Curating digital photos for the future

[quanglewangle]

(Quite long - the kicker is the last paragraph, if you are in a rush)

I am sure we all have a treasured shoe-box of old family photos: real photos - silver emulsion. I have some that include great-grandparents. Kept in the dark they will last almost as long as the paper holds together.

What's going to happen to all the digital pix we have spread over phones and laptops? Sure, you can archive them but how? Who can remember floppy disks and zip disks. CDs and DVDs are on their way our except to drive kids' seat-back entertainment centres. Even if you keep the media safe you (or your kids) won't have a player to view them on.

How to archive digital photos? Here is a personal view from a digital native: I was using the Internet back when you had to have a connection with the US defense establishment, or work in a university (or in my case both). I am still very comfortable in the digital space.

In spite of this background, or because of it, my view is to forget digital and print your photos. Get some archival ink for your printer and some decent paper and spend the lock-down printing a carefully curated selection of photos and write the details on the back. The prints don't need to be big: this is legacy, not fine art.

[Kirk]

Recall something about 8-10-12 years back that said most of the "old" ideas of photographic records by the general public will be lost in the digital age. And I have to agree.

When the cameras came out there was a lot of photographic "quality" printers offered, even they seem to have quietly disappeared now.

Memory cards get damaged, cameras cease and people scrap computers and drives. You cannot realistically save a Terabyte hardrives, just too much on it to sort and select. So it all goes.

I have nothing as a photograph since around 2002. San Francisco and bits of California, one or two of Florida, Boca Raton. The woman in the metallic blue bikini was puzzled what I was smiling at. It both wasn't and was her. As I explained with her.

Which is pretty bad.
Maybe time to resurrect the old T90 and add a film or two to it.

[quanglewangle]

From time to time I get the elderly Nikon F down off the shelf and load it with Kodak Ektachrome E100 but it is a hell of a bother.

[rary]

qgw are you saying that there is a long life ink for a digital printer, I have an Epson printer, can I print long life photos on that?

[quanglewangle]

qgw are you saying that there is a long life ink for a digital printer, I have an Epson printer, can I print long life photos on that?

Yes, but like most things it is not completely straightforward though.

You need a pigment ink rather than a dye ink. These are used by museums and art galleries. Not all printers will take both sorts of cartridges. A Google search on something like "which Epsom printers take pigment inks" returns quite a few responses.

Also, pigment cartridges are said to dry out and jam more if left unused for long periods.

[edit]
Actually, if it were me, I would try my local art school/technical college or museum/art gallery. Colleges often do reprographic work for the public at little more than cost - they just don't advertise. Also a local museum might do a couple of dozen prints for a donation.