Print Storage

I've now reached the point where I do quite a bit of wet darkroom printing that's not a final print, but not a test strip either - it's the best print I've done of a particular negative and worth holding onto but also not the final product to be matted and framed. As I'm not a fan of scanning B&W at all, that print, the notes and the negative are all I have to go off if and when I revisit a particular shot.

I'd be curious to know how other people store these things? I mostly just have them lying around loosely now. Darkroom storage isn't an option because I use a community darkroom.

In stacks, boxes, and stacks of boxes.

FWIW - I keep all my prints in the black plastic bag that the paper comes in, in the original box. I find this standardisation quite handy with north of 25 boxes now of 100 each of 10 x 8 FB prints. I use blank address stickers on the boxes to label the prints according to the folio number of the archival neg box my negs are stored in, followed by the proof (roll) number followed by the image number, all of which correlates to the lab notes I keep for each print. I think that I may be on the spectrum a little

I started out doing what @samcomet describes. I have now switched to a system, where negatives go into a printfile sleeve, the sleeve gets labeled with date and roll number. This sleeve then goes with development notes (which are also labeled) into a manila file folder (also labeled) together with work prints, semi-final prints etc. and printing notes (also labeled). All that goes into a steel filing cabinet.

Thanks to labels, when items get separated I can rejoin them and if I want to print I have all materials and information in a *single* place.

Versions of prints which I'd like to keep are put into archival storage boxes (labeled with roll number and printing date and number) till their intended end-use.

Just as an addenda to what @Fraunhofer wrote - I use the PrintFile neg sheets that also have a 10 x 8 pocket that my proofs slip into for safe keeping very nicely. They might be worth looking into. I think they are fab-o!

I make "work prints" and final "fine prints." Fine prints (i.e., ones that I would mat, frame and sell) get stored in boxes. I store one print each of the fine prints in grey museum quality boxes about two inches deep until I get around to matting them. Back-up prints and work prints get stored in regular paper boxes, with a list of what's inside taped to the top of the box. For these latter, I add a sheet of interleaving paper at each end of the stack to protect the prints from the cardboard. I number and label the boxes and cross-reference the contents with my print storage log in the computer so I can find any specific print easily if I need to mat one or if I want to revisit it for later printing.

All the prints that end up on mats get copy photographed and stored in the computer as well.

Best,

Doremus