Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: archival, photography, printer | Themes: Digital Cameras
7. Photographic Paper Back in the Day
As we have previously mentioned, the photographs we associate with our history and the period of the dominance of analog photography had proper photographic papers and were correctly exposed and processed to ensure their archival quality and longevity. For the most part, these archival images have been printed on fibre-based papers.
Whether from Ilford or Oriental (two popular companies), or any number of other paper vendors, these papers need to be prepared properly to last for the ages. The typical darkroom experience used to include selecting the right paper for the image. The negative was inserted into the enlarger and composed on the easel, then a sheet of paper was placed in the easel with the lamp turned on, exposing the paper to the light.
Having thus created a latent image, you would process the paper through several chemical baths. These chemical baths would add acid to the paper, the mortal enemy for an archival print. The only way to eliminate that acid was with a thorough washing, preferably in an archival print washer. This bath could last up to two or three hours. After the wash cycle, you have to let the print dry out before you can take on any of the post-production steps to present a picture for archival purposes. But that was then. This is now. Read on to find out what we use instead.
- Previous page Pigmented Inks
- Next page Photo Gloss vs. Acid Free Papers
There are archival class DVD media that have longer warrantied life spans than that mentioned in the article. Taiyo Yuden and TDK offer archive class DVDs' with life span of 70 years which is pretty good don't you think. It is implied that Laser Printers cannot be used for archive class photos, is this really the case?
i would rather see advice on preserving negatives or digital files since we only print when we need it and printing is improving constantly.
This was a really really good article. I remember using Illford photographic paper in college in basic photography. We used an Iris printer for computer graphics printouts. It cost over $50k. I don't know what the shelf life of the prints is. I have them mounted on mat board in a portfolio which is in storage. These days you can make prints that are just as good or better for a lot less money.
You should also mention that when framing a photo it is important to have UV filtering glass, since UV light can fade photos as well.
It would have also been good to include in the article a section about getting the prints done somewhere. For people that will only need to do a small number of photos, the cost of the high end printers/inks might not be worth it. I don't know if places like Wal-Mart offer multiple paper choices, but there are many profession photo printing services available on the internet that give you a range of professional Kodak papers to choose from. These services have the added benefit of using million dollar printing machines which can produce higher quality prints than consumer printers especially if the home user isn't knowledgeable enough to properly calibrate the printer.
Do you have any information on a scalable solution to scan all those photos that you don't have negatives for? I know you can outsource it but since they are irreplaceable I hate mailing them away. Is there a place that you can bring a box of them and they scan them and hand the box back to you?
Very good article. I have a Epson R380 Photo Printer and Epson 4490 Photo Scanner. Both devices work very well for what I use it for. It is a shame that alot of my relatives never kept the negatives as I could have scanned it with my scanner to produce photos for them to keep.
Now these days we all take digital photography for granted. Just point and click. Then take the SD card home to a printer for instant gratification for something that would have taken hours to do. I think doing it the old fashioned way a few times would show true appreciation of photography as it was in the old days.
Case in point, pioneer photographers with monster box size cameras strapped to a donkey on a long trip whereas today we just whip the camera out of our pocket and take a quick snapshot. Boy, times sure have changed! LOL
This should article should have been more prominent on the home page. One of the better written ones this month.
Good article. I would like to second the motion on adding information on getting the prints done by someone else. I am currently using Fotki because they claim to use archival quality inks and paper and I would be interested in seeing how they stack up to other firms. Also, I always thought that you couldn't print your own pictures for cheaper than an outside firm could. There are probably monetary advantages to going with someone else for printing. I think a follow-up article could be very interesting.
You should just go to a real photo lab and have your photos printed if you have any interest in having your prints last a lifetime.
Why give money to the ink cartels? Seriously, they told us 10 years ago our prints would last a lifetime too. Why should we believe them this time around?
Chemistry prints are the way to go.