hollidaypr wrote:
First was the quality of some of the shots. The blacks were stunning! And many of the less dense shots were still easily recognized. However, many of the later color shots washed out to a nearly unrecognizable point. Black and whites generally held their images, even when not well processed.
Don't throw out the discoloured photos yet. Many scanners have a setting to deal exactly with this discolouration. While scanning these photos will not make them perfect, it will make a huge improvement.
hollidaypr wrote:
I also wondered what my grandchildren will be looking at in fifty years or so. Since I don't print many pictures now, I have lost a lot of shots to software upgrades, hard drive failures, and storage format changes. My whole group of collected wall graffiti is gone, as are many of my other random shots of family, friends, and scenes.
hollidaypr wrote:
My point? I think I need to print more shots on archival paper with archival inks, and probably in black and white, if I want future generations to be able to view my work.
Actually what you need is a good system for backing up your photos.
Software upgrades: Don't just upgrade your software, and start using it, while deleting the previous version. First make sure your newer software will still read your older images. If not, retain the older software and use it to convert your images to a universal format (I'm thinking, for example of "dng" for raw files). Only when you you are satisfied that your new software can deal with your old images, delete/uninstall the old software.
Hard drive failures: It has been discussed often enough that the question is not "if" a hard drive will fail, but "when." But I have yet to read a discussion that 3 hard drives, purchased at different times and of different brand names, all failed at the same time. Actually, I do know of one instance where three external drives were lost at the same time: there was a housefire and the the externals were kept together in the same desk drawer. So, the message is to copy your photos to two or three different hard drives and keep at least two of them off-site (office, parents' or child's house, etc), or as has become popular, get a cloud subscription as well as one or two external drives.
Storage format changes: Not sure what you mean here. I shoot jpg + raw, and after culling the bad ones or "almost" duplicates, I also store both formats. At least till after I have dealt with the raw files, then I usually delete the camera's jpg, and save the raw, sidecar and jpg files from raw, together - on the computer's hard drive. At the end of the day (or no later than the end of the week) copy them to an external drive that I keep at the opposite end of the house from the computer, in a small, supposedly water- and fireproof safe (haven't tested to see if it really is). When we go to visit our son and his family, that external goes with me and stays with my son, while the one at his place comes home with me to be updated and then put in the safe.
I have been shooting digital for almost 20 years now, and have not lost a single photo through any of the reasons you give.
Yes, I do have a number of my pictures printed. And many I use to make photo/scrap books for the grandkids. They love to have their own books.