Digital BW, The Print

Perhaps some introduction of Henry Wilhelm is in order.  I became aware of
him around 1973, when he wrote his first book about B&W print permanence.
Wilhelm was one of the inventors of the archival print washer, and made the
first commercial one back then, the E Street Gallery washer.  After twenty
years of additional research, he wrote "The Permanence and Care of Color
Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides
and Motion Pictures"  This is IMHO one of the most significant professional
photography books published in the 1990s (1993 to be exact).

Wilhelm's principal work is understanding the causes of photographic
deterioration, designing storage systems to prevent it, and publishing
research information about it.  It is the methods he devised that are used
to measure digital prints in accelerated aging tests to determine their life
expectancy ratings. Although digital print deterioration is not his main
work, I think he has contributed more knowledge to this science than any
other person.  It is not perfect, however.  I think that unrealistic
expectations have led to some disappointments.

As to _what is archival_, it literally means that an archive is capable of
storing it.  That is about all.  There are many types of photographs that
cannot be stored by archives, the defects are too complex and they will die
even if frozen in total darkness.

Tom Robinson

> From: Tim Atherton <timatherton@...>
> Subject: RE: Epson Archival Matt again!
> 
>> 
>> --Epson Archival Matte was not found to be archival- showed signs of
>> yellowing after 30 yrs so they re-packaged it as "enhanced matte".
>> The independant company doing the tests is www.wilhelmresearch.com.
> 
> Oh, that "independent company"... :-)
> 
> PS - what's archival?