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|  | | | | From indoor displays that resist fading for over 200 years to outdoor prints that achieve up to 5 years display permanence, unlaminated. | | | Our customers demand both outstanding image quality and long-lasting, durable performance across a wide range of large-format printing applications from vehicle wraps to tradeshow displays to document storage.
To ensure every printing system meets the needs of the customer, HP designs the entire large-format printing system — the printer, Original HP inks, and HP large-format printing materials — together.
Our customers can print with confidence, knowing that HP’s commitment to rigorous permanence and durability testing ensures reliable, consistent results, print after print. | | Durability and Longevity | | | HP designs and tests all of its ink and large-format media combinations for optimal durability, realizing that different applications require different test requirements. For detailed information on image permanence and durability results for specific printing systems, see “HP Permanence & Durability Testing Details” link below.
Indoor – home and office display: A typical application example is HP photo prints, tested to ensure image permanence under common indoor lighting and environmental conditions. HP uses both state-of-the-art internal labs (HP’s Image Permanence Lab) and Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) to produce these results.
Indoor – commercial in-window display: Often HP prints are displayed in a window receiving partial or direct sunlight likely to increase the degree and rate of image fading. HP Image Permanence Lab testing accounts for this difference from home and office conditions with methodologies designed specifically for in-window display conditions.
Outdoor display: Signs, banners, billboards, and other outdoor applications are often subjected to harsher environmental factors than typical indoor and in-window display prints. The HP Image Permanence Lab tests according to industry-leading standards, and exposes print samples in real-life conditions at multiple U.S. test sites to account for a range of environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, light and dark, and spray.
Water resistance: Prints can be damaged when exposed to water or by handling when wet. However, many Original HP ink and media combinations produce high-quality, water-resistant prints. HP tests water resistance performance characteristics most important to customers, using ISO and internally developed tests, and considers prints which pass the following tests to be water resistant: ISO Standing Water, Water Spray, Water Drip, and Wet Smudge.
Qualified lamination solutions: While specific HP ink and media combinations are designed to provide good overall durability and scratch resistance, many customers apply laminates to further protect the surface of valuable prints. HP has developed excellent partnerships and qualification programs for film as well as liquid laminates to ensure that the final, finished print meets the demands of the customer.
In addition to the testing describe above, HP also tests for other factors key to image degradation including thermal degradation (dark fade), air fade, and humidity. | |
| | Ink and Media Technology Innovation | | | HP invests heavily in research and development around image permanence and durability, focusing on sophisticated ink and media interactions as new printing systems are developed and current technologies are enhanced.
All Original HP inks and large-format printing materials must meet rigorous tests developed by HP and relevant standards organizations or independent test labs. | Verified Results | | | In addition to following multiple ISO standards, HP uses recognized image permanence testing laboratories to confirm internal HP Image Permanence Lab results.
Indoor Home & Office Display:
Wilhelm Imaging Research
WIR has become a world-renowned and industry leading 3rd party durability test facility for inkjet and other print technologies. HP has teamed up with HP to provide customers ensured and verified image permanence results. | |  | | Outdoor Displays:
Atlas and Q-LAB
HP uses results from two of the leading independent material weathering companies—Atlas and Q-Lab—to help HP verify accelerated results. Samples are rigorously tested in hot, wet south Florida conditions and the hot, dry Arizona desert. | |  | |  | | | » HP Permanence & Durability Testing Details (PDF, 125KB) | | | |
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