Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-03-10 23:59 , Neil Gould wrote:
"Alan wrote:\

One problem with this line of reasoning is that you are describing two
pools of photo takers.

Yes to the "two pools" notion, and the "conservators" being a much
smaller group. (I don't see that as a "problem" however).

Of course you don't, it's your position and you have repeatedly shown
you have no intent on ever bending your position no matter how much
evidence is thrown at you. I highly doubt the "conservators" are much
more than .1% of camera users, if even that. And of those an even
smaller % will be successful at even 100 year archival status of digital
data.



By your own statement, the digital images that
survive will be managed by those that take extraordinary care of their
data.

I'd characterize it more as "best reasonable effort." Which is orders
of magnitude better than ordinary neglect. And then an even smaller
group making extraordinary efforts.


The problem with digital "best reasonable effort" = failure. With film
that wasn't the case. So with digital ONLY the "extraordinary efforts"
will = success. I recently found some B&W negatives of my parents as
children, they are at least 80 years old and the only effort taken was
they were put in an envelope and put in a drawer, forgotten.



This is not likely to be the same group that will generate the
large number of images you are basing your "1 in 1,000,000 surviving
images" upon. Considering the archival replication processes necessary

Really to illustrate the vast number of photos taken that drive a
likelihood of a portion surviving.

Not a reasonable way to calculate this.



in order to keep a digital image for 500 years, I'd say that your
notion is grossly overestimated, if for no other reason than the cost
of the effort to preserve them.

To be clear: I'm really addressing "survivors" on a statistical basis.
And of course survival favours the prepared.

But you just pulled the statistics out of thin air. You have absolutely
nothing to base your assumptions on.


The cheapest method that requires no long term plan is to use archival
CD/DVD (BluRay?) and to store them benignly. There is a very high
probability that a small number of the disks will be well kept. Out of
those, a fraction will retain their data in whole or in part.

You ignore that these disks almost never keep data "In part", they
usually fail 100% or work 100%.



It's just big, big, big numbers and the survival of some of the data.
But some small part of a really big number is still a lot.

You totally ignore that this data is MUCH more fragile than prints or
film is. You have to physically destroy them for them to 100% fail.
Given lots of the "billions of images taken" never are even saved to a
hard drive (most are garbage and just are deleted)the chances of a
"deluge of images" being around even 10 years from now is being naive..
In fact MOST people predict the exact opposite, this era will be a
vacuum of images.


I should mention the image agencies such as Corbis which amass images
(film and digital) and go to great lengths to preserve those images.
Most of the images they own are very ordinary and some are important.
All are cataloged and preserved. Given the value of image businesses,
these images are destined to survive for a very long time even as the
business changes hands and purpose, technology changes and so on.


Sure and these "professional images" aren't what most people consider
important to save. They want to see pictures of their childhood or their
grandmother as a child etc. Those will mostly disappear in a short
period of time.

Stephanie