English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Upon discovering the 120 year old object in their grandparents’ attic, most people today would be hard-pressed to play back a recording made on a wax cylinder of the late 1800s. What will people do just 50 years from now with an optical disk or magnetic hard drive? Over time, we have recorded our memories in many ways: letters, post cards, photographs, movies, audio and video recordings are a few examples. In earlier days, interpreting those recordings was independent of the technology used to create them – you could hold and view a hard copy document in your hand. How will future generations deal with those post cards, letters to the family, and photographs that have now been replaced by “Word documents”, email, and digital images on the computer? While professional and mass-portrait labs recognize the importance of hard copy images, the word needs to spread from there. The end consumer in particular needs to become aware of long-term storage issues that relate to the preservation of the data behind digital documents including photographic images. Longerterm issues beyond routine backup and migration of data need to be considered, and preservation via human-readable hardcopy images is a key option. This paper provides an update on preservation strategies for the consumer and suggestions for the professional imaging laboratories to communicate these strategies to the consumer. While the familiar advice to “make a hard copy” provides a solid foundation, we go beyond this recommendation, with the intent to raise consumer awareness of the need to create a long-term preservation plan for their most treasured images and the data behind them. Introduction As our world of photographs becomes more and more digital, there is an ever-growing concern over long-term storage and the preservation of these images, especially as it relates to the general public. While the photographic printing industry is certainly aware of this concern, the general public is not. Earlier papers by this author on the subject of long-term preservation [1, 2] have dealt with digital photographic images and the use of film as a technology-independent storage medium while a more recent paper [3] focused on documents of all kinds, including digital files of letters, emails, as well as photographs. The focus of this paper is long term preservation of the “best of the best” of consumers’ photo images through hard copy output products from the photo printing industry. The goals of this paper are to help the industry: 1) raise the general public’s awareness of long-term storage issues of digital images; 2) reinforce the value of hard copy printing of photographic images as a technology-independent, viable longterm storage solution; 3) discuss ways in which the photo fulfillment industry can assist in promoting these solutions to the general public while simultaneously increasing their revenue of photo fulfillment products such as prints and photo books. Current state As personal computers, notebook/”pad” computers, and smartphones continue to grow in use, digital imaging and email become more and more popular as the primary mode of documenting lives. This creates an ever-growing concern over long-term storage and the preservation of these memories and documents. While some, perhaps many, of these files do not need to be preserved for the long term, some do. Worse, consumers often times do not recognize the importance of many of their images; for example, it may not be until a photograph is “rediscovered” 20 to 30 years later that people recognize how valuable it is. In the digital world, without proper attention now, digital documents of all kinds will simply not be available 100, 50, or perhaps even 30 years from now. Despite efforts by photo industry trade organizations, the average consumer continues to be generally unaware that there is an underlying risk associated with information storage on computer hard drives, devices, or optical media. In many cases, because it is digital, the consumer actually feels that the information and images are safely preserved. Museums, conservators, and archivists, on the other hand recognize the problem of digital image storage. Relative to preservation strategies for large institutions, research and other published works are available on the topic [4-6]. These strategies, however, are based on shorter-term storage with an associated longer-term migration plan. While some risk is mitigated, much remains. Key issue: formats Most people today would be hard-pressed to play back a recording made on a wax cylinder of the late 1800s. What will people 100 years from now do with an optical disk or magnetic hard drive? Wax cylinders were replaced by gramophone disk recordings in the early 1900s, (what we call “phonograph records” or simply “records”). This was a more robust and longer-lived technology, but eventually even records were replaced by new technology – CDs. Now CDs are being superseded by flash media in compressed MP3 format, and the whole concept of iTunes® and “cloud storage” could eventually replace device storage media all together. The eventual replacement of technology is inevitable. Just as one would have difficulty finding the equipment to play a wax cylinder from the late 1800s, or the equipment (turntable and stylus) to play back a 78-RPM record made in the mid 1920s, so too are people having difficulty finding the equipment to render a letter or document recorded on a 5.25-inch floppy disk just 30 years ago. Why would we think it will be any different in another 30-50 years when our children and grandchildren want to render a photographic image recorded on an optical or magnetic disk? Digital technology adds several additional layers of complexities. Consider a 5.25-inch disk. To render a digitally stored image presents four distinct hurdles: 1) media format, as International Symposium on Technologies for Digital Photo Fulfillment 17 mentioned; 2) interfacing to a modern computer; 3) file format; 4) data integrity. Media format: because this media format has been superseded by three successive generations (3.5 inch magnetic, optical CD and optical DVD), finding a 5.25 inch disk drive may be very difficult. Interface format: with the advent and proliferation of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface in the mid and late 1990s connecting an older 5.25-inch drive will pose problems even if one can be found. If the drive has an external serial or parallel connection, connecting to modern computers will not be possible. If the drive is an internal drive it likely has an Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) architecture which can still be found in many recent computers. File format: early word processors from various companies (Wang®, Multimate®, Wordperfect®, etc.) each had unique file formats. As Microsoft Word became a defacto industry standard, MS Word provided some capability to translate from those formats. Today, however, due to the age of these formats, this capability is not included in recent MS Word versions. An internet search, however, can provide software or companies that do provide translator software (for a charge) to an early version of Word, which can then be retranslated by current versions. In the early days of digital photography Microsoft created a proprietary “.MIX” file format for its “Photo Draw” and “Picture It!” software, both used for consumer photo archives, which was later abandoned without any means of doing batch conversions. Data integrity: is the digital data still there and readable or not? Passing this final hurdle will depend on media quality and storage conditions. Today there is a plethora of low quality, very inexpensive optical media with highly doubtful long-term storage capability. There are also high quality optical media with claimed longevity of 300 years (for CDs, 100 years for DVDs). Even if the media lasts that long, the likelihood of passing the first three hurdles after 300 years, or even 100 years, is highly doubtful. Format hurdles: an example Consider the discovery of a 5.25 magnetic floppy disk from 1985 containing family history information. In this example we’ll make it easy: the disk was in a labeled jacket containing the file name, and we also know it was created with Multimate® word processing software. Given the relatively low storage capacities and the fact that 5.25-inch floppy disks were stored in a jacket, a human readable hard copy print out of the contents of the disk were often included inside the jacket. This enables us to more easily locate a document and perhaps know its file type. Nonethe-less, the four hurdles remain. Not only does this example illustrate the physical format challenges, it also illustrates the file format challenge. File formats change. Not all “.doc” files are the same, nor can they be read interchangeably. Even within a company like Microsoft their Office software products evolve. Long term file formats like DOC, PPT, and XLS have recently been updated to DOCX, etc. The “X” files cannot be read by earlier versions of Office software without add-in updates. File format is a very serious concern for long-term preservation. Finally, it also needs to be noted that the huge challenges of restoring the information in this example occurred with the passage of only 25 years. Imagine the challenges facing a consumer finding digital family photographs after two or three generations. Technology always advances For both physical and software formats, change is driven by ever-advancing technology. Consumers began “burning” CDs when laser writing technology became inexpensive enough to drive the price of CD writers down. Then the same thing happened with DVD writers. While consumers are now burning DVDs, there is a new, incompatible DVD format from the entertainment industry, with the Blue-ray DVD format having won out over the HD DVD format. How long a particular format persists depends on many factors, including economics. An a

Preservation of Photographic Images for Future Generations: New Opportunities for Prints and Photo Books