Hey Achiral,
Generally speaking, generic brands “can” be reliable. I know of many companies that use them on a routine basis as a cost saving measure. Keeping in mind that the needs of an office environment are most often far less critical than what is required when printing graphics of even a moderate quality. The generic brands make no claim as to their ability to match the hues and running properties of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM)’s inks, let alone the ability of the cartridge itself to perform exactly as the OEM intended. Dependability of consistency is what you should consider if you are thinking about the generic brands.
What you view on your monitor is red-green-blue (RGB) in order to print the image to a common printer, the file must process through a Raster Image Processor (RIP) program of sorts to change the three colors of RGB into the four colors the printer can understand: Black Cyan Magenta Yellow (CMYK). This change of three colors into four colors is usually done with the help of color management profiles. They are pre-set by the manufacturer to match a calibrated set of ink/cartridge.
It is possible to build your own ICC color management profiles to compensate and re-align the calibrations for each color, but there is no guarantee the generics will be the same each time you buy them. The OEM spends a great deal of effort to insure the profiles will be consistent with the ink/cartridge every time you buy them.
I highly recommend if you are trying to duplicate prints with any accuracy to stay with the original equipment manufacturer. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches. But if you are just printing for your own needs and you are not absolutely critical of color consistency with the end product you may not notice a difference at all. – I hope this is of help, Good Luck.
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