Computer files DO NOT have an infinite life. Digital media is
surprisingly non-permanent. Magnetic media is subject to deteriorating in
both the magnetic strength and media composition areas. Recordable CD-ROMS
bring their own problems. My own experience being that errors are frequent
and of course correctable only by making another disk. And of course, if we
do have a disk full of our photo's 50 years from now, what will we read
them on? Witness the cassette media of early personal computers. There have
been groups formed to explore this problem, and ironically enough, two of
their suggestions were to put the digital information on either archival
punch-paper that has holes (or not) to convey the information, or sheets of
archival paper that have bar-code like markings on them. Part of the
rationale was that the machinery to read these would not be that difficult
to build if there was no longer the means to read them.
Of course we could just transfer the files every time a new media
came out, with all the labor that involves. Kinda makes negatives look
pretty good.
> I am just bothered by some people who does photo
>restoration works for others and all they give to their client was a dye-sub
>print. I think that is unethical.
Is it the dye-sub print that bothers you? Or performing the
restoration on the computer? I love restoring on the computer, I can give
the customer much better results in a shorter time than when I used to do
it by hand. Of course I get a big neg made and then make an "archival"
print afterwards.
mjc5@psu.edu