ilfochrome display lifetime?

[percepts]

Was reading the ilfochrome datasheet and to my surprise the display lifetime seems to be very short, maybe only 20 years or so. I had always read it was good for 500 years. Is that only in dark storage? If display lifetime is short then why would anyone be using it for fine prints today?
What is your experience with its display life time?

[Oren Grad]

Wilhelm's test of Cibachrome years ago - results reported along with lots of others in his big book - told the same story: stable in dark storage, but fugitive on display.

[Arne Croell]

Was reading the ilfochrome datasheet and to my surprise the display lifetime seems to be very short, maybe only 20 years or so. I had always read it was good for 500 years. Is that only in dark storage?
Off the top of my head I remember something like 30years for display, but its in the same ballpark. Which, btw was the highest value when Wilhelms book first came out, everything else faded faster.

If display lifetime is short then why would anyone be using it for fine prints today?
Why do painters still use watercolors? Oil or acrylic is much more stable. It LOOKS the way they want.

[Nathan Potter]

Depends on the dose of light. I have a couple of test prints that have been in subdued room light under soda lime glass for 35 years now. The masking patches I applied when framed show no detectable change is reflection density to the image underneath compared to the exposed portion of the print. But I'm pretty careful about processing conditions. I'm sure it would be a different story under direct sunlight after 35 years.

Arne has it - I like the way it can look.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Bill_1856]

Ciba/Ilfochromes seem to darken, rather than fade with age.
I have some which have been continously displayed on my walls since the middle '70s which do not appear to have faded at all. These were sprayed after printing with a lacquer which was sold by the manufacturer to decrease the glossy Ciba surface. Some of my unsprayed prints are beginning to look a little dark (less brilliant).

[Vaughn]

Wasn't there a lifespan difference between the gloss and pearl surfaces?

[Oren Grad]

Wasn't there a lifespan difference between the gloss and pearl surfaces?

Wilhelm reported no difference in image stability. As I recall, the glossy is on a polyester base and the pearl on RC, so conceivably the latter could have a shorter lifespan under poor environmental conditions.

[Drew Wiley]

I have had Cibas displayed in indirect mtn sunlight for thirty years and they looked
brand new. On the other hand, direct sunlight or commecial halogens can fade these
in just a few years. In proper dark storage they appear completely permanent. Ciba
dyes fade at about the same rate, so you don't notice much until the print finally
"crashes". Wilhelm was much too dependent upon accelerated-aging tests using very
powerful UV light sources and extrapolating the results; but this kind of testing does
not not necessarily reflect real world conditions. All I can say is that Cibas don't like
UV, but that's true to some extent of all framed artwork. I once had some prints in
an expensive gallery right next to some of Rbt Motherwell's big acrylic paintings.
They had the lights so bright and hot that they were actually starting the melt the
acrylic paint. Obviously, I pulled my work. And fortunately, none of my Ciba seemed
to have reached the threshold of outright fading; in fact, these same prints still look
good many years later. But what Wilhelm did was to consistently force the edge of
tolerance and translate that into so many lux/years etc. The same kind of rote
extrapolation has been used for current inkjet and other digital media, and I believe
the real world will prove quite different in many respects. There's no substitute for
real time in a variety of situations. Do I display some of my Cibas? Absolutely. But
I keep them away from direct sunlight and halogens or other strong UV sources.

[percepts]

As ususal it comes down to display environmental conditions. Good to hear that they do last longer than 20 years but the ilforchrome datasheet shows cyan fading 30 or so percent in 25 years so I guess 50 years is pretty good.

[Drew Wiley]

What is significant is that the dyes don't simply fade on their own - you have to hit
them with quite a bit of light. That means that you could store a print almost indefinitely and it wouldn't begin to fade until it actually encountered adverse display
conditions... that is, for the typical polyester print base. The RC base (now discontinued) is just like any other PET on paper RC, in that the plastic itself will yellow
over time, so is not permanent in this respect. For this reason, in dark storage, Ciba really is archival, whereas C-prints like Crystal Archive are going to eventually degrade whether displayed or not. On the down side, Cibas need to be handled very carefully; the surface is quite fragile. But all that "how many years" stuff is pure BS. And anyone
who passes it along is involved in the same BS game. I feel utter disgust for anyone
who claims their particular inkjet prints will last for 500 hundred years when the product has only been on the market for six months!

[Drew Wiley]

Wanted to follow up on this a bit more. Wilhelm attempted to be impartial by utilizing
the same test parameters for each print type. But as good as this sounds, there is an
inherent flaw in this preconception. And that is because different kinds of dyes are
affected differently by potential fading agents. In the case of Cibachrome, you have
three azo dyes, presumably still dumbell-shaped diazo molecules. It takes a certain
threshold of energy to break apart the primary bond and degrade the dye. In accelerated aging tests, manufacturers and people like Wilhelm will nuke the dyes with
energy so intense that it will force the dye to fail. They record how many lux this
involved and extropolate this into years of service life. But in the real world, you might
never subject the print to such a high energy threshold. But not all light sources are equal. Everyone knows that UV is much more intense than an equal lux quantity of ordinary tungsten light, for example. The dyes in chromogenic prints behave quite differently than the chromolytic dyes in Ciba, and have improved greatly in recent years. Inkjet prints actually contain certain inks made from dyes, so aren't necessarily as reliable as mfg data suggest. And Cibas are descended from Gasparcolor prints of the 1930's. Some of these old prints are still around in perfectly vibrant condition. So everything depends upon actual display or storage parameters.