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[OM] Re: Film Vs. Digital

Subject: [OM] Re: Film Vs. Digital
From: AG Schnozz <agschnozz@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:58:00 -0700 (PDT)
I've done some mean testing of prints over the past five years. 
As my printer is a dye based printer (Canon S9000), fading is a
major concern.  Also, I wanted to test the differences between
various types of B&W papers with and without selenium toning.

My tests involved taping the prints to the outside wall (south
facing) of my house, just up under the eave enough to keep rain
off of them.  Interstate 80 runs right past the house, so there
is plenty of polutants in the air too.  I also placed prints
done with a archival chemical process on the wall too.  If just
one print was available of a type, I'd cut it in two and place
one half in controlled dark-storage in archival sheets along
with all the other control copies.

As I have stated previously about these tests, I've found one
particular paper for the inkjet that provides more archival
quality than any chemical print. Ilford Galerie Classic along
with a high-quality ink (MIS Bulk Inks or Canon OEM) is
essentially fade-proof.  There is a very slight loss of density,
but not enough to worry about.  One test print (color charts,
etc) is actually placed inside a florescent light fixture and
has been there for over two years now.  The density has
decreased by about one step on the test target.  Really not bad,
considering.

I have an archival chemical print that is about 15 years old
which gets about an hour of direct sunlight every day (and the
rest of the day it's getting a ton of indirect sunlight.  It
held up very fine until about a year ago when it seemed to start
fading with a vengence.  It seems that there was a point where
it just gave out.

B&W?  Well, Selenium toning didn't make one hoot of a
difference.  After spending a lot of time and effort verifying
the longevity of my prints, I stopped toning them.  Making sure
that the fixer is cleared out is more important than anything. 
I even took test strips and secured them to the TOP of my deck
railing.  The rain, sun, sleet, dirt, dust and snow just was
left there to soak in, etc.  The fiber prints would swell and
then get really brittle. Eventually the prints just fell apart.
The RC papers would start to pit and eventually the coating just
wore away.  In reality, they held up better than the fiber
prints.  It would take about 20 inches of rain, but the inks in
the Ilford prints would eventually wash out and the surface
would wear away like the RC prints did.

What about the chemical archival prints?  My test samples didn't
hold up very well.  FCA, wouldn't wash out, but the RC surface
would erode like the RC papers.  The densities would change on
the FCA, but not in a linear manner.

Frankly, I have a feeling, based on what I've seen with other
print technologies, that most "archival" technologies will
resist image degradation UP TO A POINT.  I've got dozens of
multi-year old Canon Dye Prints around the office here, totally
unprotected and exposed to non-stop florescent light that show
absolutely no fading.  And some of these are on just Canon
paper.  But what happens to a print in year-10?  Just because a
print holds up for the first nine years doesn't mean that the
archival characteristic will hold out the tenth year.  Just like
using high quality CDRs for data storage, they might be better
for a period of time, but at some point all brands/models will
fail.  There is nothing about pigment-based prints that make me
believe any differently.  We don't have time on our side yet.
Wilheim tests are decent, but still accellerated--not taking
into account the intangibles that come with laps around the sun.

Obviously Pigment based inks are better than most other
technologies--as far as we know today.  However, it is apparant
that it isn't good enough since Epson has been reformulating
their inks to "improve" longevity along with fixing other
aspects.

AG

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