Re: OT inkjet neg fading

Dye-based prints are indeed not archival. That's why they tried to make
pigment-based inks, but as predicted, since pigments are not as transparent
as dyes, the color gamut of pigment-based inks is smaller than that of
dye-based inks. In commercial world, they are leaning toward dye-based inks
for colorful display. For them, bright and colorful display (in
advertisement, for example) is more important than permanence.

So I don't know how long the research on pigment inks is going to continue.
Hopefully museums and artists make up enough numbers that it will continue.

Dave S

----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 3:41 AM
Subject: Re: OT inkjet neg fading

>
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, Clay Harmon wrote:
> > ... In one of the articles was a graph that
> > authors had done that showed the reflection density loss versus time
> > for an Epson dye based print. Pretty enlightening! Especially since
> > right next to it was an article on doing 'digital palladium' prints
> > that allowed workers to get palladium quality while 'avoiding toxic
> > chemicals'. I had to chuckle at that...
>
> This was supposed to be fading simply from aging, or from drying out, or
> from UV light exposure ???
>
> I found that 2 hours under UV light did not change the (transmission)
> densitometer reading of the black dye in my 1160 -- (normal exposure is 2
> to 5 minutes). But that's for a negative where useful life of more
> than a year or two doesn't matter.
>
> So they're saying dye based prints aren't archival? Did we think
> they were? What was the time period?
>
> J.
>
>
Received on Wed Dec 31 09:57:46 2003