Print your photos

[bowjac]

I just watched an interesting piece on the likelihood of digital photos being lost over time, either through damage of the storage media, or obsolesence of the file or software that reads it.

The solution, print them.

My view is that prints are awesome. Consider it a new way of looking at your photos ("new way"? Ironic, but bizarrely true).

There is nothing better than pulling out old prints and having a good laugh or nostalgia session, with friends or family. And they will still be there, decades later.

And there are many ways to do it,

- print lots of small, cheap photos.
- print a few of your best, large and high quality, to last.
- create your own photo book. Many sites will do this for you,at reasonable prices.

I'm certainly feeling enthusiastic (hence the post), so i'll be spending the rest of the evening sorting through thousands of shots, to print my favourites.

I found this thread, which may help some.
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?136696-Where-do-you-print-your-photos&highlight=print

[ameerat42]

Do you have a link to this "interesting piece"? Others might appreciate it for their own evaluation.

Without having seen it, I feel at odds with:
1) the value of prints as indicated, and
2) the idea that other forms of image retention are as fraught as suggested.

And so, I do not agree that printing images is the panacea for problems associated with their preservation.

Please note that I am not taking issue with you about the ideas, but claims such as you cite should be
made available for more critical evaluation.

A word of caution: reconsider whether you want to get some of your better shots printed. The thread you cited did not go very far.
What you may consider a good shot on your screen may not be rendered as well after being printed. In addition - but quite importantly -
what sort of preservation methods are being suggested to maintain the resulting prints over the electronic means of doing so that
have been implicitly downplayed?

In the meantime, thanks for raising the idea.

Am.

[I @ M]

To put it succinctly bowjac, you are only looking at 1/2 of the picture at least.

Printing copies is good if they have 100 year lifespans, are fire resistant and can be stored economically in large quantities.
Digital backup is good if they are in a future proof format, destruction proof and in multiple copies.

You ideally need a combination of files, multiple "safe" locations and printed archives to ensure longevity to any image.

Having said that, I agree wholeheartedly that the ultimate destinantion for any image is to be printed ( preferably large ) and displayed prominently. :)

[Redgums]

Data retention is an age old problem!

virtually all electronic data recorded prior to 1965 is now unreadable. US Army service records from WW2 are no longer able to be accessed as the punch card readers no longer exist in working condition.

and I read somewhere that 90% of all movies made in the USA prior to 1970 have been lost forever!

[ricktas]

I agree with Andrew. There is no perfect solution. Prints have to be done on archival paper and stored as the manufacturer of that paper suggests, to last 100 years (or more). Prints are subject to fading/damage just the same as digital files can be. Transparencies (slides) degrade faster than prints in some instances. I have scanned thousands of my parents slides from the 1950's 60's 70's and many needed digital restoration as the quality had degraded since then. The digital copy doesn't necessarily degrade over time. The scans done 10 years ago, are still readable and display in the same quality as I scanned (and edited them), whilst the slide themselves continue to degrade.

Printing is but one method to archive, but it is not the only method that should be used.

[arthurking83]

I really don't think that this is going to be the problem that many make it out to be(for us).

Maybe for our great grand children it may be a problem .. or any situation where they may be a skip in generations .. it may be an issue.

Reason is:

For us; we as curators of our own collections do our best to maintain that collection as well as we can.
This may mean that we will migrate all our data from one hardware type to the new type that's just been made available. But during this transitional phase, we still have access to the respective hardware types we need .. so for us, into the future we will continue using this migration workflow into the future .. (for any of us that care for our images that is).

Those is us that don't care for our image/data ..
eg. the casual smartphone user that captures 24 selfies a day due to boredom. She may love taking these selfies, and stores them on her phone only .. then migrates to a new phone in 9 months time and doesn't really care to migrate 16Gb worth of selfies onto the new phone.
Eventually, after sitting in a drawer for 9 months, the old phone gets lost, given away or whatever and that 16G of selfies are totally lost. No one will lose sleep over this cache of images lost :p

Image formats change:
They sure do, and as people that generally care for our collected data, we will almost certainly migrate to any new/better file type too.
The likely hood is that any new data type will provide higher quality, and lower storage space .. and again, there will be a migration period where all formats will exist.

What if we ourselves pass on, and no one is left in charge to 'curate' our data collection .. well, if you want to pass it on for posterity .. then make plans for it.

me personally, I don't care about this.
I only care about my collection of images because I care about it .. that is while I live and breathe, I'll look after it.
When I die, it basically dies with me. I'll offer it to the kids .. if they're interested .. good .. for them. If not, it's gone.

Data gets lost all the time.
While that story of the US army is interesting... it's nothing new.

I'm sure that not many(if any) records of the Roman army still exist .. same with Ghengis Khan's and Napoleon's etc.

The more important question(in my mind) is .. is it worth keeping.
Keeping stuff just for the sake of keeping it just creates noise.

This is true of any historical memorabilia.
What makes it valuable is that it's rare.

As for printing! .. history has shown us that this is the least likely medium to survive into the future. (thus making it the most likely to be the most valuable :D)

A few years ago, I tried to do like Rick did .. to digitize hundred of slides my folks had from their early life.
I purchased a few hundred dollars worth of hardware to do this.
Mum had these slides in a large suitcase under a couch in the old living room(this was about '09).
I remember seeing it there and (STOOPIDLY!!) I left it there thinking it was safe. Mum used to get me to occasionally re print an odd photo from the very early 1900's that she had from the old country(they're from Greece).
I got all the gear I needed to digitize them in early '10, went to get the suitcase .. it's gone.

Where is it?
Your sister took it.
Sis! .. where the suitcase?
What suitcase? .. oh, mum's got that.
Mum said you have it.
.. and back and forth it went .. and still goes!

Images may well have faded a bit, or otherwise been deteriorating in some way .. but human neglect will likely be the cause for their loss, than will the process of 'natural selection'.

[Hamster]

I really don't think that this is going to be the problem that many make it out to be(for us).



Thanks, that saved me a longer post as that was pretty much what I was thinking. I'll manage/curate and pass them on. If they're lost after I'm dead and buried then I won't care.

[bowjac]

Thanks for all of your excellent responses.



You ideally need a combination of files, multiple "safe" locations and printed archives to ensure longevity to any image.


I guess this is what I failed to say in my own post.

I am still enthusiastic about prints. They have their place the spectrum of storage/viewing methods. And being a slightly old coot, I do have a soft spot for them.

Here is the link to the piece I was referring to (Mods, feel free to delete it if I'm breaching any rules)
http://www.digitalrev.com/article/print-your-photos-to-protect/MzIxODk5MDYw

Thanks again.