RPS Imaging Science Group

IS&T Archiving 2010

The IS&T Archiving conference is in Europe this June. The Preliminary Program is now available – see http://www.imaging.org/IST/conferences/archiving/.
Looks like a good meeting. I hope to be there for at least a part of the meeting as I am particularly interested in the stuff about microfilm. Hope to see you there!

Dot images

Browsing through my old files and found this image of inkjet dots from my work published at early IS&T Archiving conferences. This years meeting looks to continue to be interesting – see http://www.imaging.org/ist/conferences/archiving/index.cfm . Hope to see you there!

The Digital Print. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification and Preservation. By Martin C Jürgens. Thames & Hudson ISBN 9780500514986 25.30 x 20.30 cm 328 pages. For more details see http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500514986.html
This book, published in the UK by Thames & Hudson is first and foremost a quality product. Hard backed and printed on smooth, heavyweight paper stock it reproduces both the text and the many pictures and diagrams well. In an era of poor quality book production this stands out as an asset to the bookshelf.
But what of the content? The book is laid out in 4 parts plus detailed appendices and does not disappoint. Clearly meant as a reference book, rather than to be read end to end there is content here of interest to both the photographic student and the established conservator. It can however be read as a journey to the understanding of the digital print and its failure mechanisms.
Part 1 “Understanding Digital Prints” covers the history and current applications of digital printing plus the component materials of the print. For me the history was a great read as I remember lots of the illustrations from university days. The components part of this section introduces 2 visual strengths of this book – Martin’s clear diagrams and the liberal use of cross sections visualised using a microscope.
Part 2 aims to summarise the major digital printing processes used for photographs. The illustrated chapters cover technologies such as inkjet, electrophotography and conventional silver halide based systems. These are well written but my only criticism would be that it is too comprehensive. As a reference work for the future it would be easy to confuse some of the minors with the mainstream technologies.
Part 3 details the visual inspection techniques that allow a viewer to distinguish the various printing technologies. As such it is particularly applicable to conservators and collectors. This section is well laid out with 2 page summaries of the characteristics of the main technologies at the end.
Part 4 then looks at all the issues that pertain to the preservation of the print. The typical failure routes (heat, light, pollutants and humidity) and the standard tests for these are documented accompanied by a good series of illustrations. Finally an excellent series of recommendations are given based on Martin’s wide knowledge and experience of these materials.
The book contains a comprehensive reference list that is of great value for those with access to suitable library resource plus a large identification flowchart in a pocket inside the back cover. The volume is a valuable resource for the photographic printer, conservator and collector and I thoroughly recommend it.

Bond and cast coat papers from a SEM

Getting into some more inkjet media issues. This is an SEM image of 2 types of paper used in early inkjet media. The bond paper has a rougher surface but the cast coated product contained a network of cracks. This made a big difference to the printing characteristics. For more information see http://www.imaging.org/ScriptContent/store/epub.cfm?abstrid=30285

Some time ago I wrote about this meeting. The Institute of Physics Printing and Graphics Science Group in collaboration with the University of the Arts London MATAR Centre (see http://www.matar.co.uk/) organises a periodic International conference entitled “Preservation and Conservation Issues in Digital Printing and Digital Photography”. Registration is now open at http://ppp10.iopconfs.org/Registration/page_37015.html.

Just got notice from Martin Jürgens, a Photo Conservator from Germany that his new book “The Digital Print: Identification and Preservation” is available – see http://www.thamesandhudson.com/en/1/9780500514986.mxs?5200244afa6aedd51bdddf1c3000fd26&0&0&0 . 
Martin is an interesting guy. I met him first at one of the Institute of Physics Preservation and Conservation meetings – see http://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/pgs/pgs_calendar/index.html for the next in the series. I look forward to taking a look at his book!

The IS&T Archiving 2010 conference

In cooperation with both the RPS Imaging Science Group and the IoP Printing and Graphics Science Group the Archiving 2010 meeting once more sees this conference return to Europe. Check out the announcement and call for papers under http://www.imaging.org/conferences/archiving2010/ .

Back on line again after my 2002 vintage laptop developed deathwish. It took to steadily corrupting the Windows O/S which I took to be a progressive fault on the well used and over full 30GByte hard drive. Thankfully all the data was backed up but the data files remained readable anyway.

I changed the drive for a newer, faster 160GByte version. Still the same problem! Chased it down to a faulty memory module. So now up and running with more memory, more disc capacity and a lot less junk on the drive.

And still lots to say. The learning point is ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR IMAGES. Through all this I appear to have lost nothing except a lot of time!

Flew home from Budapest yesterday and had an interesting experience. Mid flight both my wife and I were reviewing photos taken on our trip using PDAs. My wife’s IPAQ, new but well used suddenly experienced a problem that required a soft reset. Most unusual but not unknown. My older but extremely proven Axim was in an even more serious plight, requiring a hard reset to recover a completely unresponsive unit. Electrical event in flight?
Thankfully both the Compact Flash cards therein and the PDAs appear undamaged. The lesson for me is to back up my images even before the flight home!

The image stability of modern photo print materials is getting very high. As a result, getting valid testing regimes that do not take years to demonstrate failure is difficult. The current tests for predicting the stability of colour photographic images are based on an adaptation of the Arrhenius method. This test methodology is important enough to warrant a standard in its own right – ISO 18924 “Imaging materials — Test method for Arrhenius-type predictions” – see http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=28495 .
Although this method is based on sound chemistry, the validity of its application to predicting
changes of photographic images rests on empirical confirmation. History is on our side – many chromogenic colour products yield image fading and staining in both accelerated and non-accelerated dark ageing tests that are in good agreement with the Arrhenius relationship.
However, we may be lulled into a false sense of security on this as some more modern products show significant deviation from this ideal behaviour. Some exhibit atypical staining at elevated temperatures; others abnormal image degradation, colour balance and saturation.
In particular, some photographic materials can undergo dramatic changes at relative humidities above 60 % owing to changes in the physical properties of gelatine and other binder materials. Lower maximum relative humidities may need to be tested for some of the more humidity-sensitive inkjet materials because of phase changes such as melting point or glass transition temperature.
Maybe Arrhenius has had his day!