Re: Digital

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> 
> Tom Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> > > Modern film stocks also decay, and especially color dye images decay.
> >
> > Not if stored properly.
> 
> Have *you* read Henry Wilhelm's book (_The Permanence and Care of
> Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color
> Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures_,
> <http://www.wilhelm-research.com/book.html>)?  Do you have other
> experience in the field?  Or where are you getting your crazy ideas.

David, cold stops dye layer fading. Period.

> As I've said, I have color slides *that I took myself* that are
> seriously faded.  I know how the've been stored -- in archival
> sleeves, or archival boxes, in air-conditioned residential areas, for
> their entire life.

There is always some dye movement. The degree of fading will vary. That
doesn't render a color film image unusable. In fact, if you have faded
chromes digital technology can help there.

Some films like Kodachrome are highly resistent to dye fading (they have
a "normal" storage life of about 100 years), but it depends entirely on
how the image is used. If you've projected your slides even once in a
projector instead of making dupes for projecting and then storing the
originals under cold/dark conditions you've accelerated that fading by a
huge factor. The degree of fading depends entirely upon the exposure of
the slide to light, the factors affecting the degree of fading being
either time, light intensity, and heat. It may also depend on how old
those slides are. Color dye technology has improved over the years. If a
slide from 1950, it may not be as stable under normal room conditions.

> Yes, you can reduce the rate of loss by frozen storage, but that's not
> as easy as it sounds (I've read about the issues).  But if you're
> prepared to provide that level of care, you can probably handle a
> digital archive as well, and if you do there's *no* quality loss.
> 
> And, the big point -- you can *never* reduce the loss rate to zero.

Except that with an image on film a given lose rate doesn't
pragmatically affect the ability to still have and utilize a real image.
With digital a given lose rate means you have no image.

> > Digital media decays regardless.
> 
> Also true.
> 
> > > Nice phrasing, but I'm afraid "real data" is more permanent than "just
> > > an image" in my experience.
> >
> > Experience has nothing to do with it. Data is just 1's and 0's, not a
> > "real" image. That's a fact. The "data" is no more permanant than the
> > machines and media it's stored on, which have exceptionally limited
> > lifespans. That's also a fact. By contrast, we have photographs that
> > have already outlasted anything stored on CD by at least 170 years.
> 
> "Real" images are something that happens in my head, and I don't
> really care how the data was stored.

I beg to differ :) And so does the ISO. A real image is a tangible image
on film, not one "previsualized" or stored as data on a computer.
Example, if you scan the Mona Lisa you have a digital representation of
the Mona Lisa, not an actual painting. The International Organization
for Standardization (draft ISO 12231 Photography Electronic Still
Picture Imaging Terminology) in fact states that electronic cameras
produce digital signals which *represent* still pictures or still
pictures as data on removable media such as a memory cards, magnetic
disks, etc. Digital images are representative images, since they're not
real images until they are output on either paper or film.

> > > You over-estimate the permanence of film by a *lot*.
> >
> > No, I don't. The estimate of the permanance of film is from the
> > Image Permanance Institute. Get their reports and read. Thousands of
> > years are possible. IPI is a *nonprofit* research organization
> > staffed by independent scientists. Henry Wilhelm is a paid industry
> > consultant and mouthpiece.
> 
> Henry Wilhelm is the guy who *invented* this field of expertise, and
> widely recognized as the premiere researcher, whereas I've never
> heard of this IPI group.  Okay, googling I see they're a group at RIT,
> and I *have* heard of a group doing work in this area at RIT; but they
> don't have the stature Wilhelm does in the field -- and they don't
> disagree with him much that I've noticed, either.

They have more stature. IPI does independent, non-profit research and
Dr. James P. Reilly has been often consulted by major preservation
organizations and efforts. He has written a guide to acetate film
preservation and also one on digital preservation. Wilhelm, as a paid
industry representative and consultant, has in fact made erroneous
claims/misjudgements about the archival nature of inkjet materials in
the past. While he is recognized as an expert and rightly so, he
nevertheless is necessarily unobjective due to his being a paid
consultant. Wilhelm's job is to give the digital materials industry what
they want, not objectively analyze or criticize the true values of those
materials for image preservation.

That is of course my opinion and so I take his research with a grain of
salt. But in the course of my own research I've noted Wilhelm has in
fact made deliberate false and "revisionist" claims about the history
and nature of photography when producing reports for his digital
clients, for the purpose of putting digital in a "better" light than it
actually deserves. Let me put it this way, if your water supply is
polluted and you need water analysis, who would you want to do that
analysis -- an independent scientist or a scientist who works for the
company that may be polluting your water? It's an issue of objectivity.

> > > I have severely
> > > faded slides and negatives taken during my lifetime, including some
> > > taken by me.  The ones taken by me I pretty well know the storage
> > > conditions of, and they're close to as good as it gets (short of
> > > controlled-humidity refrigerated storage).
> >
> > Store your hard drive in a refrigerator and the magnetic data still
> > fails in a given number of years. Film, b&w or color, lasts indefinitely
> > in cold storage. That's not my "Phrasing," but the opinion of scientists
> > and film preservationists everywhere.
> 
> No it isn't.  Nobody I've talked to agrees with that analysis.  At
> best you can *reduce* rate of loss.

Cold dark storage ***stops*** loss. Period. The degree of loss in a film
image before storage is irrelevant, since the rate of loss for magnetic
media cannot be stopped at all. That's the difference and why film is a
better storage medium for images.

> > > While many of your points on digital archiving are accurate, you
> > > overplay your hand.  In particular, a single-bit error doesn't ruin an
> > > entire image inherently and necessarily.  Even in jpeg format, it at
> > > most damages the parts of the image after it; and there are other ways
> > > to archive images.
> >
> > Oh come on. If you have data corruption or media failure, it's never
> > "single bit," It's usually unrecoverable. Happens all the time. I've
> > never gotten an error message that says "this file is only partly
> > corrupted." A file is either usable and readable or it's not. And it
> > doesn't take a lot to make it unreadable. Image format is irrelevant.
> > Plus I'm talking about raw data, not a compressed format like JPEG which
> > isn't even desireable for digital images (not professionally.) I would
> > never store a digital image as a compressed file.
> 
> In a TIFF file, one bit of damage makes a change to one pixel.
> 
> I've seen *lots* of jpegs (not mine) that clearly have a single bit
> error, where everything after a certain point is off-color.
> 
> I've had mostly-recoverable media failures dozens of times in my life,
> and with CD and other high-density optical storage it's a way of
> life.  There's a lot of error-correction going on in the drive.  I've
> got a utility that will monitor that, so you can monitor the gradual
> decay of the media, and copy before it's too late.

Just for comparison of what's easier, the average photo hobbiest taking
family snapshots isn't likely going to do that. Plus it's software
monitoring software. But putting their color negatives or slides in the
refrigerator is easy to do and then requires no further maintainence or "monitoring."
 
> > > > If you want to believe the fallacy that digital is permanant, or is more
> > > > permanant than film, it's your choice. But it's a lie.
> > >
> > > Well, actually it's more complicated than that.
> >
> > It's a marketing lie oft repeated that digital is "permanant" and film
> > "isn't.
> >
> > > B&W film lasts better than anything in *untended* storage.
> > >
> > > Color film does okay in careful archiving for modest periods, but
> > > requires refrigeration (and then humidity control) for really long
> > > life -- which means stuff just lying around, even in a residential
> > > area, *doesn't* survive all that long.
> >
> > I said "proper" storage." That means cold dark storage. I also mentioned
> > IPI. The details are available from them if one isn't too lazy to do
> > one's own research. Color dye films, BTW, such as kodachrome or
> > ektachrome last as long as black and white in proper storage.
> > "Refrigeration" is a relative term. Below 60F is all that's required for
> > general longevity. There are color photographs 150 years old that are in
> > mint condition and they've not been refrigerated for most of that time.
> > Essentially, cool dark conditions with air circulation and not too much
> > humidity is conducive to preservation. You don't necessarily need a
> > climate controlled vault. You're under-estimating.
> 
> You need a climate-controlled vault to achieve low humidity and under
> 60 degrees anywhere *I've* lived, and I've never even lived in the
> South.

Just for the sake of argument, that's not the case where I live. The
average temperature in my basement is about 60 F year round. Humidity is
controlled by a house-wide humidifier. Go a few feet underground and low
temperature and humidity is pretty easy to regulate and maintain
*naturally* in most parts of the country, and where it can't be
maintained naturally some climate control can be applied. But it depends
on the film and type (acetate, polyester, b&w, color.)

> And if you have to go to the trouble of climate-controlled storage,
> you're not really much better off than the trouble you have to take
> for digital.  It doesn't address finding old photos in the attic at
> all!

I think the whole point of this discussion is film as stored will
outlast digital as stored. With film you're only dependent on avoiding
the extremes of climate to maintain usable images. With digital you're
dependent on the ups and downs of the availablity and economics of the
technology and power source. In an environment where all things are
otherwise equal (such as your attic), an image on film *will* without
doubt outlast an image stored on electronic media. Perhaps by decades.

> > > Digital does fairly poorly if just left lying around -- magnetic media
> > > maybe 5 to 20 years.
> >
> > Digital or magnetic media does poorly regardless.
> 
> No, CD's expecially are really wonderfully reliable for short periods

For short periods. That's the point it seems to me.

> -- and will withstdand spills and things that would really ruin film.

I don't think that's a vaild claim. I don't think I'd "wash" my CD-R
next time I spill coffee on it. But I've rewashed and cleaned sheets of
film many times. Good as new. Film can be restored. A damaged CD cannot.

> > > CDs longer.  However, if managed well, the
> > > information has the potential to last any length of time you want,
> > > something which is *not* true of film images.
> >
> > You don't know what you're talking about, sorry. CD-Rs don't last very
> > long. The technology that reads them lasts even less long. Plus digital
> > information is intangible. Meaning you can't leave it unmaintained an
> > attic and hope it will be there 100 or 200 years from now, as has been
> > the case with actual photographs, including color images like
> > Autochromes. Digital *has* to be stored and maintained (redundantly),
> > electronically retrieved, and read. *IF* that information somehow
> > survives data corruption, say, 100 years storage in your attic or
> > basement, the likelihood is you won't be able to access it due to
> > changes in technology.
> 
> By your own testimony, you can't leave color images in the attic
> untended either -- 

But you can likely leave them there longer than you can a CD-R. 19th
century images have actually been found in attics that are in decent
viewable condition, though it's not recommended. 

> you said under 60 degrees and low humidity.  And
> I've already agreed that digital archives require attention, that
> digital media don't work well in untended storage.

Dark storage at about 60 - 70 F with 20 - 40% average humidity is AFAIK
considered adequate for normal "room" storage conditions. You're black
and white negatives and prints are going to last hundreds of years under
those conditions. Color film dye layers will fade more slowly than in a
hot attic, but they should still be refrigerated if the goal is to
actually archive them.

> > > The issue of having to copy "thousands of photos" is semi-bogus -- the
> > > new medium is nearly always larger than the old one, so you can just
> > > bulk-copy everything.  You don't actually have to deal with each
> > > single image separately.
> >
> > Raw data files can be quite large. I'm not talking about low res
> > prosumer JPEGS.
> 
> Neither am I.  My scanned images are 25 megabytes and up, digital
> camera originals get as big as 36 megabytes.

Mine are a lot bigger than that. A typical scanned image is 80 to 100
MB. If I were shooting digital, my images might routinely approach 250
MB. Of course it depends on the application, but I'm generally referring
to high end digital: Sinar, Better Light, etc., not one-shot prosumer
Kodak or Nikon SLRs.

> > > In fact, hard drives are growing so fast that what actually makes
> > > sense, for individual photographers, is to keep everything online,
> > > with copious and frequent backups.
> >
> > Anyone who stores their images in an online archive (again still
> > magnetic media/hard drive), is a risk taker. Such images are not "safe,"
> > plus you're trusting someone (or something) else to ensure the viability
> > of your digital images and *completely* dependent on them and the
> > economy of that business. And if you have to copiously and frequently
> > back it up (which you do since hard drives frequently fail) what's the
> > point? Better to photograph using a permanant media like film and then
> > scan. Then you have an "hard" copy original that's permanant and can
> > always make a digital copy.
> 
> Huh?  How am I trusting somebody else?  I'm talking about *my*
> frigging hard drive sitting in *my* computer on *my* desk.

You said "online" archiving storage options. You said it "makes sense."
Need to read your own words as posted 15 lines above.

> I'm converting my thirty year backlog of film to digital to get better
> prints and better permanence.  The original negatives/slides are
> fragile and delicate and unique, and getting them stored safely in
> replicable digital form is a *big* load off my mind.
> 
> > > One of the *big* benefits of digital archives is that they can be
> > > replicated and stored in multiple ways in multiple locations.  This
> > > *greatly* increases the chances of images surviving various sorts of
> > > problems (fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, hurricane, civil unrest).
> > > Consider the Kennedy negatives that were lost because they were stored
> > > safely in a bank vault -- under the World Trade Center (the
> > > photographer was Jacques Lowe I believe).
> >
> > Guess there's no accounting for what terrorists will do. I seriously
> > doubt they'll fly a plane into my basement filing cabinets, though :)
> > Let's just consider your multiple location idea: Still just computer
> > storage, still magnetic media, still dependent on the power grid and
> > back up redundancy. I suppose you might consider that redundancy enough
> > of a safeguard. But of course if the terrorists strike again, like I say
> > they're not going to be interested in my house, but in some major target
> > like the power grid and computer networks :)
> 
> Your basement will flood first.

And that's why we've in fact been warned about terrorists targeting
government and industry computer systems and power grids? Right. What
was that massive eastern power failure just a little while ago -- a
flood? Out here on the western grid we have power failures *routinely*
thanks to too many air conditioners and companies like Enron.

BTW, my basement cannot flood, as I don't live in a flood plain and only
get 10 inches rainfall per year.

> And my hard drive isn't dependent on the power grid; yanking power
> won't damage it (and besides it's on a UPS, so it'll get shut down
> gracefully).

The need for generated power to retreive and view and use your images is
a need for power, regardless.

> > > In 750 years, there will be essentially *no* photographs from this era
> > > known because their original physical medium has survived, and
> > > millions of photographs from this era (including many originating on
> > > film) that are known because they survived in digital archives.
> >
> > nonsense.
> 
> Wait and see.

But you simply have no basis, scientific or otherwise, for predicting
that. Film OTOH, for all it's debatable shortcomings, is still a
tangible image that can survive regardless of social, cultural, or
technological changes. That's a fact already proven over the last 180
years. Digital is purely technology-based and as soon as that technology
changes or fails, the image it represents is gone.


Anyway thanks for the discussion. See you in 750 years.