It's amazing how I can flip open my binder and pull a negative from 1997-98 and print it, but a digital file shot 6 months ago has just evaporated into who knows where. Is it possible to make digital negatives last a long time like regular negatives? Has anyone tried a coating agent or some other method?

It's amazing how I can flip open my binder and pull a negative from 1997-98 and print it, but a digital file shot 6 months ago has just evaporated into who knows where. Is it possible to make digital negatives last a long time like regular negatives? Has anyone tried a coating agent or some other method?

are you saying if you store a digital negative, within 6 months the substrate is clear (or faded considerably)? which inkset/substrate are you using? i've printed with epson 2200 and 7600 inks and have negatives that i printed 2 years ago, with no fading

Sorry, I was just saying that digital files on DVD or CD sometimes disappear within a short time, for whatever reason.

It would be great if the digital negative used as a hard copy could be made to last a very long time like film.

I believe so. Digital negatives made on printers like the Epson 2200 and 2400 appear to be very stable if you protect the emulsion of the negative from scratching. I have some that are now 3-4 years old, stored in plastic sleeves, and they are as good as the day I made them. I am fairly certain that these negatives have a much better chance of surval than the digital files used to print them.

Sandy King



It's amazing how I can flip open my binder and pull a negative from 1997-98 and print it, but a digital file shot 6 months ago has just evaporated into who knows where. Is it possible to make digital negatives last a long time like regular negatives? Has anyone tried a coating agent or some other method?

Although most folks here have likely heard of the products, I'll just mention this for the record. There are "archival" gold CDs and DVDs that claim a much better lifespan that the typical inexpensive "silver" products. Of course no one knows for sure what that actually is, but it's probably a better bet for digital storage with longer backup cycles.

Lee

Digital negative?

If you mean the hard copy print-out or screen display of an electronic picture file then archiving is as simple as photographing the hard-copy or screen with silver based light sensitive film and processing archivally.

If you mean deeply archiving the electronic picture file itself then you have to use the most stable CD, DVD, hard drive, whatever, storage medium you can get plus you have to store that thing under the most stable and benign conditions. Then you have to archive the software that turns the electronic file into instructions for a display device. Then you have to archive the computer, printer, or display device itself. Oh, and then you may as well archive electricity. Two hundred years ago no one used electricity and two hundred years from now something else, dark energy perhaps, may power the world.

In the end it could be that the digital domain is best suited for ephemera, entertainments, joyful diversions, and amusements unconstrained by material costs and the laws of matter and physics. By analogy, soap-bubbles can be fun to play with but who wants to archive them when they can be generated anew whenever needed?