Digital BW, The Print

Hello to everyone,

I want to thank Tyler for taking the time to raise the awareness about the AaI&A digital print research program. The nature of digital printing, especially inkjet, is that we no longer have a narrowly defined material and process chemistry like most other traditional photographic printing processes. The term I often see in galleries, "archival pigmented print" sounds great but signifies essentially nothing.  Mixing and matching printers, inks, and papers creates unique print longevity characteristics. The only way to evaluate these characteristics is to test the combinations directly. And that brings forth an entirely new issue in this modern digital age. The traditional funding model (ie, relying on manufacturers) breaks down. What printer manufacturer wants to support the testing of some other vendors' non OEM ink or paper, and what small independent ink or paper supplier can compete with the OEMs in R&D dollars spent on longevity testing, especially when it has to test cross-platform but the OEMs don't? 

I'm most proud of the modern updated test methods I've developed in the last several years. I have done a lot of cool research projects in my carreer, but the I* color and tonal accuracy metric I invented is, IMHO, the best work I have done to date.  However, it may well be that the more overarching industry problem I have potentially solved is that by opening an independent testing program up to the end-user community, the AaI&A testing model fixes the current independent lab business models which aren't able to adequately address this "mix and match" era of inkjet printing.  Moreover, it creates a healthy balance between the self-interests of the manufacturers and those of the end-user community.

Now for some statistics. Please bear with me. I regret if it seems like a crass commercial solicitation on my part. Tyler's cross-post  a couple of days ago probably reached at least 10,000 unique end-users of digital printing materials and processes. There appear to be 9500 plus members in this group alone. His very kind efforts on my behalf quickly brought about 15 new members to the AaI&A program for which I'm very grateful. However, the half-life on forum posts generating traffic to a particular website is probably about two days. The funds raised from my 15 new members are barely enough to cover the annual re-certification bill for my NIST traceable radiometer I use to calibrate my light fade units. I'm not complaining. I really am grateful to Tyler and to my new members. But, the AaI&A digital print research program really needs at least 2500 members at current subscription rate to close in on a break even point, and at the current level of new members joining it will take many years to get there.  It is definitely a "chicken and egg, which comes first" problem as well. I need membership to fund new tests, but I need a big database of interesting test results to attract new members.  Yet this membership goal could be accomplished quickly if about 1/4 of this group alone stepped up to help the program in the next few months. That wishful thought is no doubt very unrealistic, but is a target of 2500 eventual members world-wide so unrealistic? Everywhere I turn in the photographic and printmaking community, people seem to want to know some facts about print longevity.  With this inherent interest in the subject and a subscription rate of only $25, I don't think this membership goal is unrealistic. Unfortunately, the issue for me isn't concern about ultimate membership ranks. It is about time. The AaI&A digital print research program will continue forward no matter what (I'm very stubborn), but I will soon have to scale back my full-time efforts and look for other work to make ends meet.  I can manage both tasks of course, but solving this light fade testing bottleneck for the photography and printmaking community  would really get jump started if I can locate those 2500 people world-wide sooner rather than later. And then we can move on to other print permanence and image quality tests as well.

Cheers,

Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com