Digital BW, The Print

Hello Richard,

>because they are normally displayed behind windows anyway, would it 
>not be better to put them under  glass in the direct sun to remove 
>this contaminant factor? I appreciate that longer would be needed 
>for the test, however.

Sure, there are lots of things that with some thought could be done to
make better test conditions.  I didn't set out to make an official
scientific test of some sort, it was more just to satisfy my own
curiosity.  There had been a lot of talk about OBA burn off and I was
wondering how much OBAs were in VFA, especially since Epson advertises
that VFA and EEM have the same coating and EEM yellows in a few weeks.
I was looking at a test print one day and just decided to put it out
in the sun and log the time...and just see what happens.

I am continuing the testing, BTW.  We have a cloudless day today and
it went out on the porch at 8:35 a.m.  It should get a good long shot
today.  We'll see what happens after another 100 hours.

I know it's not a good scientific test with tightly controlled
conditions, and I don't know what these 100 hours represent in Lux and
UV exposure (not to mention car and lawn mower exhaust and whatever
else it may been exposed to), but it certainly should relieve concerns
about VFA not being a good lightfast paper because it has OBAs, and
the notion that any paper with OBAs will soon turn yellow.  As I
mentioned in the Paper Archivability thread, there are different types
of OBAs and the technology is improving (and, as W pointed out in the
Reichmann interview [and has been mentioned here numerous times], the
fiber silver gel papers we used for years had OBAs [and were
alpha-cellulose]).  

It's also a good testimony for K3/ABW as there is no visible fading or
color shifting.  I assume we'll see some at some point.  We'll see
what happens as the test progresses. 

I would encourage everyone here to do a similar test with whatever
ink/paper combination they are using.  I'd love to see other user
reports posted here.  I'd be willing to tabulate the results over time
and post them on my web site.  I think it would be a valuable resource.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm