Inkjet Photo Print Longevity Lacking

Yet another Anonymous Coward writes to tell us about a piece up at the NYTimes on the (lack of) longevity of photos printed on inkjet printers. As the article's title says, somewhat alarmingly, "It isn't that images fade, it's that they can vanish." The problem is actually more nuanced than this; it's that no-one has a reliable and standardized way of testing inkjet prints for longevity. From the article: "The life of color inkjet prints has also been hindered by the origins of the technology, which was mainly intended for printing things like pie charts, said Nils Miller, a scientist at Hewlett-Packard. 'The initial emphasis was, how do we get bright colors on plain paper," Dr. Miller said. "Permanence was not really on the radar screen yet.'"

Re:What about the longevity of printers themselves

[rabblerabble]

Quit smacking them every time you see "PC LOAD LETTER"!

Back to the Future photos

[jettawu]

As the article's title says, somewhat alarmingly, "It isn't that images fade, it's that they can vanish."

Doc: Great Scott. Let me see that photograph again of your brother. Just as I thought, this proves my theory, look at your brother.
Marty: His head's gone, it's like it's been erased.
Doc: Erased from existence.

I couldn't resist

Ancient Photographs

[MutualDisdain]

This is why no ancient photographs exist. We need to find a way to port our digital images to stone.