Re: CD Life - Long

[written_by -at- juno -dot- com]

> And as soon as you do that you've degraded the quality of the 
> recording  irretrievably. Earlier in this thread I linked to an article
on the 
> BBC website about the problems with old sound recording being lost to 
> degradation and improper storage.

I cringed at that as well. I love my records but I do not play them often
because listening to them damages them. Score one point for the CD. I
recall reading about a turntable that used a laser, rather than a needle
to read the groove. I am not sure where I read about it, however. 

(SNIP)

> Similarly, many papers and films self destruct over time. Others are 
> prone to moulds and being eaten by bacteria. Some combinations of 
> ink/dye/chemical and media degrade to acidic compounds that speed 
> the destruction of archives.

This is a complicated issue. I once managed a rather large archive of
film and glass plate negatives. They dated from the late 1800's to the
day we closed up shop. Not one of those plates or negatives (nitrate and
acetate) were ever stored in accordance with current archival standards. 

Our plates and negatives were stored in Kraft envelopes (supposedly a big
no no), and the envelopes were stored in liquor boxes. Thousands of boxes
resting on the floor of our basement, on the second floor of our building
and on wood racks. We let Loftus Novelty and Magic use our top floor to
produce products like the fake doggy doo doo you see in the joke shops. 
Rubber Chickens were also processed there, as was the famous Man-T-Hose.
Another story.

The 11 x 14 and larger glass plates were stacked flat. All great examples
of bad storage conditions and techniques.  Every image was perfect and
could be printed with ease. I printed thousands of them over the years.
What often happened was the envelope would fall apart when touched. So I
replaced the envelopes as required. The envelope carried the client name,
a description, the date and the file number. We started in 1875 or so,
with file #1, and numbered sequentially. 

I have seen the prints that the Utah Historical Society made from these
negatives. They used a scanner and conventional printer to produce prints
rather than simply print the original negative or plate. I was astounded
at how bloody awful their results were. Sadly, the UHS thought their
images were wonderful. They most certainly were not wonderful. I could
compare their prints with my prints, because some of those images I also
printed. I was using the proper techniques, however. My prints were
amazing, brag, brag, brag.

My fear is that one day, someone in charge might not want to foot the
bill for storage and decide to scan the images and toss the originals to
save our tax $$. 

When nitrate starts to go, it tends to damage other images. The term is
called the "Vinegar Syndrome" and it is a bad, bad thing. When it
happens, those negs need to be copied and tossed, because they really
can't be saved. I never encountered any examples of this problem with any
of our images. I attribute the longevity of these images to the working
methods we used to process the images. 

Another problem with nitrate negatives is their highly flammable nature.
Nitrate is short for cellulose nitrate, or gun cotton, an explosive
material. Another name is for it is Celluloid. Those vintage celluloid
buttons on your classic pin stripe gangster suit are little explosive
disks :>). So you might one day be able to McGuyver yourself out of a
problem using just a match and your buttons.

Moulds and bacterial problems can be dealt with. So can insects. The
damage is often due to how the image is stored and not the materials used
to produce it. For example, if you have 35mm slides, never wrap a rubber
band around them. The rubber gives off chemicals that can damage the
mount as well as the film image. Incidentally, if you have some old
family slides processed by Kodak, and they happen to be scratched, the
scratches can often be eliminated by removing the lacquer coating Kodak
once applied to slides. Quite often, the coating is scratched and not the
actual chip.

The film and processing makes a difference as well. Kodachrome is well
known for its longevity. Almost without exception, every Kodachrome slide
I own is still perfect, and look as good as they did the day they were
processed. Some of these images go back to the first days of Kodachrome. 

The only examples I own that have faded were those that were those that
were processed by Technicolor or the Owl Drug Store. All of my Kodak
processed Kodachromes are still perfect, and that includes my collection
of 4 x 5, 8 x 10 and larger Kodachrome sheet images. 

My Anscochromes have faded, as have some of the Ektachromes, but the
Agfachromes are as nice as the Kodachromes. All of my Technicolor motion
picture clips are flawless as well. I can attribute faded Ektachromes to
Kodak in some cases, but more often than not, the worst examples were
processed by other labs, so I might guess that the processor did
something wrong. Who knows.

The only real damage I see to my collection of images is from materials
sold as "archival." Some of those negative sleeves are stiff and have
started to wrinkle, adding creases to the edges of the negatives. So I am
back to using glassine, a definite no no, according to the archival
storage experts. Not a no no with other philatelists who have no problems
using glassine to store covers and stamps, so who knows who is correct. I
am told that all old dry mount (Kodak brand) will eventually cause
problems. Funny thing is, my collection of Kodak dealer prints made in
1920 or so were dry mounted and they are still perfect. 

 > It used to be that you could take photos, make prints, and a 
> hundred
> >  years later, your ancestors could sit down with a photo album 
> and
> >  flip through a family history. Very simple and user-friendly.
> 
> Not so. Some methods/processes are/were much better than others. The 
> best 
> is undoubtedly the glass negatives used by early explorers. 

Having worked in the business as a custom printer. I might agree that
plates were "better" in that they were dimensionally stable and not
nitrate based. If properly processed, they will last for centuries, as
will conventional black and white film, modern and old. Glass plates are
still available for some applications. 

Quite often, the problems you will see decades down the road are caused
by the photo lab. When I was a printer, I knew the operators of virtually
every lab in the city. We sold most of them chemicals and sundries. Many
labs took shortcuts or used exhausted chemicals, and this can cause
problems for the customer.

An improperly processed print can contaminate other images and any excess
silver remaining in the print can tarnish. Any chemicals remaining in the
paper can cause yellowing, and the paper can fall apart. Years down the
road, your images might be a disaster -not because of the nature of the
medium, but because of the lousy processing you ended up with when you
took advantage of the local Quickey Mart developing special.

Everything we printed was printed on fiber paper. We used double fixer
baths, hypo eliminator and a 1-1/2 hour wash cycle. All this for less
than a buck a roll for film processing and .17 (or so, might have been
less) cents per enlarger made print. When we made some enlargements, we
used a gold protective solution that plates the silver with gold; a much
more inert material. We also tested for residual silver. You can expect a
500 year life from those images. 

I am not so sure today's crop of labs take the same care that we did. I
still know a few local custom printers and some of them do not process as
carefully as I would.

(SNIP)

> My dad rescued a  box  full of photos from his father by
re-photographing them. Now they're  preserved for a while longer, but the
yellowed and faded images can  never be brought back.

Actually, they often can. I would periodically restore the customer's
image rather than just make a "simple" copy. However, by making a copy, a
bad image can be made better, because of the increased contrast. I can
take your old family portraits that have yellowed and faded from age, and
most likely, make them look as they looked the day there were made. Just
by using simple copy techniques and a few contrast filters. 

The visual information might appear to have faded out of existence, but
in many cases, the information can be recovered. Sometimes, you will see
things in the image you never knew were there. Amazingly, a picture with
no trace of an image except for an overall yellowish color can often be
restored to its original glory.

The next time you are at the public library, take a look at the Time Life
series of photography books. Look for the books with silver covers and
black binding on the spine. Read the volume devoted to Archival
Processing. I recall it is called "Preserving Photographs".  This volume
provides a great introduction to proper processing and how the experts
save old images using simple, but specialized techniques. You will be
amazed. 

Although we sometimes restored the image using filters, spotting, bleach,
airbrushing, etc, yellowed images can sometimes be chemically restored
(up to a point) by removing the silver compounds that are causing the
problem. Granted, it is easier to scan the image and run it through
Photoshop and this is certainly cheaper than physically restoring a
print. You would be amazed at what can be done to the physical image
using the old techniques, however.

Bob

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