Looks like Film may win over today's Digital Photography in the long run.

[Aristophanes]

The current format standards for TIFF, PNG, and JPEG date from a little later than that: approximately 1996 for PNG (Portable Network Graphics, a replacement for GIF—Graphics Interchange Format—which was designed and copyrighted by CompuServe), and 1992-1997 for JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Guild). (It's nice to know what the acronyms stand for now and then... 🙂

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) was originally devised in the middle 1980s, but has been extended and enhanced quite a few times right up through the middle 2000s (lossless compression, layers, and other features). The currently most-used features of TIFF files today likely date from around 2004, but all the older files made with prior versions of the TIFF standard are readable as well.

DNG (Digital NeGative) format is essentially a publicly documented specialization of the TIFF standard designed by Adobe for digital camera raw data with open, no-cost licensing in perpetuity. It dates from 2004, when the proliferation of digital cameras outputting proprietary raw format files began to expand enormously, as a guard against the possibility of future obsolescence of raw format support. Note that Adobe is also the custodian of the open source TIFF standard as well, since acquiring Aldus assets a decade or more ago.

All of these—JPEG, TIFF, DNG, and PNG—are publicly disclosed format standards with lots of Open Source implementations available; all have active custodians continuing to develop them and maintain the standard and its compatibility; and none of them are hardware dependent. They stand the chance of remaining current for many decades to come.

- The problem of print and negative archiving is media longevity and storage facilities.

- The problem of digital archiving is maintenance.

G

I believe TIFF, DNG, and JPEG are all recognized as ISO formats (well, DNG is under review and I think can incorporate TIFF).

Many government regulations specific terms whereby an ISO standard must be part of a technical submission or standard. This has a huge impact on the development of these formats and their long-term accessibility.

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000073.shtml

 

[Out to Lunch]

So far the discussion has been held by people living in, either North America, or in Western Europe. When you happen to live outside these areas, the issues are different:

1. you can't rely on film/developing/printing any longer because it's not available any longer from any affordable local source;
2. you could depend on outside sources for film/developing/printing from outside sources but only if and when you are willing and able to foot very stiff bills;
3. alternatively, you could still use some film with outside support and depend on your digital output to carefully pick and choose and 'publish' photo books for whatever audience.

 

[Aristophanes]

So far the discussion has been held by people living in, either North America, or in Western Europe. When you happen to live outside these areas, the issues are different:

1. you can't rely on film/developing/printing any longer because it's not available any longer from any affordable local source;
2. you could depend on outside sources for film/developing/printing from outside sources but only if and when you are willing and able to foot very stiff bills;
3. alternatively, you could still use some film with outside support and depend on your digital output to carefully pick and choose and 'publish' photo books for whatever audience.

Where i live local film processing has disappeared. Film is almost not sold at all save for some off-brand drugstore repackages of Fuji.

As a capture medium film has almost entirely disappeared from vernacular use, so its archival capacity is moot.

I 100% agree with the photobooks comment. These are a great advancement in print reproduction of digital and scanned film images. They can be saved in an ISO standard PDF. They are widely available and cost effective. Also, they can incorporate comments and text which add context to the photos. Photobooks also add an editing constraint to their assembly and output.

I noticed that Apple kept their print options in the new Photos app. That says something as I suspect it is a tiny sideline to their business model, but clearly they saw value in keeping a built-in option.

 

[paulfish4570]

thank you, peter, for a reality check ...

 

[NickTrop]

False dilemma. You can print digital photos. That said, film -- from a purely pragmatic stand-point, has its place in the form of small pocket-sized cameras. The Olympus XA, for example, is, literally, a pocket-able "full-frame" photographic tool. Digital has yet to achieve this and perhaps never will. The cost of the better digital solutions/offerings, which usually aren't pocketable and are never full-frame, buys a lot of film stock and processing. If I am going somewhere and want to take higher quality photos with some subject/background separation and want a tool I can slip in a shirt pocket, it's the XA.

 

[Dante_Stella]

Geoffrey -

I think we're on the same page here. I do think the point is that with backward compatibility in current imaging software, any changes to TIFF since the mid-1980s or JPG since 2000 (if not the 1990s) are not significant. I still have files from the near dawn of TIFF that still open, and 1995 QuickTake 100 PICTs and QT 150 JPGs that still open. Sure, the resolution sucks and sometimes things were mistakenly saved as halftones, but it's there. JPG actually hasn't changed during the era of popular use of digital imaging in the early 2000s. NeXT was actually one of its biggest proponents in the early 1990s (it's in the Color NeXTstation literature, though under the JFIF umbrella).

My conclusion is that at the end of the day, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that anything of significance has to date been left behind due to changes in format - so assuming that some major change is on the way seems a little speculative. Certainly there will be plenty of warning if that were in the works. But to a large degree we can count on inertia - there is simply too much content in existing formats to admit an industry change that would abruptly require massive conversion. All existing photo archives have to use existing formats, right? That wasn't the case with early formats, where the uses were too provincial to create momentum (AIFF, Scitex, Degas, and cripes... Targa is still supported by PS CS 6?) - but the relatively small existing libraries of that material are still amenable to conversion. I'm sure most things done in Scitex formats are now final printed materials anyway.

And the reality is that we're a ways away from having any circumstance that would require a new format. JPG was a big improvement for compression because it used gradients that went beyond what TIFF compression could deliver. But aside from lossless and lossy compression, what worlds are (realistically) left to conquer? Differentiated RAW files only really exist because they are dumps of different hardware, no?

Dante

 

[Ranchu]

So, there were EIDE hard drives, 10 years later there's what SATA and something else?

 

[Lawrence Sheperd]

Hi,

Interesting comment about media failing, my wife could crash one or two computers where she worked just by walking past them in the lab's and her plastic cards never lasted more than a few days. I put it down to her being extremely attractive +5G obviously.

BTW, I'm serious. It was only recently that her cards managed to survive as mine do. There was nothing in the lab's generating such a field, everyone checked and decided she managed it somehow. Of course, this old git can remember when being ill would make watches run slow or fast and no one believes me when I say that, either.

Regards, David

I absolutely believe you, David. My first wife could not keep a quartz watch working on her wrist for more than a couple of day. The cases were always pristine, so it wasn't any particularly corrosive body chemistry that did the timepieces in.

 

[Godfrey]

?..
I think we're on the same page here. I do think the point is that with backward compatibility in current imaging software, any changes to TIFF since the mid-1980s or JPG since 2000 (if not the 1990s) are not significant.
...
...Differentiated RAW files only really exist because they are dumps of different hardware, no?

We are on the same page. While I believe that some of the updates to the standards since 2000 are indeed significant, the good news is that they have not hurt compatibility.

Proprietary, native raw formats continue because the manufacturers have vested monies and interests in their continued development. And because of Not Invented Here syndrome. At least that's the best guess I can make of it.

G

 

[tunalegs]

I have a hard time believing 30 years from now someone comes up with something "all new" thats incompatible with everything else that was the internet and digital before and succeeds with that. It really doesnt make sense.

Kaypro 1 by berangberang, on Flickr

My Kaypro isn't even 30 yet. It's probable today's computers are going to look nearly as dated as this in 30 years, and be about as compatible with whatever current computers are at that time.

Obviously things change most when technology is new, for example a car from 1900 is very, very different from a car made in 1930. A car made in 1984 however in most basic respects is not too different from a car made today, although the finer details are obviously very different. But as far as computers go we're still closer to the period of rapid change end of the spectrum than to the detail refinement end.

 

[Samouraï]

I've been saying this for years. To friends, to teachers. Crazy that people don't realize how much constant work digital archiving requires.

We are finding lost cinematic masterpieces 60+ years after they were lost in the oddest places. Old 35mm reels in broom closets of mental hospitals (Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc). This will never ever ever happen when it comes to digital anything--it requires active and constant attention.

Apparently Hollywood studios have been purging their film archives in favor of digital scans for archiving. Luckily universities are picking up the archival slack and taking on the tons of film reels. But how shortsighted? There will always be a better digital approximation of an analogue source on the horizon.

 

[Highway 61]

If power was off for say 50 years little would be left of anything, analog or digital.

Absolutely.

Because of the permafrost melting out, some buildings of the city of Norilsk, Siberia, have seen their basements budge. As a result the gas powered heating systems broke, and mountains of ice have appeared in the common staircages and this is also affecting the apartments.

http://elena-chernyshova.com/wordpress/

This is an extreme example of course, but the long run consequences of the global warming may be more than enough to cause much trouble to us as for photographying and archiving, whatever technology we prefer.

 

[zuiko85]

If power was off for say 50 years little would be left of anything, analog or digital. Digital would have more likelihood of survival as its storage becomes more dispersed. A single point of failure (analog worse) is always the most vulnerable.

If there is no Armageddon, then digital archiving will just keep improving and little will be lost. digital archiving is in its infancy.

Humans forget a lot, and still survive...

Don't think it would take 50 years. If there was another massive CME like the 1859 Carrington event the side of the earth facing it when it hit could be in very deep doo.

 

[bobbyrab]

So if even if we all die, digital could still be ok once we re-establish power production. Reassuring.

 

[back alley]

Looks like Film may win over today's Digital Photography in the long run.

win what?
if i'm dead i sure as hell don't care what state my pics are in!

 

[majid]

The kind of Armageddon which would occur if all power was lost world-wide would be as devastating to analog records as digital records. If power was off for say 50 years little would be left of anything, analog or digital. Digital would have more likelihood of survival as its storage becomes more dispersed. A single point of failure (analog worse) is always the most vulnerable.

If there is no Armageddon, then digital archiving will just keep improving and little will be lost. digital archiving is in its infancy.

Vinton Cerf's observations, that started this thread, are about an entire generation's collective memory, not about specific individuals.

Part of the problem is that digital technology just isn't designed to last. Why would you design a hard drive or optical media to last 50 years, when you know they will be obsolete within 3?

The Long Now foundation has done some interesting work on how to store digital media for 10,000 years (the Rosetta project), and there are some companies like MAM-A that specialize in ultra-long-life media for archival purposes, but they are the exception that prove the rule.

This proposition would only be true if the original shooter made no effort to catalog or preserve his work.

It's harder than you think. I set up Lightroom on my wife's Mac, gave her a USB hard drive with a synchronized copy of my entire LR library, and configured LR on her computer to connect to it when it starts. Despite these near ideal conditions, she still can't get to them (it doesn't help that she misplaced the drive during our most recent move).

In less-than-ideal conditions, the likelihood of the curatorial chain being broken converges asymptotically towards 1.

So far the discussion has been held by people living in, either North America, or in Western Europe. When you happen to live outside these areas, the issues are different:

1. you can't rely on film/developing/printing any longer because it's not available any longer from any affordable local source;
2. you could depend on outside sources for film/developing/printing from outside sources but only if and when you are willing and able to foot very stiff bills;
3. alternatively, you could still use some film with outside support and depend on your digital output to carefully pick and choose and 'publish' photo books for whatever audience.

In most places you can output digital images to RA-4 color print paper, which by now has a decent lifespan, for a very reasonable price. You can even output to true B&W paper (Ilford RC for about $8 per 8x10 at Ilford's US lab services, or $36 to to FB baryta paper at Digital Silver).

I 100% agree with the photobooks comment. These are a great advancement in print reproduction of digital and scanned film images. They can be saved in an ISO standard PDF. They are widely available and cost effective. Also, they can incorporate comments and text which add context to the photos. Photobooks also add an editing constraint to their assembly and output.

Yes, that's my preferred printing medium nowadays. If offset or Indigo printing is not sufficient quality for your needs, there are services like AdoramaPix that will print photobooks on real photo paper.

 

[Texsport]

Looks like Film may win over today's Digital Photography in the long run.

win what?
if i'm dead i sure as hell don't care what state my pics are in!

I attempt to document memorable events of those I care about, so that, even though I'm gone, the living can remember, and hopefully enjoy.

If they do, they will think that I indeed won - at least their gratitude - and possibly remember my part.


Texsport

 

[back alley]

I attempt to document memorable events of those I care about, so that, even though I'm gone, the living can remember, and hopefully enjoy.

If they do, they will think that I indeed won - at least their gratitude - and possibly remember my part.


Texsport

i have no such illusion..(not to knock yours)...i have little family left and will be lucky to still be a memory in a few generations...
my images have few friends and no family in them...

 

[thegman]

Kaypro 1 by berangberang, on Flickr

My Kaypro isn't even 30 yet. It's probable today's computers are going to look nearly as dated as this in 30 years, and be about as compatible with whatever current computers are at that time.

Obviously things change most when technology is new, for example a car from 1900 is very, very different from a car made in 1930. A car made in 1984 however in most basic respects is not too different from a car made today, although the finer details are obviously very different. But as far as computers go we're still closer to the period of rapid change end of the spectrum than to the detail refinement end.

I hope you're right about computers being as different now compared to the future as computers now vs. your Kaypro, but I strongly doubt it.

I'd probably say we're well into the 'refinement' period, which I prefer to call 'rather make money than innovate'. My car is 7 years old, but I've had people think it's brand new. Compare an Apple II to a computer made 7 years later and it's a gulf of difference, same for computers now. The first Macbook Air for example is about the same age as my car, and is basically indiscernible from the one they are making right now, other than how fast it goes.

Like I say, I'd love to think you're right about the 'period of rapid change', but I think that era in computing is essentially over. I've been very interested in computers for probably about 25 years, and never have I seen less change, and less innovation than in the last 10. Frankly, it's less ambition. I strongly hope I'm wrong and you're right.

The big change is really in popularity and marketing, not technology. Smartphones and tablets are heralded as a new wave of computing, but they're actually old, established technology, but with a new wave of marketing.

/rant

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Try reading a PhotoCD. Or open an old PowerPoint file. Or old Quicken file. Or a SCSI hard disk. You can do it, but it's not easy.

My approach:
- Keep everything on a hard disk with backups
- Every three years copy to a new larger hard disk, throw away the old one. Don't wait for it to fail.
- Use the most common file formats. Save a TIFF for important images.