"Archival"

Interesting discussion on a couple of other threads.

In my mind something that is "archival" will last more than 100 years if stored properly - i.e. in climate controlled conditions (cool, dry), with low or no light.

Some early photographic plates have lasted until today with little or no degradation, though some have degraded. Some prints (cyanotype and others) lasted nearly as long.

For a family - someone would want the snapshot to last a couple of generations mostly in photo albums or a shoebox (or equivalent).

I think digital media has difficulty with file compatibility over years, and media degradation, though "they are workig on it"

What are you thoughts?

Bromo33333 said:

Interesting discussion on a couple of other threads.

In my mind something that is "archival" will last more than 100 years if stored properly - i.e. in climate controlled conditions (cool, dry), with low or no light.

Some early photographic plates have lasted until today with little or no degradation, though some have degraded. Some prints (cyanotype and others) lasted nearly as long.

For a family - someone would want the snapshot to last a couple of generations mostly in photo albums or a shoebox (or equivalent).

I think digital media has difficulty with file compatibility over years, and media degradation, though "they are workig on it"

What are you thoughts?

Click to expand...

When you mention files you must be talking about CD's, and yes this is a problem which has been talked about in length. The cure for this is constant backup every couple of years or so and not using cheap CD's. This is why I like film. It lasts longer under the right conditions and is cheaper in the long run; Well at least to my present knowledge. Of course if you have a heavily Photoshop'd file it's another matter. Then it becomes a question of CD it or perhaps have a negative made, another costly alternative unless you alt print in which case it's the norm.

If you talk about printer output on whatever media, then you have another seperate discussion as to the media and inks and testing methods about the archival abilities of these particular inks and media. If the testing methods used so far hold up, then I see no problem with your 100 year idea. To me tho printing Ziatypes, that number is a little low. I think 400-500 years would be more archival in my mind concerning printis and only transcended by stone and cave drawings.

Overall, I see film as a better storage medium for me at least. I doubt that I will be inclined to go to the bother of backing up all my CD files in the future. I've not really done it in the past. I can see it now tho; Masses of CD's thrown in the garbage because of a new file storage medium and the inability of owners to be able to portal it. Btw, have you thrown out any 5 1/4 disks?; Or 3&1/2 for that matter.

W.A.Crider said:

[...] Btw, have you thrown out any 5 1/4 disks?; Or 3&1/2 for that matter.

Click to expand...

I no longer have the 5.25 and 3.5 disks anymore - I am sure I tossed them when my computer got upgraded and no longer came with any sort of floppy drive (Mac).

I remember disks that were larger than 5.25" disks, too - I think they were 8" or something like that?

consider your digital files lost... it's only a matter of time (ten years?) before you'll upgrade the computer, the backups degrade, etc... platinum and gold prints will be the only long-term survivors. as long as the paper holds up (cellulose papyrus has survived 1000+ years) prints made on ph neutral cellulose cotton in platinum or gold have the greatest chance of being viewed well into the future.

Just as resolution, and dynamic range are hard goals for the digital industry, so is archivailness (?). I suspect that the longevity of the digital mediums (optical and magnetic) will remain tenuous, but printing technology will continue to improve.

As for what is archival now -- I don't really trust the numbers that are being thrown out by many companies. I suspect all the pigmented colour stuff is at least as good as Fuji CA and Kodak endura. I figure that means its good for around 50 years.

The black and white inks should be longer and the digital fibre stuff that Elevator is doing is as good as traditional B&W.

Add to xType's list
Carbon prints and properly fixed washed and toned b&w prints should also last as long as the paper. I had the privilege of going through J M Camerons prints at GEH and Art Institute of Chicago. The prints were ~130-145 year old albumens and a handful of carbon prints (the carbons were not printed by her). the prints had yellowed, but the images were fully intact (this was verified by comparing them to the carbons).

As a matter of comparison, one of the folks at GEH showed us a 140 year old albumen print that had spent very little time out in the light or open air. It was magnificent.

The attached image is 100,000 times magnification of a chrysotype, taken with a scanning electron micrograph, provided courtesy of Dr. Malik at the Institut fur Nanotechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany.

What you're looking at are celulose fibrils with nanoparticle gold (the white bits...) embeded - this is what makes chrysotypes, and by extension, platinum prints (and several of the others mentioned above) so permanent. The image is embeded in the base material - it is not, as in the case of silver gelatin, attached in a layer on the top of the paper (which will eventually detach).

The thing that makes platinum and gold stand out for me is the stable nature of these noble metals - they are two of the most stable elements available to us.

Though there are old albumen prints out there, they all have micro cracks that are visible on close inspection. I love the process myself, but it's more prone to swelling, expansion, and contraction than gelatin based processes, and processes like pt/pd, carbon, and chrysotype suffer from this particular issue even less.

Yeah, I saw some cracking and the paper looked brittle. Albumen is probably not in the same league as the others, but 140 years and still looking good enough to hang on the wall is not bad.