Archival and storage of darkroom prints

A few hours ago I started a thread about toning, and in the discussion I discovered that I'm not doing a great job at storing my prints: I've been storing them in an album with adhesive plastic sheets that cover the print. I've been advised that ideally you don't want anything pressing against the print, and to the extent that anything touches the print, it should be acid free if at all possible.

I like albums. I think I found a way to make an album that meets the above guidelines:

(1) Grab a scrapbook that is just plain acid-free paper (example), and
(2a) Either use acid-free tape intended for artwork (example) to stick them directly on the paper,
(2b) Or use acid-free archival photo-corners (example), so the print is not actually directly glued or taped to the paper.

That should be fine. Right?

I understand that the optimal way to store prints is in an acid-free archival box, and I will probably do some of that too. But my feeling is that the purpose of making prints is to look at them. So I'm reluctant to hide them too much.

Have you considered the relevance of your prints surviving for decades on end?

Personally, I just chuck 'em into boxes when I'm done looking at them. When I die, I expect that some of the prints will have degraded and/or stuck together insofar as I haven't already disposed of them. Whomever has the sorry task of having to clean up the mess I'll have left, will undoubtedly ensure they'll be properly incinerated.

The world has no shortage of prints of pretty flowers, sunsets, sunlight streaking across pavements, anonymous girlfriends, cute kittens etc. etc.

Worry about archival storage if you're selling your work and your buyers require something along these lines to protect their investments.

I agree w. @koraks - consider why your photos should be archival in the first place- it is not an inconsiderable effort and expense.

For example, you may want to make sure important family photos are printed and stored with archival considerations. Just looked through my parent’s album from the 70’s.

Half the color prints on Kodak paper has turned monochrome. That is Magenta & White not B&W! They have been kept in a dark album.

I was much more archival oriented in my teens. Side topic of color materials archival qualities improving in the 90s and 2000s. But still keep an interest and it's one incremental reason of why I shoot film and print. Nowadays I aim for a "good enough" practice together with the medium's own baseline. Eg. Ilford recommendations quote decent archival qualities regarding fixing and washing guidelines and capacities.

B&W wise I chuck prints around stacks and started using the very much photo paper boxes to keep the prints. Specially workprints. As of showing, then it's taking the box out and look through them. I have fun with it sometimes.
I'd be inclined to think something like glassine/neutral paper sheets to separate the prints might be good.

For lack of better words/term about archivability, FB paper can be a bit of a false economy. If not properly processed and washed it might be actually not as archival as RC papers. I noticed that a print I did early last year has yellowed; probably a combination of shortcomings in processing (fixing), rinsing and light exposure due to being around my desk.

Anyways, more in the line of albums, I'm interested in the discussion and more possibilities to present prints that way.

koraks said:

Have you considered the relevance of your prints surviving for decades on end?

Click to expand...

I am only interested in them lasting in good condition within my own lifetime.

Nowhere in my post, as far as I can tell, did I suggest that I wanted the prints to outlast me. Looking at actuarial tables for my age, gender, and country of residence, it looks like I have about 30 years left in this world. Let's use that as our point of reference.

If the album I've been using so far (link), with a sticky plastic sheet holding the print against the page, is sufficient to protect the print for my target period, then I'll just keep using that. My understanding from the previous thread is that anything pressing against the print is bad for it.

This is one of those times where I get conflicting information from this forum. In my other thread,

1) my first question was whether archival is important.
2) I said I keep my prints in an album and asked how long they'd last.
3) I gave the example of just wanting to record my progress as a beginner.

The answer that I got was that as long as I fix and wash properly they'll last plenty long, but that something pressing on the print is "terrible" for it.

Hopefully this context will help calibrate the responses that I get now.

dcy said:

The answer that I got was that as long as I fix and wash properly they'll last plenty long, but that something pressing on the print is "terrible" for it.

Click to expand...

The 'pressing' thing can relate to a number of things:
1: Very smooth surfaces can ferrotype a print over time; i.e. the gelatin surface conforms to the smooth surface it's in contact with. Sometimes this is a reversible process.
2: Pressure especially in combination with humidity can make the gelatin of the print glue itself to the other object it's in contact with. The main problem here is the humidity involved.
3: Some materials tend to release substances that can degrade a print (i.e. the image, the emulsion or the base).

Toning for its protective properties can only ameliorate to a limited extent #3. So if your concern is in the 'pressing' problem (no pun intended, but hey, if I get one for free...), then toning really isn't the solution to look for to begin with. It's the storage conditions and materials.

From a practical viewpoint, anecdotal evidence suggests that stacks of prints and prints in decent-quality albums tend to survive just fine for decades as long as humidity isn't too high. The tropics are disastrous for prints, in general. Temperate climates usually constitute no problem if you take reasonable precautions - cellars, sheds and other spaces of high humidity are not the best places to keep your photographic memorabilia. A plastic box with a lid will preserve a stack of decently processed prints for a long time without any problems.

As with the other things you're working with, try not to overthink or over-complicate things. It's easy to get lost in this sort of stuff. It's a whole lot more fun to go out and make some images, in general.

Getting your personal darkroom technique sorted out so that you are using archival methods is likely not worth the extra time for anyone without regular print sales and gallery representation and/or work held in permanent collections. It may be good to know what the methods are, but only you can decide how your time is best used.
As an example, my current oldest prints from my first college attempt are from 1994. They still look ok to me. My oldest properly washed (what that place said was archival) and stored prints are from 1999 and they look like I printed them yesterday. They are not toned at all. They are window matted and stored in a portfolio box. All of my other prints from those same time frames are stored in empty paper boxes.

I'm not sure if any of us can comment on your prints in an album question unless we happened to have prints processed the same way and stored in the same album. Like most paper-based stuff, UV and humidity are the killers. I too think the albums with the sticky plastic are not a great idea. Maybe the adhesive is on the page and not the plastic, but same opinion from me either way.

I like your non-plastic album and photo corner idea. I've been noticing a bunch of "family album" albums with black paper and variously decorated covers showing up at antique stores and junk shops lately and have been thinking about compiling some of my work into them.

koraks said:

Toning for its protective properties can only ameliorate to a limited extent #3. So if your concern is in the 'pressing' problem (no pun intended, but hey, if I get one for free...), then toning really isn't the solution to look for to begin with. It's the storage conditions and materials.

Click to expand...

That... is why I started a new thread.

Notice that in this thread I did not mention toning. I asked about storage.

In this thread I suggested I could get a new album with acid-free paper and no plastic sheet covering the film. My goal was reduce the amount of contact on the prints, and to the extent that the prints touch something, that it'd at least be acid-free paper.

koraks said:

From a practical viewpoint, anecdotal evidence suggests that stacks of prints and prints in decent-quality albums tend to survive just fine for decades as long as humidity isn't too high. The tropics are disastrous for prints, in general. Temperate climates usually constitute no problem if you take reasonable precautions - cellars, sheds and other spaces of high humidity are not the best places to keep your photographic memorabilia. A plastic box with a lid will preserve a stack of decently processed prints for a long time without any problems.

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Do you think I need to worry about the sticky side of the sticky album plastic sheet permanently gluing itself to the print or degrading the print?

MTGseattle said:

I'm not sure if any of us can comment on your prints in an album question unless we happened to have prints processed the same way and stored in the same album. Like most paper-based stuff, UV and humidity are the killers. I too think the albums with the sticky plastic are not a great idea. Maybe the adhesive is on the page and not the plastic, but same opinion from me either way.

I like your non-plastic album and photo corner idea. I've been noticing a bunch of "family album" albums with black paper and variously decorated covers showing up at antique stores and junk shops lately and have been thinking about compiling some of my work into them.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Yeah. The more I think about it the more I feel the sticky plastic could glue itself permanently to the print.

Those are the worst. The glue yellows and hardens.

You could get those presentation binders at an art store with the black construction paper in sleeves that can hold two prints back to back (or a few, like if you make three prints if a particular negative you could stack them). A few of those to hold a couple dozen of the favorite prints for flipping through.

Best would be an archival acid free box with tissues, and only handle with cotton gloves.

My “default” is just keeping prints in the boxes the paper came in. They are affected by handling, dinged corners, fingerprints. I don’t like it.