Digital BW, The Print

I've been reading this topic, and getting frankly a bit frustrated because we are confusing the term 'archival' -vs- 'archiving' and getting 'fine art' mixed in the fray. Because a medium is 'archival' doesn't mean it's ideal for archiving, and because it might look good on a wall doesn't mean it's good for archiving.

I didn't get into carbon / pigment ink-jet printing because the prints last 100years. Most of us I dare say got into this medium because of the controls and quality that result in the process as being a superior alternative to anything commercial or dealing with the mess of wet-lab printing. The fact these prints last a very long time is important, but not nearly as important as to how they look.

I'm not sure where we steered into the archiving conversation, but I have some serious issues with anybody claiming conservatory standards for a B&W medium because this is 2011 and not 1911. Back in the early 90's I worked on several projects archiving some local landmarks, and since our goal was to actually 'archive' the structures without the aid of digital we followed the goals literally. The photographer shot color E-6 on 4x5, and we printed those images on glossy Cibachrome to the best of our abilities where they are currently in dark storage. I do believe the National Archives followed a similiar routine for a few decades.

Those images will likely last a very, very long time, and when they are viewed 25-50-100 years hence they will still be very close to when we originally printed them because they are not being degraded by light. Plus, being glossy, they will actually be scannable with very high precision unlike matte or textured papers. No one is going to point at the images and ask "why did they shoot it in B&W? Didn't color exist in 1992?" 50 years down the road an art critic is not going to grade my prints on tonal value.

In regards to the digital debate, I dare say Ansel Admam's Department of Energy portfolio has been viewed far more times on the Internet than it has in physical form, and every image I've scanned or aquired since I started with digital 15years ago is on my current hard-drive. External drive storage is cheap, easily redundant, even in the terrabyte range, and migrating data isn't too difficult. I work in a variety of corporate data centers, and nobody uses optical storage anymore nor misses it. If you're worried about a nuclear EMP or solar flare from the sun wreaking your magnetic storage you might find more priorities in the aftermath than re-printing your images.

S Eaton


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul" <paulmwhiting@...> wrote:
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> I think I've mentioned this before, a while back, but please indulge me to mention it again.
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> I have a sample running in the Aardenburg test site, they were printed using the EpsonR1800/Premier Art FineArt 205/Eboni combination. The test (item #144) is up to 70 megalux-hours and doing quite well. (We owe a big debt to Mark and his worthy project!)
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> I do some local work with historic preservation and take photos submitted to the National Register. For many years I was submitting darkroom prints to their standards, but at their website they put out a call for newer technology prints. So I contacted them describing the carbon ink process and they now accept prints using the combination mentioned above.
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> It's been very satisfactory - but I'm still uneasy about storing the digital files. The Register does request, in addition to the prints, the files on a gold CD. Still, as has been mentioned here, what will happen when CD drives go the way of 5.25" or 3.5" disk drives? The Millenniata project does look promising ... but still....
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> Paul
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> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul" <roark.paul@> wrote:
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> > This could be an interesting option for long term image storage.  Check out http://millenniata.com/
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> > Paul
> > www.PaulRoark.com
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