>
> >>Sender: alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au Received: from
> >>So far as CD-ROM is concerned it is not vital that it have a
> >>long life - just that its limits are known.
>
> Yes, in fact it is more important to know the limit to the life span of
the
> drives that can read it.
This is not a real problem so long as you stick with widely available
technology.
>
> >>Once an image is in digital form it can be transferred to a new
> >>storage medium with absolutely no loss . This is a quite
> >>different situation with images on paper.
>
> The lack of degradation is nice, but the problem here is SOMEONE has to do
the
> transfer. If the file gets put on the shelf and doesn't get transferred
before
> the technology leaves it behind, it is for all practical purposes
completely
> gone.
If the images are of sufficient worth it will always be possible to
reconstruct the technology in any case.
>
> Also copying doesn't necessarily ensure the file is still readable. You
also
> need a program that can decode the file. These have to be copied to the
new
> medium as well, and must be able to run on the newer computers.
Sorry, but this is just trivial. You are talking about a few minutes work by
a half-way proficient programmer. Obviously work should be stored in
well-known and documented formats.
You may also
> want to convert the image file to a new format, and this process may not
> actually be lossless.
You have the choice of whether to use a loss-less process or not. Obviously
if you wanted to retain the information you would not choose a lossy format.
Again I think your objection is trivial.
> >> Of course digital
> >>images could be stored in digital form on paper if you really
> >>wanted to ensure the degree of permanence provided by paper!
>
> Interesting idea! You could conceivably document the image, provide a
listing
> of the program used to read the file, and give a listing of the image
data. The
> result would be a single book representing a single image. This would
also be
> something recognizable to your great grandchildren since the title would
be
> obvious. Perhaps optical character recognition systems will also be
> sufficiently accurate in the future to make getting these data back into
the
> computer a reasonable task.
OCR can cope adequately at the present state of technology so long as you
make a suitable choice of output device and font. Since the paper would in
this case be the archival format you do not actually need a perfect
translation in this process. However I have to say that I am not aware of
the likely lifetime of laser printout on good quality paper. But of course
it is totally unnecessary given that rather better forms of digital storage
currently exist and will no doubt be improved on greatly in the near future.
>You could even include an actual print just to give
> the prospective reader of this document, an idea as to what they could
expect to
> get. That way they could easily decide if it would be worth the trouble.
I suppose if you mean a digital print that would be easily done - but
unnecessary.
Peter Marshall
Family Album/Gay Pride - http://www.dragonfire.net/~gallery/index.html
Also on Fixing Shadows: ----------- http://fermi.clas.virginia.edu/~ds8s
Future Press and elsewhere... E-Mail: petermarshall@cix.compulink.co.uk