Fading Photos

As digital photography grows, so does clash over fading photos
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
The Wall Street Journal

The boom in digital photography has sparked a backbiting squabble over the longevity of pictures made on home printers.

The clash pits printer makers eager to market their own lines of expensive specialty photo paper against big paper purveyors like retailer Staples and photo giant Eastman Kodak, neither of which makes inkjet printers of their own.

As more people use digital cameras, many are making homemade prints. Yet many shutterbugs could end up disappointed by the shelf life of photos.

Wilhelm Imaging Research, a lab in Grinnell, Iowa, that was hired by Hewlett-Packard, Seiko Epson and other printer makers, recently publicly criticized Staples’ top-of-the-line photo paper as a “disaster,” saying photos printed on it fade rapidly from exposure to ozone pollution.

Meanwhile, Kodak last year claimed prints made on its special paper with printers manufactured by H-P and Epson would last more than 100 years. Scientists from H-P and Epson — which market their own photo paper — disputed Kodak’s claim. “Eastman Kodak uses significantly lower test criteria than industry-accepted practices to achieve this rating,” Epson scientists wrote.

The hostilities underscore how important paper remains in the age of digital photography. The market for inkjet photo paper will grow 23 percent to $1.2 billion this year, up from $972 million in 2004, estimates Cathy Martin, an analyst for Infotrends, a market-research concern.

From a consumer’s point of view, digital photo fading shouldn’t be a big problem — provided the consumer kept a digital copy of the picture on a CD or online photo-storage site. But with software standards, Web sites and storage devices constantly changing, a print on paper might be the best way to assure that your great-grandchildren see what their ancestors looked like.

For ultimate longevity, archivists recommend subzero refrigeration of prints. Prints last much longer when stored in photo albums or even shoe boxes than those displayed on walls, where they are affected by light, pollution, smoke and moisture.

Rebecca Ludens, a Kalamazoo, Mich., homemaker who writes about photo scrapbooks for About.com, an online information service, says that photo longevity is a big concern for the nation’s 31 million scrapbook-keepers.“They’re hoping the pictures will last more than decades.