Why can't there be a way to print color to last?

[DREW WILEY]

Pigments are a giant multi-billion dollar industry. Just like dyes and polymers, there are chemists who do nothing but try to devise new ones, hundreds and hundreds of em over a career, of which a very small percent will find a profitable non-poisonous industrial applications. Big breakthroughs are rare, Like the discovery of pthalo colorants about a century and a half ago, and transoxide nano-pigments in the 1980's, the latter of which don't have anything suitable for process colors. A permanent yellow remains elusive. I'm certain Sal will take good care of his Evercolor prints and that they'll probably look good two or three generation from now. But I have also been in uppity galleries that used such intense projection halogens that they would probably distinctly fade the yellow pigment in an Evercolor in less than a year (yes, lakes are classified as pigments because they are particles). "Ever" is dependent upon Everyone involved using some common sense. They won't necessarily survive a fire or flood or reckless amounts of UV. There are things that could embrittle the gelatin layers to the point of cracking. Accelerated aging tests can't cover all the variables, and can't be accurately extrapolated without parallel real-time evidence; but they are useful for assessing the relative permanence of dyes, pigments, and inks. I saw Botticelli mentioned. Back then, it helped to have patrons as rich a Medici or Borgia. You could afford to use ground lapis lazuli and chrysolite and amethyst and real amber and precious red coral for pigment. But that's no guarantee of permanence. Some of his painting didn't survive Savonarola's bonfires!