Archiving Photographs
Dec 1, 2015 11:54:13 #
I was thinking about and was wondering if the best long term archiving method might be printed photos in a photo album.
We all know that prints degrade over time, yet I have some photo albums from my father that contain photos from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Most of the pictures were of his time in the Army in Europe during WWII and after. I had these pictures digitalized and put on CD, not because the pictures themselves were degrading, but because the albums and album pages were disintegrating.
In the early days of computers the main data storage device was the Floppy Disc. That wasn't all that many years ago, yet today I doubt if any computer can accept Floppy Discs. It is even possible that a lot of people have no idea what a Floppy Disc is.
Who knows what future advances in technology will bring? (Hard drives are already being replaced by SSDs.) There is no reason to think that CDs/DVDs won't someday be made obsolete and forgotten.
So maybe the best archival method is photo albums.
We all know that prints degrade over time, yet I have some photo albums from my father that contain photos from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Most of the pictures were of his time in the Army in Europe during WWII and after. I had these pictures digitalized and put on CD, not because the pictures themselves were degrading, but because the albums and album pages were disintegrating.
In the early days of computers the main data storage device was the Floppy Disc. That wasn't all that many years ago, yet today I doubt if any computer can accept Floppy Discs. It is even possible that a lot of people have no idea what a Floppy Disc is.
Who knows what future advances in technology will bring? (Hard drives are already being replaced by SSDs.) There is no reason to think that CDs/DVDs won't someday be made obsolete and forgotten.
So maybe the best archival method is photo albums.
Dec 1, 2015 11:58:48 #
If the albums are disintegrating you might want to get some acid free envelopes and use them to store the prints and toss the albums. I think with electronic media it is a bit like hopscotch 5.5 floppies to 3.5 to thumb drive to dvd, etc. -- just staying with the flow.
Dec 1, 2015 12:04:14 #
quixdraw wrote:
If the albums are disintegrating you might want to get some acid free envelopes and use them to store the prints and toss the albums. I think with electronic media it is a bit like hopscotch 5.5 floppies to 3.5 to thumb drive to dvd, etc. -- just staying with the flow.
Yes, but how do we archive the photos for future generations when future generations may not be able to read the DVDs?
Dec 1, 2015 12:07:16 #
Keldon
Loc: Yukon, B.C.
Albums really aren't a bad idea, actually. And probably prove to be a lot cheaper than continually upgrading your storage devices and your playback medium to accommodate advancing technology.
And it's a lot easier to pull an album off the shelf and leaf through it than it is to fire up the computer or other device and search through tens or even hundreds of thousands of photos searching for that one special photo.
And it's a lot easier to pull an album off the shelf and leaf through it than it is to fire up the computer or other device and search through tens or even hundreds of thousands of photos searching for that one special photo.
Dec 1, 2015 12:09:37 #
Mac wrote:
I was thinking about and was wondering if the best... (show quote)
Regardless of method there is always a transition period. The FDD did not disappear over night. The CD that were the next generation are still around.
At the moment DVD 8.x GB seems to be the most logical approach to storing. Blue Ray seem to be the next generation. HDD and SDD drives or memory cards are a bad idea as their lasting power and reliability is rather limited (5 years is nothing)
The key to archiving is to pay to two very important factors before it is too late:
File format compliance (standard)
Media compliance and availability.
Dec 1, 2015 12:13:01 #
We are living is an interesting and potentially disastrous time. As you have realized digital/ virtual technology changes very quickly and often no one can use the older tech. It is a discussion important in the museum world because we have no idea how people will be lending or donating things for preservation. At the museum I work at all of our archiving is done with prints, traditional darkroom prints in fact because we know that they last when properly preserved. Digital files can be easily lost or put on a medium that can no longer be read. I think prints are the best idea. just make sure to use the right materials because bad materials are what are degrading. I see this all the time because I copy them to 35mm and print in the darkroom at our museum. Usually the prints are in good conditions. It is the mounting and display materials that are the problem.
Dec 1, 2015 12:21:05 #
I do think your images of today will have a better chance of surviving the next 50 years if they exist in the form of physical prints rather than stored digital files.
Imagine decades from now someone comes across your external hard drive, dusts it off, plugs it in to see what's on it, and discovers it does not read properly. Or perhaps does not work at all. So then the hard drive is tossed into the trash. All of your images stored on the malfunctioning drive are lost forever.
Imagine decades from now someone comes across your external hard drive, dusts it off, plugs it in to see what's on it, and discovers it does not read properly. Or perhaps does not work at all. So then the hard drive is tossed into the trash. All of your images stored on the malfunctioning drive are lost forever.
Dec 1, 2015 12:26:21 #
rook2c4 wrote:
I do think your images of today will have a better chance of surviving the next 50 years if they exist in the form of physical prints rather than stored digital files.
Imagine decades from now someone comes across your external hard drive, dusts it off, plugs it in to see what's on it, and discovers it does not read properly. Or perhaps does not work at all. So then the hard drive is tossed into the trash. All of your images stored on the malfunctioning drive are lost forever.
Imagine decades from now someone comes across your external hard drive, dusts it off, plugs it in to see what's on it, and discovers it does not read properly. Or perhaps does not work at all. So then the hard drive is tossed into the trash. All of your images stored on the malfunctioning drive are lost forever.
One of Ansel Adams assistants told me about some negatives that Adams had damaged because they dropped the line and he accidentally walked on them. They were very scratched and it took a lot of spotting to fix them. Eventually in the 80s or early 90s I believe, they were scanned retouched digital and exposed to copy film to make prints. One of these copy negatives was damaged. He (the assistant) went to the company that scanned them to see if they could make another. They couldn't. They had the file but it was inaccessible. They storage medium that file was on could not be read or accessed.
Dec 1, 2015 12:27:00 #
If everything is electronic, the next "dark ages" will be a lot darker than the last! Key point, I think is staying current with data storage. I just put some irreplaceable videos on both DVDs and SDHC cards -- next move will be to whatever comes next once the trend is established solidly.
Dec 1, 2015 12:54:04 #
quixdraw wrote:
If everything is electronic, the next "dark ages" will be a lot darker than the last! Key point, I think is staying current with data storage. I just put some irreplaceable videos on both DVDs and SDHC cards -- next move will be to whatever comes next once the trend is established solidly.
Certainly you can preserve your image files long term by periodically backing them up, transferring them to new storage devices, etc. But once you are gone, will your next of kin be just as diligent in maintaining your vast image collection, performing periodic data back-ups as needed? And what about the next generation after that? Maybe... but probably not. An interuption in maintenance can easily result in lost data and dead storage devices.
Dec 1, 2015 13:00:29 #
rook2c4 wrote:
Certainly you can preserve your image files long term by periodically backing them up, transferring them to new storage devices, etc. But once you are gone, will your next of kin be just as diligent in maintaining your vast image collection, performing periodic data back-ups as needed? And what about the next generation after that? Maybe... but probably not. An interuption in maintenance can easily result in lost data and dead storage devices.
Being dead and all at that point, don't believe it will worry me! Going through prints, negatives and slides -- my Dad's and mine, a lot of very fine photos and slides. Some meaningful, some not. Some valuable historic documents -- places and things and ways of life that no longer exist. I will selectively move the best to digital. At that point, my job is done.
Dec 2, 2015 07:42:53 #
Mac wrote:
In the early days of computers the main data storage device was the Floppy Disc. That wasn't all that many years ago, yet today I doubt if any computer can accept Floppy Discs. It is even possible that a lot of people have no idea what a Floppy Disc is.
Preservation of data for the future is something people in all fields are struggling with. What we need is a time machine to go ahead a hundred years and see what the technology is like. The best you can do is save your images to the current media and keep updating as the media changes.
Recently, an old satellite was spotted returning toward the earth. Scientists were trying to find a way to communicate with it, since the technology used then has been discarded.
Dec 2, 2015 08:52:31 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Recently, an old satellite was spotted returning toward the earth. Scientists were trying to find a way to communicate with it, since the technology used then has been discarded.
Recently, an old satellite was spotted returning toward the earth. Scientists were trying to find a way to communicate with it, since the technology used then has been discarded.
Jeez oh pete, that's simple. Didn't you see that instructional video a few yrs ago? All ya have to do is get a humpback whale to sing to it.
Dec 2, 2015 08:58:12 #
RON 11
Loc: Pittsburgh
I think you need to do both. Keep transferring your files to the next best thing but also print on quality paper and use archival storage boxes and albums to store the photos. Whatever you do ,guard the prints against uv light.
Dec 2, 2015 09:08:19 #
If you are serious about archival quality, many companies specialize in archival materials and storage boxes to save your precious images. My concern with electronic storage is that formats keep changing. As a back up to archival storage with archival materials, you may want to consider the "Cloud" as a back up but not primary.
Mac wrote:
I was thinking about and was wondering if the best... (show quote)
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