Comparing contrast of various blue inks (was: is Platinum Blue Black too pale?)

[arcfide]

A few people have noted throughout the years that Platinum Blue Black appears too pale in some scans with some pens. However, it has been hard to quantify exactly what that might mean relative to other inks. Often only ink swatches are used to compare various colors to one another, which doesn't always translate into a good comparison of exactly how the inks look. 

 

So, I took a Lamy 2000 B nibbed pen which I know writes pretty wetly and progressively inked it up with a variety of inks on a single spread of Perpanep Zarazara paper to scan these inks in a single case study using writing segments that were long enough to allow the feed to "level out" a bit and not just show the initial high levels of ink flow. Moreover, I drew dividing lines for the three sections using a Platinum #3776 Century Music nib and a UEF nib to compare the ink flow of the Platinum Blue Black in the Lamy 2000 with the same ink flow in these two pens and their colors and contrast relative to the rest of the inks. 

 

For inks, I selected 4 standards inks and 2 "premium" inks. 

 

• Platinum Blue Black is Platinum's standard blue. It is acidic, likely on the drier side, and is IG
• Sailor Blue is Sailor's standard blue. It sheens red pretty easily (and did so for most of the writing sample here), has fairly wet flow, but has a muted color hue much like that of Platinum Blue Black. I believe it is likely alkaline.
• Waterman Serenity Blue is perhaps "the" standard blue for many people, but is perhaps a little more saturated as far as washable blues go IME compared to some others. It's acidic and has a fairly high surface tension
• Lamy Blue Black is Lamy's standard blue black, and much darker than their blue. It's also a more permanent color compared to their blue. I believe it is acidic, and it's a very dry ink. It's an ink that I keep wanting to love, and keep ending up shoving back onto the shelf in disillusionment each time I ink it up, though from the Lamy 2000 here it's probably better than it's looked in many other pens.
• Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit. This Premium ink represents the class of what I think of as high surfactant, high dye load inks that are very wet and saturated. It's a dark blue that doesn't sheen, but has a huge amount of flow and put down the most ink easily of any of the inks in this test.
• Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo. The darker "teal blue black" ink. I put this in as an example of a "premium" style ink that has good flow, is alkaline-ish (IIRC), and represents Pilot's ink skill, ensuring that I have a representative from each of the big 3 in Japan. I didn't have Pilot Blue Black on hand to test, but this gives some comparison in terms of color and contrast.

 

I think for my eyes, the contrast between the various standard inks is relatively similar. The extra wetness and dye load of the premium inks shows a bit more saturation and a bit higher contrast, but I think some of that is due to their darker hue, as well. I did not have room to put Kon Peki on the comparison list, or I would have done that as well, as that's a relatively lightly hued premium ink. 

 

[arcfide]

Incidentally, I did a measurement of the line widths of the Music and UEF nibs with Platinum Blue Black based on the above scan and got a line width of 1.3mm for the Music nib and 0.3mm for the UEF, almost exactly. This was calibrated on the basis of the 4mm dot grid on the page, so it depends on the accuracy of the dot grid printing. 

[lgsoltek]

Lovely comparison, thank you! I'm attracted to Sailor Blue and the Jacques Herbin. The JH just pops out of the page!

[arcfide]

1 hour ago, lgsoltek said:

The JH just pops out of the page!

 

It certainly does that. 🙂 Actually, one issue with it is that it might pop just a little too much. With very bold nibs and lots of text heavy writing without a lot of whitespace, it can almost be "too much". It's also much less well behaved than pretty much all the others. It's very wet and "slick". But I think that J. Herbin was going for exactly that when they were making this ink. The "well-behaved" inks are definitely more in their regular Herbin line. The Jacques Herbin line is where they seem to take a lot of the safety harness away and go a bit more wild. 

[arcfide]

If you like the muted blue color of the Sailor or Platinum inks, Sailor Blue is remarkably good, especially for such an affordable ink. It has surprising amounts of sheen, it flows very well, lubricates well, and is reasonably well behaved. It also has done well in my own personal UV tests relative to a lot of other standard blue inks, and it's a little more water resistant than some of the washable blues in the same "category". However, it is probably not as "safe" as the other washable blues. 

[PithyProlix]

22 hours ago, arcfide said:

A few people have noted throughout the years that Platinum Blue Black appears too pale in some scans with some pens. However, it has been hard to quantify exactly what that might mean relative to other inks. Often only ink swatches are used to compare various colors to one another, which doesn't always translate into a good comparison of exactly how the inks look. 

 

So, I took a Lamy 2000 B nibbed pen which I know writes pretty wetly and progressively inked it up with a variety of inks on a single spread of Perpanep Zarazara paper to scan these inks in a single case study using writing segments that were long enough to allow the feed to "level out" a bit and not just show the initial high levels of ink flow. Moreover, I drew dividing lines for the three sections using a Platinum #3776 Century Music nib and a UEF nib to compare the ink flow of the Platinum Blue Black in the Lamy 2000 with the same ink flow in these two pens and their colors and contrast relative to the rest of the inks. 

 

For inks, I selected 4 standards inks and 2 "premium" inks. 

 

• Platinum Blue Black is Platinum's standard blue. It is acidic, likely on the drier side, and is IG
• Sailor Blue is Sailor's standard blue. It sheens red pretty easily (and did so for most of the writing sample here), has fairly wet flow, but has a muted color hue much like that of Platinum Blue Black. I believe it is likely alkaline.
• Waterman Serenity Blue is perhaps "the" standard blue for many people, but is perhaps a little more saturated as far as washable blues go IME compared to some others. It's acidic and has a fairly high surface tension
• Lamy Blue Black is Lamy's standard blue black, and much darker than their blue. It's also a more permanent color compared to their blue. I believe it is acidic, and it's a very dry ink. It's an ink that I keep wanting to love, and keep ending up shoving back onto the shelf in disillusionment each time I ink it up, though from the Lamy 2000 here it's probably better than it's looked in many other pens.
• Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit. This Premium ink represents the class of what I think of as high surfactant, high dye load inks that are very wet and saturated. It's a dark blue that doesn't sheen, but has a huge amount of flow and put down the most ink easily of any of the inks in this test.
• Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo. The darker "teal blue black" ink. I put this in as an example of a "premium" style ink that has good flow, is alkaline-ish (IIRC), and represents Pilot's ink skill, ensuring that I have a representative from each of the big 3 in Japan. I didn't have Pilot Blue Black on hand to test, but this gives some comparison in terms of color and contrast.

 

I think for my eyes, the contrast between the various standard inks is relatively similar. The extra wetness and dye load of the premium inks shows a bit more saturation and a bit higher contrast, but I think some of that is due to their darker hue, as well. I did not have room to put Kon Peki on the comparison list, or I would have done that as well, as that's a relatively lightly hued premium ink. 

 

 

[arcfide]

11 minutes ago, PithyProlix said:

 

Sorry, your message appears empty but for the quote? 

[TSherbs]

20 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

It certainly does that. 🙂 Actually, one issue with it is that it might pop just a little too much. With very bold nibs and lots of text heavy writing without a lot of whitespace, it can almost be "too much". 

This 👆

[TSherbs]

The Platinum BB does not appear too "pale" for me here, just too "blue". Thanks for the comparison!

[arcfide]

46 minutes ago, TSherbs said:

just too "blue"

 

It's definitely Platinum's Blue ink. It's funny that Platinum has to explain themselves a little bit in their choice, after the explosion of blue black dye-based inks. It's definitely a blue ink, and that's probably why I like it quite a bit, but if someone were looking for something more dark in hue (Lamy Blue Black gets the neutral hue pretty close), then the Platinum sure isn't the one. My impression is that Sailor Blue Black is distinctly dark in this regard if one wanted to go with the Japanese big 3. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 9/6/2021 at 12:01 PM, arcfide said:

Platinum Blue Black is Platinum's standard blue. It is acidic, likely on the drier side, and is IG

 

8 minutes ago, arcfide said:

It's definitely Platinum's Blue ink.

 

Or, put another way, Platinum has no dye-based-but-not-iron-gall Blue ink in its standard product line-up. It produces a Light Blue ink, but is only available in cartridges (in the retail product designated SPN-100A#57, and possibly supplied with select colours of Plaisir and Preppy pens in their retail packages). There are two blue inks in Mixable Ink product line (INKM-1200 and INKM-1000), being Aqua Blue (#57) and Aurora Blue (#55), and these should be free of iron-gall content.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the Light Blue ink cartridges contain the same ink as Mixable Ink Aqua Blue, on account of the #57 designation. In the standard ink product range, the colour of Platinum Blue-Black ink is designated #3, and is not the same as that of Aurora Blue.

 

Whereas Pilot and Sailor both offer separate Blue and Blue-Black inks in the standard ink product ranges.

 

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

On 9/6/2021 at 10:17 AM, arcfide said:

If you like the muted blue color of the Sailor or Platinum inks, Sailor Blue is remarkably good, especially for such an affordable ink. It has surprising amounts of sheen, it flows very well, lubricates well, and is reasonably well behaved. It also has done well in my own personal UV tests relative to a lot of other standard blue inks, and it's a little more water resistant than some of the washable blues in the same "category". However, it is probably not as "safe" as the other washable blues. 

Seconded, I've only used 2-3 cartridges of it, but I would recommend it for the same reasons. A bit wetter and more lubricating ( and darker) as compared to Pilot Blue.

[PithyProlix]

11 hours ago, arcfide said:

Sorry, your message appears empty but for the quote? 

 

Oops, sorry - must have unknowingly 'butt posted'.

 

But I do want to say that, to my eye, the Platinum and Lamy do look significantly less saturated than the others.

 

BTW, I have three generations of Platinum Blue-Black ink cartridges, the first being quite pale. Maybe I will show a comparison in a few days when I get all three different cartridges in pens.

 

Thanks for the interesting comparison!