Digital BW, The Print

Not so WRONGO, Peter

So, you're telling me - and everybody else - that it will be easier for 
my heirs or whoever get their hands on my work - that it will be easier 
to scan several hundred thousand images - present count - rather than 
transfer the stuff from one system to another?

I presume that the technology will be "advancing" and it will be easier 
and easier to move from one storage media to another - and what fits on 
100 DVD's now will soon fit on one - etc., etc.,

As for floppies - as  a Mac user I left that stuff behind years and 
years ago -and yes - I do have a few hundred floppies laying around 
full or useless old programs and stuff - BUT - all my work is easily 
accessible on DVD and hard drives - and if you did read my postings you 
should have picked up on that I store copies on both DVD and hard 
drives . And I am a Mac user so it again doesn't get obsolete so 
quickly - but - all DVD's are burned for cross platform access.

Somehow I don't think it will be so quickly obsolete that whoever is in 
charge of the work won't be able to move it from one storage media to 
another - and rather easily.  And, yes, I do think they'll want to do 
so as they will be able to continue to sell prints or license images.

Film - I have a few prints by Milton Greene - prints of Marilyn Monroe. 
Lovely stuff! His son has been busy for several years now scanning and 
digitally restoring all his film - as they were all fading away..... 
Anything to be learned here?

Anyway - I don't think I would leave anything laying around for 10 or 
15 years without re burning or re storing my stuff. You may not think 
it is worth anything but I do - and the print and licensing sales seems 
to bear that out - so I'll do whatever it takes to keep it up  to date 
- and if I do - I can easily market and sell it.

Christer


			Christer, AKA Christer Rosewell
"It's the artist's job to accomplish two things-to stir the emotions of 
the viewer
	  and to lay bare the soul of his subject." Jousuf Karsh
      Member EP (Editorial Photographers) - 4,000+ professionals 
worldwide.
			  http://www.ChristerArt.com
		  	   3.4+ million visitors to date..


On Nov 23, 2004, at 7:59 PM, 
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com wrote:

>    From: "Peter Nelson" <pnweb@...>
> Subject: Re: how many REALLY do store digital copies elsewhere
>
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Christer
> Rosewelll <christerart@m...> wrote:
>>  you gotta leave something behind for those who's
>> supposed to dissect you and your work when you're
>> not around anymore - if nothing else - this will
>> make it a lot easier for 'em...=*^)
>
> WRONGO!
>
> It will make it a lot HARDER for 'em!
>
> Digital technology changes so fast that even 15 years from now there
> will be no easy way to read those DVD's.
>
> Assuming that the shelf life of the media itself isn't an issue, in
> 15 or 20 years we'll be - what - maybe 3 generations of storage
> technology past DVD's.    Traditionally PC's overlap one generation
> prior to what's current.   When 3.5" floppies came out most PC's also
> came with 5.25" floppies, too.   When CD's came out they still
> shipped with 3.5" floppies but 5.25's were gone.  Now that DVD's are
> standard, 3.5" floppies are going away (NONE of my last 3 computers
> came with one) but PC's can still read CD's.
>
> So say XYZ replaces DVD in 5 years - DVD's will still be around.
> But 5 years later, when ABC replaces XYZ, DVD's will go and computers
> will still have old XYZ drives.
>
> And nevermind the drives - you would also need DRIVERS, and something
> that can read the file formats, etc!!    How many PC's today have
> drivers and display software for hardware and image formats that were
> in use 20 years ago?
>
> So your plan forces your heirs and descendants to keep copying your
> images to whatever is current every few years!   That's a lotta
> trouble for them to go through!   What makes you think they'll be
> willing to do that?
>
> Now *I*, on the other hand, have Kodachrome slides and BW negatives
> my father took over 60 years ago!!    They have been sitting around
> in attics and drawers all this time and NOBODY had to do ANYTHING to
> update them.   Yet I can pop them into my Nikon Coolscan and read
> them like they were taken yesterday.
>
> If you want archival images for your descendents, you need to pick a
> storage medium that does not force them to do constant maintenance.
> I suggest BW silver-emulsion film.   Even if there are no scanners,
> because no ones uses film, in the future, there will still be
> cameras.   And those cameras will be FAR higher-res and wider dynamic
> range than today.   So your descendants can just "scan" the old film
> by taking a picture of it, like people do today to copy slides with
> their cameras.

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