Digital printouts: significance of archival qualities.

TERRY KING (KINGNAPOLEONPHOTO@compuserve.com)
Sun, 01 Mar 1998 03:55:24 -0500

Somebody pointed out that a print made on a bubble jet printer was not
archival in the way say platinum or gum can be.

Prints that emulate platinum or gravure in appearance can be produced on
printers such as the Epson 3000. If you make a big one it will far quicker
and cheaper and even express the wish of the photographer more effectively
than going through the whole platinum process. Of course it will fade, with
current technology, but as Sil tells us that situation is almost gone.

The photographically uninformed punter is not particularly worried if the
print is archival or not. If it fades, run off another one from the CD. By
the time the CD becomes unreadable, for whatever reason, the printing
technology is likely to have caught up.

As a gum, platinum, bromoil, cyanotype, kallitype and carbon printer I do
not suggest that they are not worth doing. Digital methods, for making a
fine print, give us another tool.

Terry King