Four blacks

[yazeh]

I don't use black ink often. 

However, I did a test with four sample I had, using the same pen. 

I used four Jinaho 450 with medium and fude nibs to do the comparison. 

Hence, orange, blue, red and gold :)

 

However, I find myself a bit biased as which is the deepest black. 

So, before I post my comparison I would like to see if there is any consensus. 

 

 

 

 

[LizEF]

I loaded those in a graphics program, zoomed in until the images were pixelated, used the eyedropper to see how black the apparent black was, and found no significant difference between the samples.  My eyes want to say that the places where the strokes are thicker are blacker, but that's obviously just because there's a larger dark area.

[yazeh]

Thanks Liz. One of them to my eyes is less black than the other in person ..but then again I don't want to influence you :)

 

[MoriartyR]

They all look the same to me. Even magnified. Maybe the scan isn’t able to show the samples accurately enough to distinguish between them.

 

[inkstainedruth]

When I blew the images up, there was a slight difference.  But it was it was so marginal, that it could have been the images themselves.  In both, the ink in the blue pen looked SLIGHTLY darker.  But not enough to really make that much of a difference.

Remember, there could be a difference in the nibs in the four different pens (even if they're supposed to be the identical width and the pens being "identical" as well); when I was trying to do a color comparison between two different inks a couple of years ago, I found that the only real way to tell was to do sample writing and then flush the pens and swap the inks between the two of them (the two inks being Edelstein Topaz and IIRC Diamine Havasu Turquoise).  Unfortunately, I then lost one of the pens, so I wasn't able to complete the test.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

31 minutes ago, MoriartyR said:

Maybe the scan isn’t able to show the samples accurately enough to distinguish between them.

This.  Magnified photographs sometimes show subtle differences better, but scans and most photos seem to reduce color depth significantly, especially in darker colors.

[yazeh]

Thanks all for your feedback...

I'm glad to know, I'm not going bunkers on my own. 

The blue pens, lays a thicker line of a very rich sumi type ink. (think shiny black calligraphy ink)

The orange has the most variation/ shading. It's a wet ink. 

The red and gold. are almost identical but they leave a finer line.

Where things differs is in dry time and waterproofness...

Orange is the least waterproof, i.e. most of the ink remains, but a bit of it washes away...