Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Any practitioner of the book arts...printer, etcher, binder, et cetera...will tell you that the closest we have ever come to a permanent medium is vellum. Reproduce all of your pictures on vellum, from either negative or digital file, and you can count on its survival for over 1,000 years if handled properly. Papyrus, too, is noted for its longevity, but only if retted in acid-neutral water, so I would go with the vellum, parchment only ion a pinch. Brian is right; virtually every form of paper ever developed has limits to its durability. Buzz Hausner -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Brian Reid Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 12:23 PM To: Leica Users Group Subject: RE: [Leica] "a few years" for digital pix + solving E-mail delivery Bits last forever. Pictures don't. If you have a piece of paper in your hand, with pretty pictures on it, that paper is subject to decay, washout, fading, and so forth. Regardless of how the image got on it. If you have a digital representation of a picture, then it will still be the same a thousand years from now. And you can print it out on whatever technology is available then. Yes, there are media issues having to do with long-term storage, but when you copy a digital image, the copy is perfect, so there is no loss of image quality there. When you copy a visual image (paper or film) the copy is not perfect, so you lose image quality. Digital is the only sensible way to store images. Bits last forever. _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information