Question about Preserving Historic Digital Photographs

[sarah_fox]

<p>In the words of our beloved Spock, that's illogical. Once the data are irreparably corrupted (which will eventually happen), then uncorrupted data become an impossibility thereafter. ;-)</p>

<p>Anyway, the statistician in me wishes you the very best of luck preserving your data with 100% accuracy forever! (Damn the Poisson process and its confounded distribution! Full speed ahead!)</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Again, if all possibilities will eventually happen, it will happen that the original data will be kept forever unchanged. Damn those who say something is impossible because everything that is possible will happen!<br>But i'll meet you half way: As long as you understand that it is illogical to try to preserve something as it is by changing it to something it is not, i'll let you believe that anybody else thinking that it makes sense to try to keep as close to the original as possible is just because they are not as versed in statistics as you are. Agree?

[sarah_fox]

<p>Negotiating logic and principles of probability and statistics? Seriously?</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

"Seriously?", indeed.<br>Try: pointing out fallacies and (what did you call it?) 'foolishness' while offering to pretend having seen only half of it so there is some room to believe (even if only as a pretence) that is not quite as embarrasing as it is. ;-)<br>But you decline the saving hand, fine with me. What had to be said about your illogical suggestion and attempt to hide the embarrasment has been said. The OP has been given some really helpful suggestions, so that's it.

[sarah_fox]

<p>This reminds me of a little dog across the fence that wouldn't stop barking at me yesterday. I got annoyed and walked away. So in that spirit, I congratulate you on your victory! However, all the yapping in the world cannot convince me of the points you are trying to argue.</p>

 

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>However, all the yapping in the world cannot convince me of the points you are trying to argue.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>FWIW (and for Q.G. little I'm sure) I'm not convinced either...</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>Is it possible to answer newbies' questions in a constructive way which makes PNers seem friendly and welcoming and NOT a bunch of **sholes who like to argue with and sneer at other people?</p>

[digitaldog]

<p>Marc makes two critical points! </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Far too much for a Photo.net post. <br>

Also, you need to define what you mean by preservation. 1000 years and able to withstand nuclear war is different from 25 years and able to withstand a fire.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We can't even start without first taking into account the definition of preservation over a defined time span and for how much money and effort. To aid the OP, we need more information. That said, hard drives do appear best for fast and inexpensive archives so just backup multiple copies to multiple drives in differing locations. <br>

I'm more concerned about proprietary formats having lived through quite a few that are no longer but could today be accessed on my old MacBook that can run OS9. </p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>multiple copies to multiple drives in differing locations.</em><br>

Exactly! I am sure the OP is looking for 99.9% security with an acceptable level of effort and investment. The law of diminishing returns applies - to add more "9's" as decimal places after this number would mean sky-rocketing costs for bomb- and fireproof storage locations, which I am sure could be rented but which would be far from cheap.</p>

[Glenn McCreery]

<p>Well, if you really want long life, you could do it like the "Voyager Golden Records" included in the two Voyager spacecraft that were launched in 1977. The records include many photographs from the pre-digital age. The recorded gold-plated copper discs (with aluminum and uranium 238 electroplated covering) are also phonograph recordings of sounds. An advanced extraterrestrial civilization would need to figure out how to play a phonograph record (using an included diagram on one face of the record) and interpret the meaning of the strange human utterances. Voyager 1 will be in the neighborhood of star Gliese 445 in only about 40,000 years. More information is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>And if you DON'T want long life, do what I did - I had two stacks of LightScribe DVD-Rs on my windowsill (fortunately only) with recordings of movies from TV. Tried to play a couple yesterday - on the top DVD on each stack (inside a clear plastic jewel case) not only had the labelling on the upper face of the first DVD on each stack bleached out, so had the data on the other side. I understand commercially-available recorded CDs and DVDs are made with a metal stamper, but the ones you make at home depend on selective bleaching of dye and are NOT a good permanent storage medium!</p>

[Asad Ali]

In my humble opinion print the picture on an archival acid free paper using pigment inks. It would last for generations and can be

reproduced on any medium what so ever in future.

[peter k]

<p>Hi all, regarding preservation options. Why not save the images on a hard drive along with the Computer, Monitor and printer for future use in let say 20 years from now. Then the new guardian does the same and pass on the task to the next generation along with all the hardware. Regards Peter</p>

 

[peter k]

<p>Hi all, regarding preservation options. Why not save the images on a hard drive along with the Computer, Monitor and printer for future use in let say 20 years from now. Then the new guardian does the same and pass on the task to the next generation along with all the hardware. Regards Peter</p>

 

[peter k]

<p>in my post the last sentence should have read along with "then current hardware."<br>

Sorry Peter</p>

 

[sarah_fox]

<p>Peter, I think the problem is that the magnetic traces on the hard drive fade with time, to the point that they eventually become unreadable. There's also a problem that complex microcomputer circuitry can't just sit, unused, and remain functional. I've tried saving aside old devices (e.g. computers with early busses that could take the old MFM and RLL hard drive controllers and hence the earliest hard drives). This seems to be in my nature, as I do a lot of restoration work on antique equipment. I haven't had complete success with "antique" computer hardware. Many devices simply stop working as they sit in storage. This is sometimes due to bridging of traces, creep of metals within the IC packages, contact corrosion, and leakage of electrolytic capacitors (less in use nowadays), probably among other things. Some of this is fixable, and some is not (at least from a practical perspective). The only digital preservation strategies that make sense involve continuing to migrate to newer forms of storage from forms that are nearing obsolescence.</p>

<p>Also you can forget the idea of a printer being useful too far into the future. Printers die when supplies are no longer available. Heck, they act up if you look at them the wrong way or even if they decide to have a bad day. ;-)</p>

[peter k]

<p>Hi Sarah, " The only digital preservation strategies that make sense involve continuing to migrate to newer forms of storage from forms that are nearing obsolescence". This was the idea. Keep buying new then current hardware along with the then storage media. I believe it should be possible. In the future you would end up with a museum of old electronics. 'You might even charge admission to see it'. A lighthearted comment. Keep smiling.<br>

Regards Peter</p>

 

[bobpeters]

It's too bad that they don't make film recorders anymore, as you could make slides, or color separated B&W negatives, of what you want to save. There are some out there but I don't think any of them work on anything later than Windows XP.

[rodeo_joe1]

And another 3 year old thread revives itself for no good reason!

[scott_eaton5]

Because the zombies need brains.....BRAINS! :-)

 

Seriously....if civilization falls to the point digital copies of digital capture are no longer viable nobody will give a $%^& about somebody's street shots of whatever.

[Sandy Vongries]

Nearly every "climb" of civilization after a "fall" throughout history has gotten a boost from hard copy that was fortunately / heroically preserved.

[Ed_Ingold]

Even if the medium can last 1000 years, the limiting factor may be the ability to read it. How many computers can read 5-1/4" or even 3-1/2" floppy discs? (I starting with 8" floppies). Shure just announced they are quitting production of turntable cartridges. I have a class of students who don't own a CD player (and older clients who still use cassettes). Parchment lasts for centuries, but sulfite paper disintegrates in a few dozen years. Nearly all old nitrate films are gone (often in a flash - it's nearly the same formula as guncotton).

 

As long as we have eyes, we can read the Rosetta Stones of the world, and older yet, Cuneiform tables scribed with daily merchant accounts. That suggests that physical prints are the best way to preserve photographic art as technology evolves and old tools become extinct.

[scott_eaton5]

.......

[PapaTango]

Zombies cannot have my brains. They (the brains, that is) are already eaten up... :eek::rolleyes:

 

It is interesting though to see how many of the 'usual suspects' that were always active three years ago are now long gone. I hope that it was not the zombies.

[scott_eaton5]

Actually if the zombies realized how much luddite drool was in this thread they'd have run for the nearest salad bar. Floppy drives and Rosetta Stones. Yep, next we'll be discussing the best way to keep kids off your lawn.

 

Disaster recovery is one specialty I provide consulting for, and with today's technology you have to go out of your way to lose data. If a truck drive's into your server room and over your storage array then you should spin up copies of your servers in Azure, AWS, etc. Or, your offsite location should be doing real time block level replication. Data is now all virtual. If you don't have those then the problem is not with technology. I've never EVER lost data with a RAID 1 or 10 topography, and even when the controllers have literally caught fire. Parity RAID went out with VHS - don't use it, or fire your sysadmin that is. And stop using tape as a backup because it's cheap. That's another hysterically failable storage format I'll refuse to endorse or sign off on.

 

During last year's Hurricane Armageddon season the number of homes and small businesses that got destroyed and/or flooded just in the continental USA alone was staggering. Imagine for a second how many boxes of family pictures / negs and slides got wiped out. Yet not a single commercial data center in Houston lost data or went offlne for any appreciable amount of time during the height of that hurricane. Boy, I'd sure feel better having hardcopies of images in a box in a basement in a hurricane zone than digitized and stored level 3 data center - not.

 

When I want to view Russel Lee's priceless photography of the U.S in the 30's and 40's I go online and view it. If I want to watch Citizen Kane I stream it. I'm sure there are hard copies of Lee's slides and negs and a film transfer of Citizen Kane stored in a vault slowly back into their component molecules top their component chemicals, but I don't have access to it. This accessibility in a nutshell is the real issue because certain people hate the fact digital images in film or video is so accessible. They want medium to count more than content, and make these straw horse technological arguments against digital anything because their old Win98 computer blew a HD once. Storing digital copies is a non sequitur because it' really a analog -vs- digital debate with the same players. They aren't listening.

 

The real answer to this question is if you want your photographic work to survive 1000 years then maybe you should create content that society deems valuable enough to preserve for 1000 years.