decisions (except maybe the decision to dilute, but even that would need a lot more information than just dye load - if it even needed that).  All the other attributes are what's going to inform my decision.

 

If the reviewer means "color saturation", then sure, if you can evaluate that and provide comment, great, but I don't know that "high-medium-low" is a useful evaluation here either - though it seems more useful, sort of, than for "dye load" - but an image ought to tell me more what I really want to know.

 

Someone please, argue against me!  Convince me we should keep this, and how we should explain to potential reviewers how to evaluate this attribute (and I'm game to explain both types of the attribute - color and dye load), but I need some convincing and help figuring out how to instruct potential reviewers and how to make the evaluation useful to consumers of the review (even if the only consumer is the reviewer).

[A Smug Dill]

52 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I personally can't imagine what I would do with this information - how it would alter my decisions (except maybe the decision to dilute, but even that would need a lot more information than just dye load

 

I think some people may be concerned that allowing half a fill's worth of high dye-load inks in a piston-filler is more likely to clog the feed and/or filling mechanism — if allowed to evaporate, thicken and/or dry out in the reservoir while capped (or just given long enough between refilling and/or cleaning activity) — than in the case with low dye-load inks. Insofar as I'm probably more likely than the average user to encounter ink drying out in my pens, I'd still say as an ink reviewer, ”Your pen hygiene habits and consequences of such are not mine to worry about, and you should know when whichever ink you're using is thickening or drying out in your pen, through in-use observation anyway, and deal with it accordingly.”

[lapis]

All the more reason to write a line or two in your inventory -- of what ink is in what pen, when -- and not just after filling. 

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, lapis said:

All the more reason to write a line or two in your inventory -- of what ink is in what pen, when -- and not just after filling. 

 

Hmmm, at first I thought you meant something like this:

but then I read the final clause of your statement. Do you add an entry in your ‘inventory’ every time you uncap a pen and/to write with it non-trivially? I note down the date of filling just so I can make a mental note of which pens/models are ‘losers’ when it comes to cap sealing performance and, in a sense, as we used to say when I was still working in large corporations, sideline them and “put them on ‘special projects’ only” (hoping they would have the good sense to resign and depart with some semblance of dignity).

 

It's not the fault of the ink that the pens' caps don't do their job well — whether the brand is Parker, Faber-Castell, Lamy or Luoshi — and so I would certainly want to refrain from effectively giving advice on how not to allow those problematic pens to smudge things up in a way that annoy their owners and seed discontent, so as to protect those pens' standing.

[LizEF]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I think some people may be concerned that allowing half a fill's worth of high dye-load inks in a piston-filler is more likely to clog the feed and/or filling mechanism — if allowed to evaporate, thicken and/or dry out in the reservoir while capped (or just given long enough between refilling and/or cleaning activity) — than in the case with low dye-load inks. Insofar as I'm probably more likely than the average user to encounter ink drying out in my pens, I'd still say as an ink reviewer, ”Your pen hygiene habits and consequences of such are not mine to worry about, and you should know when whichever ink you're using is thickening or drying out in your pen, through in-use observation anyway, and deal with it accordingly.”

 

Ah, good!  A second use for the info (the opposite of my dilution example), but as you say, lots of variables in the mix, and yeah, not reasonable to ask the reviewer to concern themselves with ink-evaporation behavior.  Although I suppose we could mention this as another way to evaluate saturation, if the reviewer happens to be using either a poorly-sealed pen or leaving the pen unused for long periods - they can evaluate how quickly it "thickens" - but, boy howdy are we into subjective-ville at this point (not that nearly everything isn't, but...).

 

(After writing the below, I'm beginning to think of flaws already, on top of the impracticality of it, but I'll leave it in case it sparks more ideas.)

A scientific method could be applied, but it'll only go so far without instrumentation.  Huh.  It seems a repeat of An Ink Guy's flow test, after a controlled evaporation process (time, temp, humidity, container size, volume, air-flow, etc.) would provide a way to put numbers to this, though it would require "wasting" a lot of ink to repeat 10 times.  Can't say it's fair to *ask* any reviewer to do this, though, it could be suggested.  Essentially, the delta between "fresh" flow and "after evaporation" flow could be used as a number to rate saturation?  The smaller the difference, the more saturated?  Hmm.  But this would be more an evaporation number.   Who's to say a super-saturated ink can't have a flow aid that's not so susceptible to evaporation, and so it flows well even after evaporation......  Giving up on this thought for now, but leaving it here.

[Karmachanic]

Average punter here.

 

Dye load?  To date I have no recollection hearing/seeing this term in reference to fountain pen ink. Which doesn't mean it hasn't been used, but to me it muddies the water.  As a garden variety FP user I'd say Manyo Haha is unsaturated compared to saturated Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue and doubt I'd get much argument.

 

Not that anyone asked me.

[lapis]

7 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

.... Do you add an entry in your ‘inventory’ every time you uncap a pen and/to write with it non-trivially? ..

Nope,  I only add a phrase or two in my inventory (after once filling the pen) when I later ascertain that the ink (in that pen, of course, which is that which makes the ball bounce) leads to ignition problems, or smearing or calamities upon cleaning etc. Those are things which I usually don't notice only a few seconds after filling.

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

Not that anyone asked me.

I want input from everyone who has it.

 

2 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

Dye load?  To date I have no recollection hearing/seeing this term in reference to fountain pen ink. Which doesn't mean it hasn't been used, but to me it muddies the water.

The goal is not to suggest new terminology, but to discuss what existing terminology means - whether everyone is using it in the same way or not.  To explore the details, it is helpful (even if only within this thread) to separate potential meanings - thus, one potential is "color saturation" and another is "dye load".  Which one any given reviewer intends (if either), is known only to the reviewer (unless they explain rather than just rate "high-medium-low"), and the assumptions by consumers may not match each other, or the intent of the reviewer.

 

2 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

As a garden variety FP user I'd say Manyo Haha is unsaturated compared to saturated Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue and doubt I'd get much argument.

Easy examples are, well, easy.  Not all comparisons or individual inks are so easy to evaluate.  And an easy example will not help the goal of this thread.  If anything, we need to explore the difficult examples.

 

I likely have more thoughts, but they'll take longer to write up, review, reconsider, and edit - if I even decide to post them.

[LizEF]

If there is anyone out there reading this, who wants ink reviews to include an evaluation of an ink's saturation (regardless of what is meant by saturation), if you are willing, will you please answer the following:

 

1) What do you do with the information?  (If all you do is say, "Huh, that's interesting.", please say so - I'm not trying to judge the consumer, I'm trying to understand the term and how people use it.)

 

2) If all you knew about an ink was its color saturation, or its dye load, would you be able to make a decision (even if not a final decision) based on that knowledge?  E.g. would you be able to say, "I won't be interested in this ink, no sense learning more."  or "This ink may be just what I'm looking for, let's continue."?  I'm trying to figure out if this attribute simply satisfies curiosity, or if someone out there has a functional use for it.

 

3) If your answer to #2 is that you have a functional use for the information, is an evaluation of saturation by the reviewer necessary for you to accomplish your ends, or can you accomplish the same ends by considering other attributes of the ink (e.g. pictures of the ink - alone and in comparison with other inks, demonstration of shading, etc.)?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who chooses to answer these questions!

 

PS: I think it may be helpful to point out that I'm not intending to establish a rigid set of requirements, nor to pressure existing reviewers into stopping or changing their evaluation of "saturation".  Rather, I'm trying to learn enough to be able to write up definitions, instructions, and examples for potential reviewers, so that they can consider for themselves whether and how to include something called "saturation" as part of their review.  And, for any who choose to use such documentation, I hope it will lead to less ambiguity, so that consumers of a review are understanding (better) what the reviewer intended to communicate.

[Detman101]

1) What do you do with the information?  (If all you do is say, "Huh, that's interesting.", please say so - I'm not trying to judge the consumer, I'm trying to understand the term and how people use it.)

 

A) Shading shading shading! I look for shading with all of my inks...if they don't shade, I don't buy them.

 

2) If all you knew about an ink was its color saturation, or its dye load, would you be able to make a decision (even if not a final decision) based on that knowledge?  E.g. would you be able to say, "I won't be interested in this ink, no sense learning more."  or "This ink may be just what I'm looking for, let's continue."?  I'm trying to figure out if this attribute simply satisfies curiosity, or if someone out there has a functional use for it.

 

A) The color saturation is good information, but I also need to know the particular color. Without those two base parameters, I cannot purchase an ink.

 

3) If your answer to #2 is that you have a functional use for the information, is an evaluation of saturation by the reviewer necessary for you to accomplish your ends, or can you accomplish the same ends by considering other attributes of the ink (e.g. pictures of the ink - alone and in comparison with other inks, demonstration of shading, etc.)?

A) It is absolutely mandatory for me because photos don't accurately display what will be MY experience with an ink. I use XF and XXF tipped flex nibs and every ink that I purchased based on photos a year ago have absolutely disappointed me. In photos posted they look light because they're being used with firm broad nibs or swatched with a q-tip...
When I bought the inks and used them with my XF and XXF tipped pens...the inks were basically BLACK on the paper!! So much darker when used with a fine-tip flex nib that lays down ink!! The saturation compounds and makes even medium tone inks appear black on paper!!!
I've given away over $80-$100 worth of ink because I CANNOT use it with my preferred pen type!! That's a whole pen I could have bought!
But because I didn't know any better and of course, no one informed me, I spent money on inks that could never provide the performance I needed. Nowadays...EVERY ink I buy is light colored or mildly saturated because when used with MY PENS...they are much darker.

THAT is why "Saturation" information is ABSOLUTELY important to me in ink reviews.

Thank you for asking.
By the way...your reviews...I didn't understand how vital they would be to my decisions until I got experienced and realized that Extra Fine-Tip nibs have a whole other life and experience than other larger nib sizes.

[I-am-not-really-here]

24 minutes ago, LizEF said:

If there is anyone out there reading this, who wants ink reviews to include an evaluation of an ink's saturation (regardless of what is meant by saturation), if you are willing, will you please answer the following:

 

1) What do you do with the information?  (If all you do is say, "Huh, that's interesting.", please say so - I'm not trying to judge the consumer, I'm trying to understand the term and how people use it.)

 

2) If all you knew about an ink was its color saturation, or its dye load, would you be able to make a decision (even if not a final decision) based on that knowledge?  E.g. would you be able to say, "I won't be interested in this ink, no sense learning more."  or "This ink may be just what I'm looking for, let's continue."?  I'm trying to figure out if this attribute simply satisfies curiosity, or if someone out there has a functional use for it.

 

3) If your answer to #2 is that you have a functional use for the information, is an evaluation of saturation by the reviewer necessary for you to accomplish your ends, or can you accomplish the same ends by considering other attributes of the ink (e.g. pictures of the ink - alone and in comparison with other inks, demonstration of shading, etc.)?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who chooses to answer these questions!

 

PS: I think it may be helpful to point out that I'm not intending to establish a rigid set of requirements, nor to pressure existing reviewers into stopping or changing their evaluation of "saturation".  Rather, I'm trying to learn enough to be able to write up definitions, instructions, and examples for potential reviewers, so that they can consider for themselves whether and how to include something called "saturation" as part of their review.  And, for any who choose to use such documentation, I hope it will lead to less ambiguity, so that consumers of a review are understanding (better) what the reviewer intended to communicate.

I don't know how a reviewer measures saturation.  I think more often they are trying to convey opaqueness. "Dye load" sounds like a manufacturer's term, e.g., a 100% load = fully saturated.  Adding more dye does nothing, except waste dye.
 

 

 

[LizEF]

16 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

I don't know how a reviewer measures saturation.  I think more often they are trying to convey opaqueness.

Neither do I!   I don't know how others come up with their rating, what they mean by their rating, nor how I can make a meaningful evaluation.  (Though I'm sure I've claimed an ink was "saturated", I'm not sure that claim really means anything!)

 

16 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

"Dye load" sounds like a manufacturer's term, e.g., a 100% load = fully saturated.  Adding more dye does nothing, except waste dye.

Yes, exactly.  And we adopted that term for this type of saturation so we could discuss it separately from "color saturation".  This is what I always assumed people meant by "saturation", though it appears others always assumed "color saturation" was meant.  Meanwhile, when I go do an image search for "color saturation", I'm left to conclude that mere mortals who haven't studied color theory stand no chance of getting it right (except with the "easy" examples), and that any meaning is incomplete without additional attributes (tint, tone, shade; hue, saturation, brightness; hue, saturation, value; chroma, intensity, saturation ???!!!).

[Karmachanic]

14 hours ago, LizEF said:

After some consideration, I'm thinking "Saturation" should either not be on any review form,

 

As a review consumer, having thought about it a bit more, I too question the necessity of delving into saturation as part of a review. Looking at swabs and written examples, with various nibs on various papers, gives me sufficient visual information about the colour and saturation/dye load/ tonal density of the ink.

[LizEF]

41 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

1) What do you do with the information?  (If all you do is say, "Huh, that's interesting.", please say so - I'm not trying to judge the consumer, I'm trying to understand the term and how people use it.)

 

A) Shading shading shading! I look for shading with all of my inks...if they don't shade, I don't buy them.

OK.  This is evaluated separately in most reviews.  And it corresponds which my original assumption (which I've now concluded is wrong) that shading inks are not fully saturated.

 

42 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

2) If all you knew about an ink was its color saturation, or its dye load, would you be able to make a decision (even if not a final decision) based on that knowledge?  E.g. would you be able to say, "I won't be interested in this ink, no sense learning more."  or "This ink may be just what I'm looking for, let's continue."?  I'm trying to figure out if this attribute simply satisfies curiosity, or if someone out there has a functional use for it.

 

A) The color saturation is good information, but I also need to know the particular color. Without those two base parameters, I cannot purchase an ink.

 

OK, so when you see a review, you're assuming "saturation" refers to "color saturation".

 

52 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

3) If your answer to #2 is that you have a functional use for the information, is an evaluation of saturation by the reviewer necessary for you to accomplish your ends, or can you accomplish the same ends by considering other attributes of the ink (e.g. pictures of the ink - alone and in comparison with other inks, demonstration of shading, etc.)?

A) It is absolutely mandatory for me because photos don't accurately display what will be MY experience with an ink. I use XF and XXF tipped flex nibs and every ink that I purchased based on photos a year ago have absolutely disappointed me. In photos posted they look light because they're being used with firm broad nibs or swatched with a q-tip...
When I bought the inks and used them with my XF and XXF tipped pens...the inks were basically BLACK on the paper!! So much darker when used with a fine-tip flex nib that lays down ink!!

And have you found that the reviewer's rating of "saturation" has been reliable in helping you choose inks that will work in your X(X)F nibs?

 

54 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

The saturation compounds and makes even medium tone inks appear black on paper!!!
...

Nowadays...EVERY ink I buy is light colored or mildly saturated because when used with MY PENS...they are much darker.

Can I interpret this as meaning you want inks with "low" saturation?

 

Here's an image:

From that, it would seem you'd want inks "with white added" - the middle bar, toward the middle-right?

 

FWIW, I'm not entirely convinced that alone is necessary to get good color / avoid inks looking black in EF nibs.  It might guarantee they don't, but avoiding inks that are more saturated (but high-ish intensity, or high-ish chroma), may mean you're missing out on some that would work...

 

52 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

I've given away over $80-$100 worth of ink because I CANNOT use it with my preferred pen type!! That's a whole pen I could have bought!

Ink samples are your friends.

 

58 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

Thank you for asking.
By the way...your reviews...I didn't understand how vital they would be to my decisions until I got experienced and realized that Extra Fine-Tip nibs have a whole other life and experience than other larger nib sizes.

You're very welcome!  Thank you for responding.

 

And thank you - yes, EF nibs do have their own "life", very different from their big brothers.

[LizEF]

16 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

As a review consumer, having thought about it a bit more, I too question the necessity of delving into saturation as part of a review. Looking at swabs and written examples, with various nibs on various papers, gives me sufficient visual information about the colour and saturation/dye load/ tonal density of the ink.

Thank you for returning and adding more!  I'm looking forward to continuing my discussion with @Detman101, for whom saturation has appeal.  I'm hoping we can gain some more understanding - if I can understand, then I can explain to others, and then others can decide for themselves what to do (or not do).

[LizEF]

42 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

I think more often they are trying to convey opaqueness.

Forgot to comment on this.  Yes, I think this may well be the case for some.  And I've had (or tried to have) some discussions on opaqueness in FP-inks.  In my experience thus far, none are opaque, though De Atramentis Document White comes close.  I judge opaqueness literally - blocking light.  If a fountain pen ink blocked light, then you could write with it on a black piece of paper, and you would see the ink, not the paper - light would reflect off the ink, not go through to the paper.  But with above exception (and to a lesser degree, DAD Yellow), all FP ink disappears on black paper, meaning it's transparent.

 

But some have used this term to mean "non-shading" - an ink which yields a solid-single-color line.  (See previous comments about how I used to interpret this as "fully saturated" but am no longer confident in that interpretation.)

 

Others have argued that a dark ink that you can't see white paper through is "opaque".  Perhaps it is, to a large degree.  Haven't given it enough thought.  But it's worth remembering that there may be some who interpret "saturated" as either "non-shading" or as "opaque".

[LizEF]

If anyone wants to take a stab, below is an image showing Kaweco's cartridge colors.  My questions for each color are: How would you rate its saturation?  And is that meaningful without including "chroma" (aka "tone"?) and / or

"intensity" (aka "shade"?)?