I may have added too much, however, as ink began to drip from the bottom of the cartridges. I let the tanks sit overnight on old rags before inserting them into the printer.

When I began printing, the initial output was pretty bad--inaccurate colors, smudged fonts, and random spots of black ink. But after twenty or so pages, the output returned to normal. The colors and text appeared duller and fuzzier than those made by HP's own inks. Page yield was a wash (no pun intended): I got about 48 pages total, including the first 20 that were of unacceptable quality.

Why the initial problems? I asked Castle Ink president Bill Elward, who said that cross-contamination of colors in the tricolor cartridge may have been partly to blame.