Dark Stability of Photographs-The Forgotten Parameter

摘要

In the recent literature there has been much mention of longevity of digitally-generated prints. What is not always understood by consumers is that these numbers are usually the print display ratings which have very little to do with the album making industry. For this group of consumers, the most important stability parameters are album keeping and gas fade, both of which are actually dark stability parameters because neither requires the presence of light to affect the print material. For these reasons, we have subjected print materials to various household chemicals, which are known in the photographic folklore for print cleaning or to alter the surface characteristics of the print. Since household chemicals may take a long time to react with the prints, we ran an accelerated test at 60℃ and 50% RH in foil bags vs. a control similarly treated without the presence of household chemicals. We have also examined a number of print materials exposed to ozone or NOx.