Depends on the neighborhood the dumpster is in. I want my prints thrown into one down the street from a pizza parlor. Then when the bums are scrounging in it,
and find a pile of matboard with ketchup dripping on it, and compare it to the pizza crusts in the dumpster down the street, I will be immortalized for inventing a
better tasting crust, and the bums will become rich from the franchise.
An archival photograph is one that is scanned and stored on M-Disk.
M-disk is a high density DVD type media that has a layer of organic compounds a bit similar to a very thin layer of rock. The laser burns the image in digital form into the rock effectively... The Wikipedia article quotes a certain firm which claims 1000 year longevity.
Normal DVD has a pigment layer I believe.
:-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
Any claim to longevity which exceeds the time a technology has been used should, with all due respect, be taken with a pinch of salt.
Most of this kind of testing is down to accelerated heat/cooling cycles, and/or exposure to concentrated exposure to light and chemical conditions expected to be seen by the product but they don't - and can't - take into account the actual conditions which the product will see, and they are at best extrapolations in good faith.
It is after all very easy to claim a thousand year life in the full knowledge that whatever happens, the seller is unlikely to be around to answer any claims in fifty...
Neil
Agreed!
But the testing must indeed show a pretty stable product all the same. My bet is at least 200 years. That is one-fifth their claim and can surely only be considered a conservative bet.
200 years would be pretty much a guarantee and that'll do me given that if one could get the data off the disk in 200 years to print it, the printed copy has a headstart.
Not to mention that there are a myriad of technologies between now and then that may well make the digitised image even more 'archival'.
The important thing is to get the original into digital form because the optical process of enlargement itself is very hard to come by. Good luck finding a optical enlargement lab in 20 years for your 8x10 films !
Anyway ... who wants to see my stuff ?!
So what's the evidence that Wickedpedia is itself worthy of being called archival? How many centuries has it been monitored for reliability? I'm not very good at math or physics and can't quite understand all this curved universe stuff. I do know about accelerated aging tests, and do know about marketing and its rather
liberal use of something called the BS Coefficient. An original is an original. "Digital form" is something else. If I ever get to visit Egypt, I don't want to see what
the pyramids look like in digital form.
Paula and I take every care and guarantee our prints for 1000 years. There is a catch, however. The guarantee is non-transferable.
Michael A. Smith
Ha!
So Michael, if I could print onto Lodima paper from say a nice Durst digital printer (or the equivalent) I could then offer a product with a 1000 year guarantee that is transferable ... a point of difference in my favour !
:-)
(I'll stop now ...)
To be an authentic original print, you have to be around to make it yourself! I hoot and holler every day about "fine-print" too-good-to-be-true 50-year or even "lifetime" warranties by shady manufacturing or marketing entities that aren't likely themselves to be in business more than a couple of years before going into
the non-transferable vortex of yet another vulture capitalism scheme. There goes your warranty down the drain with it! Analogously, if you want to offer a 200
year warranty on your prints, for example, then you have to live at least that long to honor it! And the same materials would have to be available. Or if it's
the gallery backing the warranty, just how long do many of those business ventures survive???? There is one highly reputable manufacturer who puts into print
the following: "Our warranty is our reputation. Period."
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