Digital BW, The Print

Julian Thomas <julianthomas@...> writes on 18 November 2002 at 18:23:13 +0100
 > I hate to keep saying this but SOME pigs are worse archivally than SOME
 > dyes. HP pigs are easily beaten by Ilford dyes on the right paper. Why are
 > we being suckered into 100 year archivability? Should watercolour artists
 > not use watercolours because they are not 100yr - or sculptures not use iron
 > because the blacks go brown? How long should a photo last? Everyone was
 > happy with C-type, Ilfochrome, Iris etc which many dye based inksets now
 > match or surpass. Mark - if you want the image to be right why not just
 > accept what has become the norm for colourprints if you can find a dye/paper
 > combo you like??

Sorry, but everybody was *not* happy with c-type, in particular.  One
of the reasons that color photos lagged in collectibility was concerns
about the permanence of chromagenic prints.  That's also a factor in
why dye-transfer was for a while much more acceptable. 

A photo should last forever, of course, just like everything else.
What I'm willing to trade off to achieve that, or exactly where it
ranks in the priorities, is a large, muddy, open issue of course. 
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...  /  http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
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