Before CD-R came along, I was advocating people use
separations for Wedding Photos, and other similarly precious images.
However, I was taken to task on that on the grounds that reproducing
color images from separations is quite expensive. I have no reason to
doubt that iut is inmappropriate as a general archive, just to be used
for the irreplaceable family treasures.
Hersch
At 10:19 AM 08/07/2001, you wrote:
Hersch
wrote:
He [Mark] wants 20 years. My
20-year-old slides and negatives have degraded enough that they need Ed's
roc, and are generally not as 'good as new.' I think the digital resource
is more reliable, if proper care and storage, and regular renewal are
carried out.
It needs to be mentioned that not all 20-year-old film is equal (we all
know the principles, but we don't often encounter the examples
head-to-head). :-)
If film is stored in a cool, dark, humidity-controled environment, its
lifetime is very good over a period of 100-years or so--providing that
the film base and chemicals were "archiveable" in the first
place (and not all were). Some of my mother's slides are 52 years
old--only a few of them are degraded: some by obvious light exposure,
some by dust, a very few just faded (poor dyes or development).
But both Hersch and Maris are right. Film is stable, and so are digital
numbers; the problem being that *nothing* is really permanent, so
continuous and redundant archiving, at this point in time, is the safest
way to approach this problem.
Best regards--LRA
It is not wide spread, but photographers have archived color images as
black and white color separations for years. The longevity of black
and white film is pretty well established.
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
