lawrence
Veteran
Interesting article in The Telegraph about preserving digital photographs. The recommendation is to print them out 😱
Preserving Digital Photographs
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lynnb
Veteran
I wonder how many people will set aside the time required to identify all the important photos to print.. there are now so many photos taken compared to the days of film that most modern families would have tens of thousands of photos to sort through - are you listening, soccer mums and cell phone snappers?
Sparrow
Veteran
... I rather like the idea of time doing a bit of editing myself
PS not as in Alexander's library way
PPS anyway I thought the problem was that once someone had shown their arse on the interweb it came back to haunt them infinitely
PS not as in Alexander's library way
PPS anyway I thought the problem was that once someone had shown their arse on the interweb it came back to haunt them infinitely
thereabouts
Established
It's kind of a misleading headline in the Telegraph (well they are journalists).
From what I understood of the Google person's speech, from the Telegraph's mangling of it, is that it's not so much that digital data itself could get lost, but rather the ways in which many people are storing them, might make it hard to access in future generations, as technology and communication formats change.
For many of us, as photographers, it's about having a sensible backup policy. Digital photographs, will last as long as the media they are stored on survives – whether that is hard drives, tape or whatever. And, properly stored, they will be perfect copies 1,000 years from now, because we are dealing digital data – which doesn't degrade like paper and film.
Obviously, we need to take care of the media that the photos are stored on and ideally make sure that they are on more than one medium. Hard drives can fail with time and use and CDs and DVDs are notoriously unreliable for long term storage.
From what I understood of the Google person's speech, from the Telegraph's mangling of it, is that it's not so much that digital data itself could get lost, but rather the ways in which many people are storing them, might make it hard to access in future generations, as technology and communication formats change.
For many of us, as photographers, it's about having a sensible backup policy. Digital photographs, will last as long as the media they are stored on survives – whether that is hard drives, tape or whatever. And, properly stored, they will be perfect copies 1,000 years from now, because we are dealing digital data – which doesn't degrade like paper and film.
Obviously, we need to take care of the media that the photos are stored on and ideally make sure that they are on more than one medium. Hard drives can fail with time and use and CDs and DVDs are notoriously unreliable for long term storage.
Sparrow
Veteran
I kept the company's off site backups of our accounts from 1995'ish to 2010
... I have floppy-disc (2 sizes), diskette, DC600 tape and some CDs ... none of which can be accessed due to the improvements made to data storage over the years
... I have floppy-disc (2 sizes), diskette, DC600 tape and some CDs ... none of which can be accessed due to the improvements made to data storage over the years
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
Changes in image storage formats are glacial, and changes in hardware are not exactly quick. For example, JPG dates back at least to 1992, which is now 27 years ago. There has been no change in storage technology since then that would prevent you from moving even something left sitting back on a NeXTstation to a Mac of today. I don't know that it's any better or worse than film, since there many film formats that are much harder to output these days (110, disc, etc.). Slide film has theoretical longevity, but projection equipment is quickly being turned to scrap metal, and getting these into a digital format is actually pretty difficult to do well.
Hollywood has a different issue, which is that there is so much data in a motion picture that it is impractical to move it around or reformat it to keep up with hard drive rot. Hence, everything is kept in a salt mine. That is far from the case for any individual.
Printing is a great option, but I can tell you that coming from a photo-heavy family line, our family photo albums (to say nothing of what I have shot) are twelve feet of shelf space. It's not surprising that people like storing everything digitally on a Passport drive.
The reality is that any normally processed print (and not even archivally done) will likely outlive its personal or commercial usefulness. You constantly see antique store junk bins full of tiny fiber prints from the early 1900s, and that was before the science of archivism was even understood. Think about your own photos - pictures of you or your family might be of interest for more than one generation; the unnamed strangers (because no one took down the info) don't have that kind of incentive toward preservation.
Dante
Hollywood has a different issue, which is that there is so much data in a motion picture that it is impractical to move it around or reformat it to keep up with hard drive rot. Hence, everything is kept in a salt mine. That is far from the case for any individual.
Printing is a great option, but I can tell you that coming from a photo-heavy family line, our family photo albums (to say nothing of what I have shot) are twelve feet of shelf space. It's not surprising that people like storing everything digitally on a Passport drive.
The reality is that any normally processed print (and not even archivally done) will likely outlive its personal or commercial usefulness. You constantly see antique store junk bins full of tiny fiber prints from the early 1900s, and that was before the science of archivism was even understood. Think about your own photos - pictures of you or your family might be of interest for more than one generation; the unnamed strangers (because no one took down the info) don't have that kind of incentive toward preservation.
Dante
lynnb
Veteran
proprietary RAW formats may become a problem in future, if the company owning the format goes bust (industry watchers say there is likely to be a shakeout amongst in digital camera manufacturers as digital camera sales - not including cell phones - fall of a cliff). Digital shooters should consider saving files as TIFF, to preserve full detail, as well as JPG;
Migrating saved digital files to newer storage media over time is recommended, but there are generational losses each time a copy is made, i.e. file degradation;
physical storage media and peripherals to drive them are disappearing in favour of solid state - future computers may not connect with those stored away HDDs and disks (and DVD drives are already going the way of the Betamax);
the same is true of the hardware/software needed to drive them. SCSI cards and drivers, anyone?
Printing sounds a good idea to me!
Migrating saved digital files to newer storage media over time is recommended, but there are generational losses each time a copy is made, i.e. file degradation;
physical storage media and peripherals to drive them are disappearing in favour of solid state - future computers may not connect with those stored away HDDs and disks (and DVD drives are already going the way of the Betamax);
the same is true of the hardware/software needed to drive them. SCSI cards and drivers, anyone?
Printing sounds a good idea to me!
FrankS
Registered User
FrozenInTime
Well-known
Copying a file e.g. from folder to folder or disk to disk results in no degradation.
Opening a file such as a jpeg that uses lossy compression and then saving it again results in degradation.
majid
Fazal Majid
The issue is that most laymen have a hard time managing their digital files, and over time, data loss takes on an aura of inevitability. Prints are more resilient to benign neglect, but that only works if they are edited down to a manageable number, and captioned properly.
thereabouts
Established
Indeed. There is no such thing as 'file degradation' from copying. You can copy/duplicate a file as many times as you like (even JPEGs, as long as you don't open and then re-save them) and, unless some kind of error occurs in the process, it will results in an identical copy.
Spill a cup of coffee on a print and it's ruined forever.
besk
Well-known
I'll put my money on analogue and prints.
thereabouts
Established
Why not both?
Mcary
Veteran
There currently no type of digital media that is 100% safe or reliable for long term storage,which is why its important to have several backups and to replace/upgrade storage media on a regular basis. Personally I'm a fairly low volume shooter generally using only about 40GB of data storage per year between digital files and film scans. Which means using SD cards that can easily be stored in a safety deposit box wouldn't be out of the question.
Of course this all goes against the silly notion that digital is free 🙂
Of course this all goes against the silly notion that digital is free 🙂
majid
Fazal Majid
The electrical charges that encode data in NAND Flash memory (like that used in most SD cards) will actually decay when powered off. The best-case would be 10 years, but current generation 34nm and 25nm MLC flash is only about a year or so. SD cards are about the worst possible digital medium you can envision for archival purposes.
D
Daniel Teoli Jr.
Guest
Many digital photographers I talk with tell me they seldom make prints. They just view their work on the monitor or on digital photo frames. This ‘no prints required’ method is one of the benefits digital photography can provide us.
But, this benefit would also work against the digital photographer if they would ever lose their digital masters. The lack of a physical negative / chrome is one of the shortcomings of digital imaging when it comes to preservation. We can come close to the benefit of film with a 4 x 6 (or optimally a letter size) master print.
With a high grade scan of our master print we can always recover 90% to 95% of the original image if we would ever lose our digital or film master. The master print for the digital photographer is what the physical negative is for the film photographer.
When scans are done correctly, they can yield excellent results. This photo shows a scan of an original Eastman Kodak dye transfer print. I then made a second generation ink jet print from the scan of the dye transfer print.
http://testarchives.tumblr.com/image/111199874169
I married the original dye transfer print and the second generation ink jet print and scanned them to show comparison results. I didn’t use a high priced scanner or printer to do the tests. I used a consumer model Canon printer from Wal-Mart costing about $80 and a $200 Epson scanner.
Now, no scan is as good as the original. But, you can see for yourself, it is hard to tell which is the original dye transfer scan and which is the scan of ink jet copy print made from the dye transfer print.
This test tells us 2 things:
1) Scans can recover about 90% to 95% of the image quality from an original.
2) Ink jet printers can equal or surpass Eastman Kodak’s dye transfer process when it comes to image quality. (In addition, dye stability tests I’ve run show pigmented ink jet prints will outlast an Eastman Kodak dye transfer print when it comes to dye stability by leaps and bounds.)
Top Photograph - Original Dye Transfer print is on the bottom half.
Bottom Photograph - Original Dye Transfer print is on the right side.
This is the last ditch preservation effort. My first area of preservation is numerous backups on and off site with multiple media. DVD silver, DVD Gold, HD's and flash media. I had a lot of my work in hi res on Wiki Commons but they deleted it all. I would not release commercial rights and only offered it for educational use.
I'm not much of a computer person, but maybe will have to check into cloud storage for another dimension of backup. The Wiki was supposed to do that for me. Whenever I place work with museums I always send them hi-res digital images with the print. In the beginning of my museum career I didn't, I sent low res which was a mistake.
Shoot your flash cards like film. I have had to resort to the original flash files many times since I screwed up and lost the RAW and JPEG's on my computer. You may be perfect, but I am not and have deleted or somehow lost important images NUMEROUS times.
Now, I don't back up all my shots like this. 95%+ of my work is trash. The original files still remain on the flash cards that get accessed every 5 years to charge them up. But I delete all the trash off my HD's. I take too many photos to keep them all. I only keep images that are portfolio worthy, museum worthy or have sentimental / personal value. The rest is trash. No use weighing oneself down with garbage that will never amount to anything. The gems are what I put my efforts in when it comes to preservation, not the garbage.
But, this benefit would also work against the digital photographer if they would ever lose their digital masters. The lack of a physical negative / chrome is one of the shortcomings of digital imaging when it comes to preservation. We can come close to the benefit of film with a 4 x 6 (or optimally a letter size) master print.
With a high grade scan of our master print we can always recover 90% to 95% of the original image if we would ever lose our digital or film master. The master print for the digital photographer is what the physical negative is for the film photographer.
When scans are done correctly, they can yield excellent results. This photo shows a scan of an original Eastman Kodak dye transfer print. I then made a second generation ink jet print from the scan of the dye transfer print.
http://testarchives.tumblr.com/image/111199874169
I married the original dye transfer print and the second generation ink jet print and scanned them to show comparison results. I didn’t use a high priced scanner or printer to do the tests. I used a consumer model Canon printer from Wal-Mart costing about $80 and a $200 Epson scanner.
Now, no scan is as good as the original. But, you can see for yourself, it is hard to tell which is the original dye transfer scan and which is the scan of ink jet copy print made from the dye transfer print.
This test tells us 2 things:
1) Scans can recover about 90% to 95% of the image quality from an original.
2) Ink jet printers can equal or surpass Eastman Kodak’s dye transfer process when it comes to image quality. (In addition, dye stability tests I’ve run show pigmented ink jet prints will outlast an Eastman Kodak dye transfer print when it comes to dye stability by leaps and bounds.)
Top Photograph - Original Dye Transfer print is on the bottom half.
Bottom Photograph - Original Dye Transfer print is on the right side.
This is the last ditch preservation effort. My first area of preservation is numerous backups on and off site with multiple media. DVD silver, DVD Gold, HD's and flash media. I had a lot of my work in hi res on Wiki Commons but they deleted it all. I would not release commercial rights and only offered it for educational use.
I'm not much of a computer person, but maybe will have to check into cloud storage for another dimension of backup. The Wiki was supposed to do that for me. Whenever I place work with museums I always send them hi-res digital images with the print. In the beginning of my museum career I didn't, I sent low res which was a mistake.
Shoot your flash cards like film. I have had to resort to the original flash files many times since I screwed up and lost the RAW and JPEG's on my computer. You may be perfect, but I am not and have deleted or somehow lost important images NUMEROUS times.
Now, I don't back up all my shots like this. 95%+ of my work is trash. The original files still remain on the flash cards that get accessed every 5 years to charge them up. But I delete all the trash off my HD's. I take too many photos to keep them all. I only keep images that are portfolio worthy, museum worthy or have sentimental / personal value. The rest is trash. No use weighing oneself down with garbage that will never amount to anything. The gems are what I put my efforts in when it comes to preservation, not the garbage.
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