How long does an archival print last?

Roger Hicks said:

Ephemeral art -- installations, Beuys's stuff (rancid butter in one sculpture, if I recall correctly) -- hasn't taken off in photography yet, as far as I know.

I was thinking of really badly fixed prints, poorly washed, sold at a huge premium.The archival version would be $1000, the 'fine art' version' (to be displayed alongside), $10,000.

Click to expand...

Beuys used quite a bit of lard, I believe.

I dunno - I really think there's something to be said for owning a one-off, unstable print... and watching it's demise over time. Kind of touching - in a way. I think there's (financial) value in that - from a certain perspective!

I have this really lovely polaroid 52 proof of a simple, beautiful image... I've been keeping it in my desk drawer and watching it change over time. Kind of incredible. I was looking at ways of fixing it at the perfect time - but then it got some weird dust on it - and went all blotchy.

fhovie said:

Civil War prints - still look good. Washed in a stream printed on cotten fibers. I would bet my photos will still look good in 200 years - the selenium toned fiber ones anyway. Kalitypes and Cyanotypes maybe even longer. I have documents hand written from the 1600s - on vellum. I have some from the 1700s on cotton fibers. - they still look and handle great. I figure a treasured photo could stay in a family for 10 generations easy enough. Of course - none of that color or digi stuff will last ..... only 20 years ago, we were feeding in programs on cassette tape and penciled cards. Today we have DVD-r - - woohoo - They decompose in about 6 years. Color photos - look like crap in 30 years and that is being kind. Ink jet?? well .... I suppose B&W inkjet on good cotton could be ok for 300 years, but what on digi is worth the effort?

Click to expand...

The thing is, paper is not what it used to be. This seriously worries many artists who work with paper, yet doesn't seem to bother photographers, even the ones who work to 'archival' standards.

I can't say that bothers me. I use FB or RC or whatever depending on how I feel about the picture. As for the future, let them make their own photographs.

All of this discussion, now I have a question....

How many out there have run an image stability test?

I have run literally thousands of them. You?????

Any comments? Questions? I've done the best I can to explain things.

This goes on and on and on, asking and asking and asking, but nothing is DONE. It is like the weather. Everyone talks about it...

Kodak, Fuji and Ilford run tests regularly. That data is not published. Would it be objective if published, IDK. Is Wilhelms objective???? IDK.

PE

fhovie said:

Civil War prints - still look good. Washed in a stream printed on cotten fibers. I would bet my photos will still look good in 200 years - the selenium toned fiber ones anyway. Kalitypes and Cyanotypes maybe even longer. I have documents hand written from the 1600s - on vellum. I have some from the 1700s on cotton fibers. - they still look and handle great. I figure a treasured photo could stay in a family for 10 generations easy enough. Of course - none of that color or digi stuff will last ..... only 20 years ago, we were feeding in programs on cassette tape and penciled cards. Today we have DVD-r - - woohoo - They decompose in about 6 years. Color photos - look like crap in 30 years and that is being kind. Ink jet?? well .... I suppose B&W inkjet on good cotton could be ok for 300 years, but what on digi is worth the effort?

Click to expand...

Conservative estimates of DVD-R lifetimes now peg it at about 50-100 years. The greater issue, of course, is whether or not there will be readers for this media in 50-100 years time. That's likely to prove the greater challenge, IMO.

Here's an example citing the lifetime:

http://www.jvcpro.co.uk/getResource2/jvc_dvd-r_lifetime.pdf?id=4835

I think you'll find the "trade name" for this maker's archival technology (it appears in the lower left) quite interesting...

Well, I'm going with 50 to 150 years.

Roger Hicks said:

I was thinking of really badly fixed prints, poorly washed, sold at a huge premium.The archival version would be $1000, the 'fine art' version' (to be displayed alongside), $10,000.

Oh, bugger, I've just given away a career...

Cheers,

R

Click to expand...

That's it!

I'm going to quit fixing and toning my POP prints immediately!

"Yes sir, it will last indefinitely - as long as you don't look at it.

Of course you can frame and hang it, but then it will start deteriorating immediately, and be gone in a few weeks.

Or you can keep it in a light-proof envelope in a dark drawer and take it out to look at in candlelight once per year, and it might survive 20 such viewings."

Hmmm... Sounds familiar somehow...

onservative estimates of DVD-R lifetimes now peg it at about 50-100 years. The greater issue, of course, is whether or not there will be readers for this media in 50-100 years time. That's likely to prove the greater challenge

Click to expand...

In my day job I work in document imaging systems. Generally optical storage media, that is Magneto-Optical WORM (write once read many) or Ablative WORM platters are considered to be good for 50 years, give or take. It's accepted as a given that devices for reading that data may not exist for the lifetime of the media. Certainly the devices that write the first disk probably won't be reading it 10 + years later, although some newer copy of the device may. The way this is dealt with is by transferring all x terrabytes of it to some new media as required when the original media becomes obsolete. The governments, banks, insurance companies, etc. who use these systems can afford to do that. In this way, digital information can last indefinitely, but not in the terms we think about it for film or prints. With that model, individuals probably shouldn't think in terms of storing a DVD for 50 or 100, or even 20 years, though the mechanics of transfering it's information is a much more onerous proposition.

fortunately this is apug where we aren't interested in archival qualities of digital media. Infact I think discussing such things is banned here. Good thing too because it's soooooo booooooring and has zero to do with photography.

percepts said:

fortunately this is apug where we aren't interested in archival qualities of digital media.

Click to expand...

Awcome on, we're interested in dissing it...

Wayne

percepts said:

fortunately this is apug where we aren't interested in archival qualities of digital media. Infact I think discussing such things is banned here. Good thing too because it's soooooo booooooring and has zero to do with photography.

Click to expand...

It has everything to do with photography if one wishes to scan film negs and use the digital files as I means of sharing and I suspect quite a few APUGers realize that.

I scan all my 35mm negatives (film = analog = in scope of discussion). And if - God forbid - worst fears are realized and silver gelatin enlarging paper becomes extinct (I don't think they will) then the only means of output I will readily have will require the use of these files.

So digital media durability, though a secondary concern for me, is still a concern.

bdial said:

In my day job I work in document imaging systems. Generally optical storage media, that is Magneto-Optical WORM (write once read many) or Ablative WORM platters are considered to be good for 50 years, give or take. It's accepted as a given that devices for reading that data may not exist for the lifetime of the media. Certainly the devices that write the first disk probably won't be reading it 10 + years later, although some newer copy of the device may. The way this is dealt with is by transferring all x terrabytes of it to some new media as required when the original media becomes obsolete. The governments, banks, insurance companies, etc. who use these systems can afford to do that. In this way, digital information can last indefinitely, but not in the terms we think about it for film or prints. With that model, individuals probably shouldn't think in terms of storing a DVD for 50 or 100, or even 20 years, though the mechanics of transfering it's information is a much more onerous proposition.

Click to expand...

I scan all my 35mm film negs - and mark about 25% of them worthy of saving. Figuring 30 MB a file at 3200dpi, I still get almost 150 negs on a DVD. and maybe 280 on a double layer. Generally, there has been pretty good backwards compatability across DVD and CD media types.

I agree that it is best to be overly cautious regarding storage lifetimes. I should probably go stick a "Post-It" on my refrigerator reminding me to transfer those negs in April, 2017 or thereabouts...

Anyhow, nobody has commented that Mitsubishi Chemical referes to its manufacturing process of DVD-R's as "Metal Azo". Wholly appropriate...though I doubt the durability of properly prepared and stored Azo prints will ever be matched by digital media. I wonder if EK gets any money for the use of that trademark.

Photo Engineer said:

All of this discussion, now I have a question....

How many out there have run an image stability test?

I have run literally thousands of them. You?????

Any comments? Questions? I've done the best I can to explain things.

<snip>
PE

Click to expand...

My father has a few silver-gelatin prints on display in his house. Most catch the sun for a few hours each day.

His hand-coloured wedding photograph is in perfect condition - date of origin: c. 1965.

A print of my sister as a child is mottled with brown marks but hasn't faded - date of origin: c. 1970

Three prints of my mother in her younger days are still in almost perfect condition (but moved to a shady spot just in case) - dates of origin: 1950s or before.

Then we have the pile of prints from my sister's and my childhoods - 1966 onwards including some early colour prints on fibre papers. Some of the colour images have faded somewhat - others are perfect. Compared to the print of my family outside our house printed in about 1973 and displayed next to the aforementioned wedding photograph - it's faded to a reddish ghost of its former glory - presumably the cyan and yellow dyes have long gone to the album in the sky.

Of course the silver-gels are in excellent condition. Must get around to scanning them sometime...

I have no idea how any of these images were produced. But a print i made in 1996 has been hanging on my bedroom wall in a glass-fronted frame since then facing east so sunbathing most of the year for a few hours a day is archivally fixed, washed and selenium toned. The mat board is faded and yellowed but the print is perfect. Well as perfect as my prints in 1996 were...

So that's my print longevity test.

Aldevo
"It has everything to do with photography if one wishes to scan film negs..."
might be with your "photography". I will not hasitate to advise you to learn some of unique properties of photography, for it is obvious that photography for you is to buy a camera and press the button, and just to be an image to call it a photograph. Sorry but could not resist.

Photo Engineer:
When anyone talk about archival printing... it is connected, I guess, with work of art?
However for any work to be recognized as work of art curators, critics, and art historians need time to become familiar with the work, they need to see which influence the artist made,... Usually, around 50 years, after the work came into consideration, is absolute minimum to say anything with some sound predictions. Any try to play a profet proved wrong. If a photograph start to decay after 40-50 years it just cannot be art. One od prerequest for work of art is to survive time. It is in question also which degree of dacay a photograph should get to declare "gone".
And more, work of art is not intended to be stored in vakuum inside streanless steel box, or kept in darkness, or museum walls with "do not touch"... Work of art is intended to be exposed, to be turned in hands, touched, .... And in such conditions it has to survive much longer than, say, 200 years. Ortherwise it is only sh***. If our silver gelatine photographs can NOT last, exposed to not controled enviroment, around 200 years, what is a point to make them at all. Again, to no work of art in our history is decleared "art" just when it came out on the day. Opposite is true: just recently Whistlers "mother" (a painting) is removed from the most influental art history book (many think wrong decesion, but for now it is it, and it is not because of decaing).
So how you explain this conditions?

I have some photographs made around 40 years ago, fixed badly, washed in water with a lot fixer in it, for around 10 min. I do not see any trace of fading.

And to guys that say dig*** image can survive indefinitely stored on optical cd. What is a point of it on cd. Might be it is your art: frame cd and hing on the wall, with text: beleive me on this cd is my "Art photograph". And that ink print can survive 300 years, heh man, you said it (3+00=300).

How about cave painting and moisture control in the cave at that time...
We also should learn how, say Rembrandt, got his oils, and why it was that way, and how many deers are gone for the sake of his art. It is simple part of uniquenes of artist to know more then ordinary guys, to know how to preserve his work...

www.Leica-R.com