« [ REVIEW—NIKON D80 DSLR ] | Main | [ REVIEW—CASIO EXILIM Z1000 CAMERA ] »
February 15, 2007
[ PRESERVING PRECIOUS PICTURES ]
MRS DPEXPERT HAS CREATED an interesting photo longevity test laboratory on the fridge. Being besotted with her two granddaughters she displays their pictures on the ubiquitous gallery wall of the Westinghouse door.
Mr dpexpert likes the pictures but he is also interested in watching them fade. A kitchen is just about the worst environment in which to display unprotected inkjet prints because one of the causes of fading, along with simple exposure to light, is airborne pollution.
We have on the kitchen wall a poster print made from a slide and mounted on chipboard that has been there for more than twenty years without fading. On the fridge door we have inkjet prints that have been there less than two years and they have already faded to the point where they might as well be removed. The difference between the life expectancy of a silver halide print and an inkjet print is immediately apparent.
We also have a framed inkjet print on the wall that has the back completely sealed with paper so that little or no air moves over the surface of the print. This shows no signs of fading even though it is exposed to ambient light during the day.
Unframed, fully exposed prints on the wall show different fading effects depending on a couple of factors. One four year old photo printed on a Canon photo printer using Canon inks on Canon paper shows very slight fading, mainly showing up as a bronze tint in solid black areas.
Another unframed print on third party paper using third party inks has faded dramatically to the point where it is no longer suitable for display.
Prints kept in albums and folders keep reasonably well and again there is a difference between those made on manufacturer’s paper with the authentic ink and those using third party media.
Fridge door prints may be intended to be ephemeral, constantly replaced as the children grow. But if the intention is to keep a running record of their development then it is worth protecting them from the worst effects of fading.
Zetta Florence Design, 197 Brunswick Street Fitzroy (www.zettaflorence.com) sells mylar sleeves in various sizes that protect prints from the worst effects of air pollution. The mylar tends to sit flat on the print surface rather like a laminate. The material doesn’t have distorting flaws like cellophane or ordinary plastic and it should be chemically inert, not making its own contribution to print deterioration.
Imaging has a number of prized prints enclosed in the mylar sleeves and they are well preserved and look good because the mylar is more like glass than it is like plastic. Zetta also sells polypropylene sleeves which are suitable for storage but not for display because they lack the total transparency of mylar.
Imaging has only been making prints from inkjet printers for five years and already we see fading on prints that have been kept in the dark away from air movement. In every case the faded prints are on either third party paper or made using third party inks. It looked like a bargain at the time but it has turned out to be a poor investment.
At this stage in the development of digital photography there doesn’t seem to be any printing system that will match silver halide for print life. Pigment based systems, such as Epson uses in photo printers, promise extended print life but they haven’t been around long enough to really prove their worth.
We have a gallery of eighteen year old, fully exposed Cibachrome prints on the wall that show no signs of fading or colour shift at all. The moral of the story is that if you have pictures that you want to hand on to the grandchildren when they turn twenty-one then it might be best to have the prints made in a photo laboratory using the venerable optical/chemical system of printing.
Posted by terry at February 15, 2007 11:13 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://bleedingedge.com.au/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1192
Comments
I have come to the same conclusion based on my own "fridge test gallery". The silver halide prints have outlasted all the inkjet prints. Most testing of inkjet print longevity seems to be done with flouresent lighting with the prints behind glass, which is quite different to many real world situations.
Posted by: GSB at February 20, 2007 07:00 AM