# Photo Longevity



## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

I have few pictures of my ancestors that are well over 100 years old, and many pictures that are over 80 years old. Many of them are faded, grey and yellow, scratched, crinkled, but still pictures. 

How will pictures we take today be available 100 years from now? Will rapidly evolving digital technology doom our pictures to inaccessibility to future generations? What about the pictures on 8 inch or 5¼ inch drives? Who can look at them now.? CDs are gone, DVDs are on the way out, USB technology changes, hard drives fail, ink-jet pictures fade. Will cloud technology and companies not change in the next 100 years? I doubt it.

So, what are your thoughts?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

All valid points.

Personally for those few photos I consider really important, I have printed on genuine silver based photo papers. Of course with modern processes the silver is replaced by dyes in the chemical process. Current colour processing should be very stable if properly stored.

A reasonably good alternative is the Kodak dye transfer process such as is used in their Kiosk machines. These too have proven very durable. 

Epson is also producing expensive archival inks. 

The simple test is to print up a photo which has as much of the colour spectrum as possible. Print two copies. Store one in a cool dark place and put the other in a south window for a month. Should be a window that does not have special fade blockers incorporated. If you cannot see a difference in the images after a month, the printing method you are using should be reasonably stable. Even so the images should not be displayed where they are exposed to direct sunlight or fluorescent lighting.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Lots or archival quality papers and inks out there these days (some rated for 200 years) so if someone wants their photos to be around for generations there is still the means to make it happen.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

With the quality of archival papers and inks these days I think the photos done in this manner will last as long or likely longer than the old photos that you currently have -- provided they are stored properly (i.e. not in direct sunlight, that will fade just about anything). Also in terms of the digital world you have to keep moving your backup data to current storage mediums and not let them lapse to the point that you can no longer access the media you used. In fact we're probably in a much better place in terms of long time archival for photography than we have ever been in the past.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Kleles said:


> What about the pictures on 8 inch or 5¼ inch drives?


How many digital photos do you have on 8" and 5 1/4" floppies? beejacon


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Gerk said:


> With the quality of archival papers and inks these days *I think the photos done in this manner will last as long or likely longer than the old photos that you currently have* -- provided they are stored properly (i.e. not in direct sunlight, that will fade just about anything). Also in terms of the digital world you have to keep moving your backup data to current storage mediums and not let them lapse to the point that you can no longer access the media you used. In fact we're probably in a much better place in terms of long time archival for photography than we have ever been in the past.


Agreed as the main problem with fading was the instability of the chemistry involved and the fact that most "snap shots" were not printed on archival paper so the very base that this unstable chemistry was printed on was not very stable in the first place, compounding the problem.

Using today's archival inks and archival papers should easily outlast yesteryear's commercially (consumer) printed photos.


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

Thank you for your advice.

The theme seems to be that longevity requires a printed image, and I tend to agree. Archival inks and paper seems to be the way to go. Any suggestions about sources, or services. Where are Kodak kiosks?

As for the suggestion that I keep moving data to the newest format, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that for the next 100 years. 

Oh yes, I might have a few 5 ¼ floppies somewhere in my basement, probably near the punch cards I still have. I don’t have any 8 inch floppies but I worked with them in the old days.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Kleles said:


> Thank you for your advice.
> 
> The theme seems to be that longevity requires a printed image, and I tend to agree. Archival inks and paper seems to be the way to go. Any suggestions about sources, or services. *Where are Kodak kiosks?*
> 
> ...


Forget about Kodak kiosks if you want archival prints, they don't produce them.

The cheapest way to obtain archival quality prints of small size (say 5x7") is to buy an ink jet printer that can use archival quality inks and paper and print them yourself. No consumer quality output from a mass producer is going to yield archival quality prints. It simply is not going to happen so don't waste your money if longevity is what you seek.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

There is always daguerreotypes 

This is the oldest known from 1838 and if you blow it up you can see the detail. They ae good for hundreds of years - maybe far more if fully sealed










It's actually an interesting thing to get one made of yourself as it is a modest form of immortality.

You can get your portrait done

Mike Robinson


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

While not disputing anything said above, I would say that digital photos have a really good shot and being around for a long time, since digital information is easily copied and spread around. It's always hard to predict the future, but too many people have a vested interest in digital photos being available for a long time to come not to have already planned for this.

Mind you ... the earth's magnetic field reverses polarity every few hundred thousand years. Depending on the way you look at it, we're either WAY overdue for another one (the last major one was 780,000 years ago, but geomagnetic reversals average about 450,000 years apart though can be as much as a million years apart) or we just had one (there appears to have been a very short reversal of the magnetic polarity some 41,000 years ago).

In either case, such a disruption (or even a minor "excursion") of magnetic polarity could be disastrous to all forms of digital information.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

chas_m said:


> In either case, such a disruption (or even a minor "excursion") of magnetic polarity could be disastrous to all forms of digital information.


Nope, sorry. Not ALL forms of digital information. Theres digital beyond magnetic media.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> In either case, such a disruption (or even a minor "excursion") of magnetic polarity could be disastrous to all forms of digital information.


would not in the least impact digital information i any way shape or form. Might bother the birds a bit.

The magnets inside disc drives alone are incredibly strong the earth's field very weak. Optically encoded digital information is immune to any level of magnetic impulse - even an EMP bomb tho the readers would fail.

The real risk is loss of decoding algorithms over time one reason sealed daguerreotypes has an appeal as it's visual and just about impervious to degradation over time.

Pioneer space craft contained an analogue record
Voyager Golden Record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then there is this



> *DNA 'perfect for digital storage'*
> 
> By Jonathan Amos
> Science correspondent, BBC News
> ...


BBC News - DNA 'perfect for digital storage'



> It is possible to store huge volumes of data in DNA for thousands of years, the researchers write in Nature magazine.


The longevity of the medium plus the ability to decode the information are the two key elements.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Ah, thanks gents, good to know. I'm glad these stupid posts of mine will survive into the next epoch after all ... 😊


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

chas_m said:


> Mind you ... the earth's magnetic field reverses polarity every few hundred thousand years. Depending on the way you look at it, we're either WAY overdue for another one (the last major one was 780,000 years ago, but geomagnetic reversals average about 450,000 years apart though can be as much as a million years apart) or we just had one (there appears to have been a very short reversal of the magnetic polarity some 41,000 years ago).
> 
> In either case, such a disruption (or even a minor "excursion") of magnetic polarity could be disastrous to all forms of digital information.


I doubt that the reversal of the magnetic filed would have an impact on most forms of digital storage. Perhaps in the days of iron-core computing (when 64kb meant 64,000 little iron doughnuts), and even then I would doubt it. The magnetic filed is extremely weak, and is in constant flux.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chas_m said:


> While not disputing anything said above, I would say that digital photos have a really good shot and being around for a long time, since digital information is easily copied and spread around. It's always hard to predict the future, but too many people have a vested interest in digital photos being available for a long time to come not to have already planned for this.
> 
> Mind you ... *the earth's magnetic field reverses polarity every few hundred thousand years. *Depending on the way you look at it, we're either WAY overdue for another one (the last major one was 780,000 years ago, but geomagnetic reversals average about 450,000 years apart though can be as much as a million years apart) or we just had one (there appears to have been a very short reversal of the magnetic polarity some 41,000 years ago).
> 
> In either case, such a disruption (or even a minor "excursion") of magnetic polarity could be disastrous to all forms of digital information.


Recent research actually indicates that pole reversal is a slow ongoing process and it actually does not occur all at once as it is dependant upon the movement of molten metals within the earth which migrate very slowly indeed. The documentary I watched on the subject actually visually revealed the process and how it works.

What we still don't know what the effects will be upon our technologies and power grids etc. as we have never been though it before. All we can do is speculate based on our very limited understanding/theories of what the results might be at least that was the thrust of the documentary I watched not that long ago (maybe 6 months). I think it was on NOVA.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Any effect would be indirect due to a shift in the Van Allen belts which might allow more CME impact.
There would be no direct impact at all.


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## Niteshooter (Aug 8, 2008)

Gerk said:


> How many digital photos do you have on 8" and 5 1/4" floppies? beejacon


The first digital cameras we had at work used mini floppy disks. Canon used these in their Xapshots and the $15,000 digital Sony news photo camera we also owned. I had to buy a Xapshot off eBay to have on hand in case I ever had to read these disks again since I inherited a box of these disks when we were closing down the Imaging department.

The original Apple QuickTakes required proprietary software and Mac serial port in order to transfer pix. Later they came out with a PC version but how many guys other than me have old gear that will run these things. 

A better question would be how many people still have photos on Zip Drives, Bernoulli's, and Jazz disk. I got an email yesterday from someone in the states in a panic because his one and only Beige G3 stopped seeing it's SCSI port and the attached zip drive.


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## Niteshooter (Aug 8, 2008)

To the OP, personally I would scan and make prints of these old photos. I've been making Epson photo quality prints for at least 15 years and their 'archivalness' seems to be a lot better than the C prints I made at the same time. Some prints I have exposed to a lot of sunlight and they are not fading which really amazed me. The matting however is another story.


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## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

Niteshooter said:


> The first digital cameras we had at work used mini floppy disks. Canon used these in their Xapshots and the $15,000 digital Sony news photo camera we also owned. I had to buy a Xapshot off eBay to have on hand in case I ever had to read these disks again since I inherited a box of these disks when we were closing down the Imaging department.
> 
> The original Apple QuickTakes required proprietary software and Mac serial port in order to transfer pix. Later they came out with a PC version but how many guys other than me have old gear that will run these things.
> 
> A better question would be how many people still have photos on Zip Drives, Bernoulli's, and Jazz disk. I got an email yesterday from someone in the states in a panic because his one and only Beige G3 stopped seeing it's SCSI port and the attached zip drive.


Yep there are still some stragglers out there that only have things on very old media ... but to that I say ... Carpe Diem! Get your stuff onto more modern media ASAP! I have tons of old CDs that are starting to die out and have been taking the time to get all that data back onto hard drives while I still can. 

Something similar happened to a buddy last week that he was telling me about. They had done a bunch of work sampling this old and really awesome sounding synth from the 70's many years ago and he was finally ready to get it all into a virtual instrument, but when he pulled out the CDs that he burned all the samples onto they wouldn't mount on any of his systems, Finder kept telling him that he had inserted a blank disc even though you could clearly see that it had been burned. Luckily the person that helped him sample everything had a copy of it all on hard drive still and sent him a new copy of the files ... 

Some stuff you just can't recreate, like old sampled hardware that you haven't owned in years and old photos ... so take the time to actually _check_ your backups occasionally and always keep moving things to whatever the newest medium is. In my case I have pretty much everything going onto hard drives .. at least until the next best thing comes along!


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Gerk said:


> Yep there are still some stragglers out there that only have things on very old media ... but to that I say ... Carpe Diem! Get your stuff onto more modern media ASAP! I have tons of old CDs that are starting to die out and have been taking the time to get all that data back onto hard drives while I still can.
> 
> Something similar happened to a buddy last week that he was telling me about. They had done a bunch of work sampling this old and really awesome sounding synth from the 70's many years ago and he was finally ready to get it all into a virtual instrument, but when he pulled out the CDs that he burned all the samples onto they wouldn't mount on any of his systems, Finder kept telling him that he had inserted a blank disc even though you could clearly see that it had been burned. Luckily the person that helped him sample everything had a copy of it all on hard drive still and sent him a new copy of the files ...
> 
> Some stuff you just can't recreate, like old sampled hardware that you haven't owned in years and old photos ... so take the time to actually _check_ your backups occasionally and always keep moving things to whatever the newest medium is. In my case I have pretty much everything going onto hard drives .. at least until the next best thing comes along!


Yet another clear statement that archival preservation of digital data is an oxymoron.

If there is one area of digital research that is sadly lacking/lagging it is the archival preservation of data. 

Perhaps given the activities of the NSA this is a good thing.


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## besteffects (Aug 8, 2013)

Photo longevity is a digital technique in photography.


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## Nelson33 (Sep 6, 2013)

This is interesting thread actually i just want to say you that every professional photographer have it's own way of photo making some of photographers are making wedding photos shoot some of fashion and other natural views i am also a professional photographer and my way of photographing is wedding photography because this is good to become more popular and also good business of photography but some difficult also to take the photos...


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