Where will B&W be in 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 .... years

bob wrote:

Tom Phillips wrote:

bob wrote:

Tom Phillips wrote:


Images from digital files can be archivally printed too. Why do you
think that photos from color film will be around in 1000 years?


Bob, I thought this thread was about b&w...

_Film_ can easily last 1000 years, color or b&w. Ever hear
of transparencies?

So when you said "film" you really meant "the subset of film comprised
of archivally processed silver B&W film, plus Kodachrome"? Your use of
the general term without the qualifiers was misleading.

It still applies to film generally. Check out the Acetate
Film Guide published by the Image Permanance Institute
(free on their web site.) The difference between color and
b&w films are twofold: base and dyes. Dyes fade, but light
and heat are the major factors. Thus any color film can be
preserved indefinitely by cold dark storage; theoretically
thousands of years. B&W film on acetate (generally roll films)
is also archival if storage conditions preclude vinegar syndrome
(not all that hard to do.) Other b&w films on polyester base
(like Tmax sheet films) are ridiculously long lived even under
normal (room) storage conditions. Toning b&w films likewise
ensures archivalness.

No digital file will ever come close; in
a 1000 years you probably won't even be able to read the
media it's stored on even if the data hasn't yet corrupted
(fat chance.) These issues and facts have been discussed ad
nauseam (at least in in r.p.dakroom), so I guess you just
haven't read the info.

I've read the opinions, sure. Mostly they are discussions of 25 to 50
years hence, not 1000. In 1000 years maybe civilization will have
collapsed and there will be no computers at all to read the digital
files. It's also possible that technology will continue to evolve, and
will do things beyond our wildest imagination.

As it stands now there is no way to ensure digital
is archival. Of course we can speculate.

Plus, the very real likelihood/danger
is _all_ digital information may disappear (big article
recently in the NY Times on this...) except that diligently
maintained by the government (after all, they have to spy on
somebody...)

I don't read the NY Times. What is the theory? I suspect that for the
most part things will go on in the future the way they do now. Important
papers (with writing or images) will be preserved by people for whom
they have meaning, and the rest will be discarded.

To a large extent I'm sure that's true. But the difference
is with photographic materials people can ignore their
preservation and stick them in a basement box and 200
years from now be rediscovered. maybe not in perfect
condition but that senario is not likely to happen
with digital images left unattended on someone's hard
drive.

The article is still there, you just have to register
with a user name and password.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/te...10archive.html

"...no one has figured out how to preserve these electronic
materials for the next decade, much less for the ages.
Like junk e-mail, the problem of digital archiving,
which seems straightforward, confounds even the experts...
So dire and complex is the challenge of digital preservation
in general that the Library of Congress has spent the last
several years forming committees and issuing reports on the
state of the nation's preparedness for digital preservation."

BTW, inkjets are not photographs, they're reproductions from
stored computer data. There is no photograph in the digital
process. It's all regenerated data (electrons - voltage -
digital signals - magnetic data bits - screen pixels) until
output as an reproduction from a digital file (i.e., drops of
ink sprayed onto paper.) Sprayed ink is not a photograph; it's
fancy newsprint

You're not going to get many takers for that argument. Just look at the
meanings of the two roots, photo, and graph. There is nothing in the
meaning of the word that requires silver gelatin emulsions. I don't make
inkjet prints anyway, except when I use the 36" plotter.

Not fond of dictionary (vernacular) definitions
here but:

"Photograph: a picture or other image obtained by the chemical
action of light or other radiation on specially sensitized material
such as film or glass." New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

I can't go through this discussion when all these
discussions are archived, but "photograph" means a
physical chemically-actuated image on light sensitive
materials. That's the scientific meaning of the word
(i.e., coined specifically by scientist John Herschel,
etc.) Other "images" idiomatically called a "photo"
but are in fact reproductions. Digital produces no
image whatsoever, only data representing an image.
That's a scientific and technological fact.

Also, the ISO defines digital image as an electronic
signals which represents a still pictures. ISO 12231
Photography Electronic Still Picture Imaging Terminology.


Now, when those repro images on fancy giclee newsprint have
been around as long as real silver photographs (almost 200
years and counting), get back to me and we'll talk about
inkjet longevity ;-)

But there are ways to print digital files without using inkjets.
Example: you can print a (B&W) images on a laser printer, and use
acetone to transfer the toner onto a stainless steel plate. Without
doing any testing, I think it would be much easier to maintain an
archive of toner on steel plates than silver in gelatin on plastic.

In fact, typical color dye prints today do have a display life
of at least 100 years. Color technology is more advanced than
when I'm guessing you printed those. OTOH, it's _all_ a matter
of storage and display with color materials. All color dyes,
inks, etc will fade if not stored or displayed properly.

In my testing, color toner does not fade. Rather simple, uncontrolled
tests, like leaving a print on my dashboard. If I leave them outside in
the yard they eventually fade, but I think that's more to do with the
rain and the dogs than the sun.

Has to do with oxidation. Course dog pee would likely
be acidic...

If
your prints have faded, I doubt it's the print's fault. I have
ciba's on my wall that look like the day I printed then 30
years ago.

My mom has a book of color prints that date back 30 or so years; most of
them look just fine, but one in particular has nearly vanished. These
prints are all dark stored (together). The one print is clearly
defective, in comparison to the others.

It's hard to troubleshoot individual occurances. My
preference is to archaivally store the negatives/
transparencies. These are the originals, not the
prints.

bob wrote:

Tom Phillips wrote:

bob wrote:

rafeb wrote:


I'll put my money on pigment inks, but dyes are
inherently less stable. The only hope for dye ink
longevity is a very compatible substrate that can
prevent oxidation of the inks. I don't know how

I'm particularly interested in the archival qualites of color laser
printout. I have a feeling that the prints will last as long as the
paper, but I don't know with certainty. They don't seem to be impacted
by UV.


Those are _silver_ based images (assuming you're talking about
lightjets, etc.) Inks and pigments have to be sprayed. You're
mixing up a lot of terms and printing technologies here...

Reread my question, and assume that I am not mixing anything up. I am
actually wondering about toner based color laser printers -- i.e. the HP
color LaserJet 4560n. I know that B&W laserjet toner is archival. I
wonder about color.

My mistake.

But I'd say not. Thought you meant laser light output
(i.e., digital images on silver halide paper exposed
via laser light as in a lightjet.)

"PGG" wrote in message
newsan.2005.03.15.04.07.15.104000@NO_SP_A_Myahoo .com...
The same might happen with semiconductors once the feature size is too
small for optical post-lithography techniques (yes, they have techniques
like Xrays for making the masks, but I'm talking about the process after
mask creation). The cost to move beyond this might simply be too high.
Just like the cost of moving to supersonic airline travel is not deemed
worth it in the airline industry.

In this case, digital may never make the 8x10 film camera obsolete

I think you're chasing in the wrong direction. Feature size isn't the issue.
It's die yield and manufacturing advances for large sensors. 8x10??!! Very
small handhelds with non-traditional optics and very questionable resolution
claims will be commonplace, perhaps boasting 20+ MP equivalent of
multi-layered color within ten years. Feature size in those will be
important, at least to the bean counters among us.

Anyway, B&W is orthogonal to digital. Its appeal is the relative simplicity.
Multi-layer color emulsions are out of reach of the do-it-yourself'er, but
B&W and alternative processes will continue, always waning but rebounding
strongly if briefly maybe in 10 year intervals. There will always be
practictioners, and a market for silver gelatin prints, growing ever more
exclusive. At some point, commercial materials will all but disappear. I'm
guessing in 15 to 20 years the last partial lot of Azo will be auctioned to
a frenzied market. Elsewhere in the news, someone will have figured out how
to make bombs of hydroquinone, and we will all feel safer when manufacturing
and transport are made illegal. Thank god for citric acid and instant coffee
(which will continue to survive despite Starbucks).

BTW, inkjets are not photographs, they're reproductions from
stored computer data. There is no photograph in the digital
process. It's all regenerated data (electrons - voltage -
digital signals - magnetic data bits - screen pixels) until
output as an reproduction from a digital file (i.e., drops of
ink sprayed onto paper.) Sprayed ink is not a photograph; it's
fancy newsprint

You're not going to get many takers for that argument. Just look at
the
meanings of the two roots, photo, and graph. There is nothing in the
meaning of the word that requires silver gelatin emulsions. I don't
make
inkjet prints anyway, except when I use the 36" plotter.

A photo graph is not a photograph, and you dont get to define words for
the rest of us. I would tell you how my unabridged Webster's defines
photograph, but then I would have to define photography for you too.
The summary: Tom is right. You are not. You are right that silver
gelatin is not required for a photograph, though that doesnt help you
here. Sprayed ink is still not a photograph, and spraying ink is not
photography.

In article .com,
"Wayne" wrote:

Sprayed ink is still not a photograph, and spraying ink is not
photography.

Correct, hehe - I guess from a purely technical stand point it is a
photo-mechanical reproduction of a photographic original,.....
depending on whether one used film or not.

--
LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

Nicholas O. Lindan kirjoitti:
...
50 years?
...
B&W is all large format. The medium is wet-plate on glass. Anything
on plastic is eschewed. B&W has a following comparable
to present-day pinhole imaging.

And when the last daguerreotypist dies, there will no more be chemical
photography.

Amen.

-- Lassi

Boat kirjoitti:
"PGG" wrote in message
newsan.2005.03.15.04.07.15.104000@NO_SP_A_Myahoo .com...

The same might happen with semiconductors once the feature size is too
small for optical post-lithography techniques (yes, they have techniques
like Xrays for making the masks, but I'm talking about the process after
mask creation). The cost to move beyond this might simply be too high.
Just like the cost of moving to supersonic airline travel is not deemed
worth it in the airline industry.

In this case, digital may never make the 8x10 film camera obsolete


I think you're chasing in the wrong direction. Feature size isn't the issue.
It's die yield and manufacturing advances for large sensors. ...

You both got it wrong.

The image is made with visible light, therefore the sensor must be
sensitive to visible light. That limits the minimun size of a pixel to
several micrometres. Smaller pixels are too noisy to be useful.

The sensors with best image resolution (= pixel packing density) will be
made with a process that is a derivative of the Foveon technology. It
packs all colours in the same pixel, in stead of wasting real estate to
the Bayer pattern.

-- Lassi

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 21:52:13 GMT, "Nicholas O. Lindan"
wrote:

....
Shades of 1984 but 70 years late: Total immersion TV on 4-walls,
ceiling and floor.
....


ides of march, 2005, from Lloyd Erlick,

Great stuff! But it wasn't '1984'; your reference was
to 'Fahrenheit 451' (Bradbury).

By the way, if it (whatever it is ...) stops being
photography if it's digital, does TV stop being TV if
it's, um, digital??

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email:
net: www.heylloyd.com
________________________________
--

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 10:34:26 GMT, Lassi Hippeläinen
wrote:


You both got it wrong.

The image is made with visible light, therefore the sensor must be
sensitive to visible light. That limits the minimun size of a pixel to
several micrometres. Smaller pixels are too noisy to be useful.

The sensors with best image resolution (= pixel packing density) will be
made with a process that is a derivative of the Foveon technology. It
packs all colours in the same pixel, in stead of wasting real estate to
the Bayer pattern.


Visible light ranges from 400 nm to 700 nm. Good photosites
are around 5 to 7 um (microns) on a side. So we're still
a factor of ten or so from the wavelength limit.

CCD geometries aren't anywhere near the feature size limit
for VLSI. The geometries are still dominated by the need
to capture sufficient quantities of visible light photons.

Foveon technology doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Bayer sensors are actually very well adapted to human
visual perception.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

Philip Homburg wrote:

Okay, missed that. It still sounds rather unlikely. Sales of 35mm cameras
are not zero at the moment. There a good chance that there will a be a new
P&S model in the next 5 years.

There might be, but not from Nikon or Canon.

Bob