My friends Jim and Julie had to evacuate their home to escape a recent bushfire. The roads were cut, but they got out by boat, each carrying a suitcase crammed with their most precious possessions plus...a photo album and a box of loose prints. They told me later that if they had to leave anything else they would have dumped the suitcases. Their story isn’t exceptional: in every disaster, among the first things people try to rescue are the photos that map their lives: all those captured moments of time; people; family milestones and irreplaceable memories.
An album or a shoebox are one thing, but would you grab your computer (a laptop, maybe... but the desktop??) or a hard drive or a box of CDs: In the digital age, preserving your pictures is not so simple, and a lot less secure. Less secure? That’s right; unless you take some special precautions, a lot less secure!
Think of it this way: a printed photo in an album lasts maybe 50 years. In a shoebox, away from the light and atmosphere it probably does just as well. But if you keep your pictures in a computer on a hard drive, who knows how long it is going to last. You haven’t had it 25 years, let alone 50..nobody has. The typical life of a hard drive is probably 3 to 5 years; and in the last 5 years, how many hard disk crashes, corrupt files and computer failures have you had?
What about backing up to CD or DVD? Excellent idea. But how many dud disks have you thrown away in the last 5 years, how many “read/write failures”? In fact, how many new CD-like formats have you seen in those same 5 years? Do you expect your CDs to last 50 years without the surface breaking down, being scratched, or experiencing other data loss?
Manufacturers claim 20 to 50 years for their products, but they don’t guarantee that, and in a few years time, your computer (if that is still the device we use to access DVDs) will probably not accept the current format DVD/CDs.
Many people reading this will never have had a tape based storage system on their computers, but that was the standard in the 1980s before we started putting pictures on floppy disks (remember them) and zip disk (another trip down memory lane); how about Bernouli Drives? Now Cds are giving way to DVDs, and the fight between HDDVD and Blu-Ray has been settled just as flash memory seems set to displace both, and probably herald the demise of magnetic hard drives too.
Then there is the question of format: at present, jpeg and tiff seem pretty secure, but so did .iff files on the Amiga not so long ago, and compression systems are a worry, too. For instance, LZW has been with us since the 1980s and although lossless, it is not nearly so widely supported as jpeg compression, which is not lossless. Every time you edit and save your jpeg file, some data is discarded, degrading the image a little. A later version of jpeg was released (jpeg2000), but it was never taken up by the industry.
Prints and Negatives
How then can you preserve your precious memories... or at last, you treasured photographs? The two stages are first, making appropriate back-up files, and second preserving and archiving them in a systematic way to minimise potential damage or loss. This applies to both digital and film based images.
There are ways of editing, filing, scanning and archiving that provide you with far better results than others. Let’s look at film (negatives and prints) first.
Protecting Negatives, Slides and Prints - Temperature, humidity and sunlight are hazardous to the health of prints, slides and negatives. Unstable and changing conditions such as hot, humid weather followed by cold and dry (typical of the attics where so many old photos turn up) are really unhealthy for photos. Storing pictures in condition like this will see them crack and fade. It also causes the emulsion to peel away from the base of the photo. Atmospheric pollution, including dirt, dust and oil, is another significant cause of deterioration.
Cardboard boxes are rarely acid free and so can add to the problem. Lignin, a substance found in wood is used to make paper stronger; as it breaks down, it turns the paper brown and releases acids which will damage your pictures. Look for products that are both acid and lignin free, or use an archival spray on them (see below).
Archival Sprays deposit a safe, non-toxic alkaline buffer that is taken into into the structure of paper to protect photographs from deterioration. They make paper acid-free, so you can use these sprays on paper based products like scrapbooks, albums, boxes and storage envelopes.
Avoid photo albums and any paper or plastic storage products that do not state explicitly ‘photo safe’, ‘lignin free’ and ‘acid-free’. Never use PVC-based plastics; avoid Polyester, Mylar, Polypropylene and Polyethelyne.
Not all pollution is atmospheric: one of the worst sources of dirt, dust, and oils is you! Hands and the oils that naturally lubricate our skin, together with the substances that stick to those oils, can do permanent damage. You should only handle slides by their frames and prints or negatives along the edges, preferably wearing white cotton gloves.
The worst places to store your photographs is in an uninsulated attic or ceiling space. Constant high temperatures and humidity in the summer and low temperatures and humidity in the winter can cause your photographs to become brittle and crack. Even without the cycle from heat to cold, extremes of temperature and humidity are damaging. Cold will make slides and negatives brittle, humidity encourages mould and fungus damage, and heat fades.
Damp can cause photographs to stick together while other hazards of storage areas like these are insects and rodents; they seem to think photographs are an ideal nesting place, and they don’t mind having a nibble, either.
Treat you photos like wine: keep them in a dark location with a consistent, cool temperature and low humidity. Depending on how many pictures we are talking about, this can be a room or a dedicated cupboard (include a product to keep the air dry), but for very large collections, especially those you really value, consider a safe deposit box at a bank where the conditions are ideal for your master copies. Watch out for water pipes in the vicinity(they can leak or even burst); risky locations include places prone to flooding or leaks like a basement or a cupboard which backs onto a shower, tub or sink.
You would be foolish to store your negatives in the same place as your photographs. I don’t just mean in the same room: fires and other disaster are as likely to destroy a whole house as one room, and the damage done by fire-fighters is not limited to a single room, anyway. If paid storage is not an option, how about a relative’s house, or maybe an arrangement with a fellow photographer? You store mine, I’ll store yours.
Beware of ball-point pens and felt-tips. If they are not designed specifically for use on photos, they can seep through the backing and eat away the emulsion. Ball points also ‘scribe’ the image and any ink is likely to stain your photos over time. Acid-free soft pens are available, but if you don’t have one, limit yourself to a soft (B or 2B) lead pencil on the back of the image.
Rubber bands contain sulphur and paper clips can scratch the surface of prints and negatives. Avoid them.
The term 'archival' indicates a life of 50 to 150 years. A product that has been verified to be of archival quality is designed for museum storage standards. This is what you should choose for photographs.
When you frame photos, always use a matte. It doesn’t just frame the picture, it holds it away from the glass, preventing it from sticking and reducing the risk of condensation. Be careful where you hang it, because light, and especially sunlight, will cause your photo to fade. While any glass is effective in safeguarding your prints from damaging UV rays, glass designed for framing pictures is preferable. By limiting the amount of air circulating around the picture, you prevent a high degree of deterioration caused by our common mix of air conditioning and the atmosphere. When you hang a photo, never hang your ‘master’ print: display a copy!
Rubber cement and pressure sensitive tapes typically contain substances such as sulphur and acids which will cause your photos to deteriorate. Only use photo-safe glues and tapes.
Other sources of sulphur include paint fumes, plywood, cardboard, and some cleaning products; and keep pictures away from fireplaces, heaters and dryers.
Finally, it is a simple, if time consuming task, to save your important photos as digital files. If you have your pictures processed by a lab, you can usually order a CD at the same time. Otherwise, you can scan them. Scanning slides and negatives well takes time and skill and is awkward on typical home or office flat-bed scanners, even those with negative/slide attachments; you may prefer to have them done professionally. Prints are easier.
Scan your pictures at the highest optical resolution your scanner allows, but at least at 300 dpi, and at the highest colour resolution. If you need a smaller file for email or perhaps, web publication, that’s easy in software, but you want your archive file to be as faithful to the photograph as possible.
Do not use lossy compression when saving the images. If your scanner insists on saving as a JPEG, set the compression factor to 1 or, better, open PaintShopPro or Photoshop and import the image from the scanner, then same it in a lossless format like tiff or the software’s native format.
Now that we have digitised the images, everything that applies to protecting files that originated in a digital camera applies, except one: if you want to safeguard a digital image, make a print! Print it on a quality printer using original inks and the manufacturer’s paper: use a leading printer (Epson, Canon) and you will have a print with the potential to outlast a traditional ‘silver’ print.
Digital Files - Media can (does!) deteriorate, even when not used. Every 6 months you should confirm that your files are still accessible. You don’t have to sit in front of your screen for hours at a time: open the folder and have your OS run the files as a slide show. Check from time to time. If any file has become corrupt, you will find an "error reading file" message waiting for you when you get back. If you do, go to your second back-up and recreate the entire back-up set on fresh media....don’t just replace the file: if the media is faulty, other files will soon be lost!
As you see new storage media beginning to replace the established systems, consider transferring your files to it. Wait until the new systems have become well established, though (and the price drops!) anyone who invested in HDDVD 4 months ago is not going to be too happy today; in a sense, they might just as well have stayed with their 8 1/2" or 3” floppies. Old and new technologies overlap - don’t rush in; there will be a few years at least before obsolescence threatens your archives.
Store you images in two places using an uncompressed or lossless format. I suggest RAW if available and tiff. By all means keep jpegs, but not as your archive or reference file. Edited, retouched and jpeg images are not archival. Save these with a different file name and do not delete your original file. Keeping a master file in an uncompressed form is a prerequisite to retaining maximum quality. When editing, save intermediate files in TIFF so there is no loss of quality.
Backup and store your images in safe places. Record 2-3 copies. One set should always be stored off-site and another in a fire-safe. At today's prices for terrabite hard drives and DVDs there is really no excuse not to save your master files as TIFFs.
Do not overlook on-line storage, but be sure the server can accommodate the large tiff or RAW files you will be generating. This type of storage should not replace archiving your photos to DVD/HD, (you do not want your pictures stored with a company that could go off line just when you need an image - or worse, go out of business) but it could replace or enhance your backup procedures. Example of on-line backup systems are mozy.com and badongo.com.
Don't keep all your sets on the same type of media; when CDs were first introduced, they were hailed as miracle media: problems often do not show up until media have been in use for many years by many people, and sometimes newer media are on the market before we ever discovered long-term problems with the old.
At the moment, a combination of hard disk + DVD backup seems safe and reliable: bear in mind that standard CDs and DVDs deteriorate quite quickly. Instead, I suggest you use Archival disks. Like archival paper, they are tested for a storage life of 100+ years. A little paranoia isn’t amiss even with these; as soon as you burn your disk, check it for errors!
Portable hard drives are relatively inexpensive for the amount of data they hold. You can save your images quickly and transport them fairly easily, and hook up to virtually any computer to access your files via a USB or firewire port. Importantly, a portable hard drive can be stored in a fire-proof and/or water-tight safe or box.
Don't keep all of your backups in the same location. Electronic media faces the same risks of fire or flood mentioned earlier, and are even more vulnerable to theft, since the drives, mp4 players and computers are valuable in themselves, and thieves are not going to return the photos even if that is not what they were after.
Can you do all this to protect you images: sure. Will you? Even full time professionals are not always so meticulous. My suggestion is this: select your important photos - the ones you really don’t want to lose, and establish a routine to archive at least these on a weekly basis. With digital files, a lot of this can be automated, so set up a systematic approach to protecting your best and most precious images.
