Going, Going, Gone ….

The battle seams to be heating up concerning which maker of color inkjet printers, inks and photo paper will last the longest without fading. As to be expected each manufacture states that best results are obtained when using their inks and paper.

However as most everyone knows there are third party inks and paper available for most printers. Test results from internal and outside labs using different methods of accelerated photo ageing (no one standard method has been agreed upon) show that inkjet photos can last as little as a few years to more than 50 years. No recommendations here, it’s up to you to research and make the decision on what brand to use!

Storage longevity is not a new issue!
I recently found this out having dug up some of my old photos from the dark storage areas where they were unseen and forgotten about for a long time. The black and white photos going back to the 1940’s still look good. Polaroid photos from the early 1960’s varied, some were now almost black, so dark you can hardly make out the subject; some had faded to white, while others still were in very good shape. Prints made from negatives generally were still in very good shape but a few had also faded, some also very badly. I’m now in the process of testing various brands of software that include in some form or other an option or options to restore these old photos, more on that subject at a later date.

Back to today’s digital world.
Let us not forget that a digital image must be also stored on some form of media for a short or long period of time. Media such as a Hard Disk, CD-R or DVD are also a big variable as far as longevity. Don’t forget file formats (BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, Etc.), forty years from now which one will still be around?

So when you go to the swearing in ceremony for the next Supreme Court Justice just remember he or she just may outlast your photo. Then again based on the decisions they make over the years, you may or may not want the photo anyway!

For a recent report on Inkjets:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121752,00.asp