Re: regards digital storage

[Eric Welch <ewelch@gp.magick.net>]

At 12:43 AM 7/6/96 -0700, you wrote:

>1) No scan or CCD generated image is of the quality that an original 35mm
>negative or transparency is at the present date. The picture elements 
>(pixels)
>of a piece of 35mm film is orders of magnitude greater than the best 
>scanning 
>equipment can achieve right now (2750-3600dpi seems to be the maximum of 
>available equipment). 

Not quite. I used a scanner (LeafScan 45) at my previous job that went to
5700. Much higher, and terrific quality. But you are right about the
tradeoffs. You'd need a file of 80-90 megs to match a Kodachrome original.
Though for projection purposes, a dupe made from an 18 meg file will produce
very nice results. Hence the problem, at this time, with digitizing slides.
The technology isn't there to get the most out of your slides, unless you
have enormous mass storage capability. 

AllSport - the largest sports photo agency in the world - archives their
slides in raw scans of 18 megs, and stores them in jukeboxes that hold
multiple discs that are 6.5 gigs each. Just to get it up and running was
over $100,000.

>2) That said, there is an odd fallacy in stating that CDROM stored images
>will only last 20 years because the media will only last that long, if 

It's no fallacy. The dang things deteriorate, warp and otherwise end up
unusable after short periods of time compared to, say, an archival black and
white print. It's not a big problem as long as you copy the digital
information on it before it becomes unusable. Just make sure you do it
before readers for the media become obsolete and no longer available.

>the expected archival permanence of the media is 20 years, there's really 
>no proof that it's that long or much longer or shorter. I have Audio CDs

Other than Music CDs which have gone bad? Same base on many writable CDs,
though Kodak's are on gold, which might last longer, but it's still on
plastic that isn't all that different than music CDs. No?

>few do and can be deemed 'collectible', well, the fact that they have a
>lifespan is to the benefit of a collector as they become more valuable 
>over

Very true. But collectable is only one reason they might have value. There's
historical value, and there is no one today who can say what is going to be
valuable historically 100 years hence. Imagine the historical value of
pictures taken 100 years ago that have been lost through neglect or tossed
out. What might we know if people had known what was of historical value,
and what wasn't.

On the other hand, 1,000,000 years hence, do we want all of our pictures to
still be around? No way! The world would fill up, even retrieval would
become amazingly difficult simply because finding what we want would be such
a chore. So I guess we need to be reasonable about what we want to leave to
posterity, and make our best guesses as to what might be historically
significant. Like a self-portrait I did of myself during a hot-air balloon
ride a couple weeks ago. Nobody will care about that unless I do something
to make myself famous. But I think I'm allergic to jail, so the likelihood
of that is slim. <g>


==========================
Eric Welch
Grants Pass Daily Courier