Print longevity and your new printer - does it really matter for you?

How much should you be concerned about the stated print longevity for your new printer and its inks. Should you choose pigment or dye based inks because of this and what do those figures mean anyway?

Keith looks at some of the other factors, such as paper choice and print storage, which will affect print lifetimes.

Is it something you really should be concerned about, or is that just what printer marketing wants you to worry about?

More info about print longevity - essential reading if you think longevity and print lifetimes matter for you - understand what it is and what it isn't.

Aardenburg Imaging

Wilhelm Imaging research

[dunnymonster]

I guarantee my prints for life...and that gets shorter every day! 😁 Love it Keith, perfect response lol 😂

[thebrowns]

Cheap inks may not last. I did a print wall at home with about 20 black & white images. These were printed using my Canon Pixma A3 printer but with low cost eBay ink. They looked great for about two years, now they have faded to a kind of dark orange sepia. They are not in direct sunlight.

[jeffreystulin]

In the. bad-old-days, when using an inkjet printers for photos was relatively new, some prints would fade after a few days or weeks!

[ronboe]

Many years ago when I flirted with being an art major longevity was a serious topic in photography. Acid free paper, proper rinsing of prints, acid free tape and matt board was important. Too many examples of work being attacked over the years (less than 50, so when you're barely 20 50 is way too close to home :^) ). But commercial and museum work must have different standards than home or hobby use. It all depends upon the use case.

[CatGerwig]

You speak facts. There seems to be a big fight for pigment over dye-based inks, but it seems very marketing-influenced. My dye-based prints that I print at 13x19" on Canon Pro Luster paper from my Pro-100 have lasted years without any noticeable fading, and STILL look better than their pigment-printed cousins right out of the machine. In my own personal experience with both dye and pigment ink prints, I think the biases are outright goofy. Dyes may not be water proof, and being water proof is a cool feature and all, but why are you getting water on your prints in the first place? (T¬T) Dye's might fade with time, but if you compare the two side-by-side, pigment prints genuinely look faded next to dye-prints, from the start. My old pigment-based prints have lasted many years and are still in great shape, but they just don't look as beautiful as my dye-based prints, and never have. Then regarding longevity; I expect my customers to become bored with my prints after a few years, let alone last over lifetime. (> <) It all seems really silly.

I've spent my entire day trying to decide if I'm going to replace my poor, failing Pro-100 with a Pro-200, a Pro-300 or a Pro-1000. To be honest, after everything I've read and watched + my previous experience getting pigment-prints made from a shop for years + eventually creating my own dye-ink prints for years, the differences seem close to negligible. I know my Pro-100 produced gorgeous, deep, bright and beautiful prints that have already lasted me fade-less years on Canon's Pro Luster paper, and that's exactly what I plan to continue printing and selling. So.... ...Should I really give into the pressure to replace it with a pigment printer, when I already know quite well how to use and reap the benefits of my own dye printer? :/ It's been a long day, but I think I might just stick with the dye. It fits my needs, my prints come out beautiful, and if prices weren't scalped to outrageous rates with suspicious 3rd-party listings and spooky restocking fees, I probably would just get another Pro-100. :/ As is life.

[jeffreylebowski]

When the difference is 20 or 50 or 100 years of longetivity then I agree it shouldnt matter for most of us most of the time however certain inks fade after only 15 months or so on the shelf and its disappointing and annoying to have to print it out again.
I got the Epson et-2850 with the standard epson ink and it would be nice if the photos would last at least 5 years without any special protection.

[eygloaradottir]

Very thought provoking as always. I own a Canon pro 1000 and use oem inks. My local photo group owns a Canon scp 6000 and uses oem inks. I manage that printer as well. For most of the club members, they are not interested in the papers per se, just that it is good quality image. We can´t stock large selections of papers, but do carry both cheaper and more expensive papers ("archival") and most often they choose cheaper papers.

[johnvaleanbaily]

Thanks Keith - your videos always add some nugget to my printing knowledge base. Keep up the good work.

[PaulaFi]

Thank you for the video! You put it into words: it takes time to learn to make good prints regardless you have an excellent printer or not. And if you study a little, about the color profiles CMYK (dull), RGB (bright), resolution, layout, and many other things, it helps a lot. And I've many times thought who cares if the print lasts 100 years or not?? And none of the inks tolerates constant sunlight or other bad conditions. And why affordable, nice looking aquarelle or drawing non-archival paper is not as valuable as archival, if it looks and feels great as a print. And sometimes even the original is drawn on those papers that I've found good (I make art prints). However I just noticed - as a user of Epson Surecolor pigment ink printer - that prints in fact look astonishingly excellent on Epson Archival matte paper, which is nicely bright, not very expensive either. However on the condition, that you have managed to adjust the colours before and during the printing process. Not otherwise. Before I learned the adjusting, I wondered why the prints made with my old, cheap dye based printer looked better.

[worldofrandometry]

If anyone is worried about their own prints, just make sure they keep the file and pass it on to their grandchildren who can just print it out again! Simple! 🙂

[hivanovMr]

Yes, longevity of printed images matters. it actually matters the most as time inevitably passing by.
That is the core definition of photography "capturing a moment in time for future use".
Digital long term archive? There is no such thing. Where will computer technologies be in 100 years? In 200? Cloud is just someone's computer that really does not care much about your images. HDD, SSD, Flash drives - lucky to have 50 years on that - most likely 15. Archival CD/DVD? It is hard to find DVD drive around you even today. All just a password away from mine forever.
Overall in 10, 000 years people will still (most likely) have 2 hands and 2 eyes to take something and to look at it, but we don't know nothing of where the technologies will be.
Long story short based on my 20 years of experience and testing of printed images life span as far is it goes for so called "dark storage" at present time:
- Silver halide photosensitive papers are good choice - Fujifilm Crystal Archive II has good archival properties - make sure that it is developed with original fujifilm chemicals and the owner of the lab take good care of washing process of the machine. If all that met you should expect ~ 200 years with moderate color losses and yellowing.
- Inkjet dye inks printed on professional dry lab printers (Epson SL-d700, 800, 1000 etc.) BUT you must be 100% sure that original Epson/Fujifilm inks and paper are used. The difference between OEM and nonOEM inks as far as it goes for dye ones is huge. Keep away from Ozone and other gasses - very vulnerable.
- avoid pigment inks - very good for indoor exhibition but not so for long term dark storage. Vulnerable to mechanical damages.
Keep humidity as low as possible and ambient temperature as low as possible. Do not use albums. Use archival boxes.

[gerds.]

Thanks Keith, for this very interesting video!

[robertnystrom]

I have to ask... How does one define 'last'? Is it a luminance fade to some percentage over some ordained time- 90%? 50%? Color shift by some percentage? Both? How would one know? Take a colorimeter reading when the print arrives and then check it every year? 🙃 Can the change be that obvious? Thanks!

[nicolashuot]

Hello, thank you for this video !

Are OBAs really bad ? I am testing many papers and I really like the Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White. This is the paper with which I get the best print quality. The brand considers it archival paper but it contains OBAs.

Afterwards, I tell myself that it is likely that in 50 years, a customer will come back to me and complain that the paper has yellowed a little.

[FotograafHarrieOudeHampsink]

Hi Keith, thank you for sharing your knowledge. I bought a Epson P900 and after that your videos opened a complete new world for me. Talking about longevity: how about the prints you buy from megastors? Here in The Netherlands we have stores like Hema and Kruidvat and Aldi who don't print themselves but outsource it to a big factory. These foto's are chemically developed. They don't last very long people say. Do you know how this works?

[bensaunders]

Hi Kieth, thank you once again for an interesting video. I am going to be creating photo books for my young children for a particular reason, so I am perhaps more concerned about longevity of print than I might otherwise be. I was wondering if you had any opinions regarding paper type or inks with regard to physical handling (such as in a book). I have a Canon pro 300 so I am using pigment inks. I will also be binding the books myself so there will be a certain amount of handling involved in creating them. I will be fairly limited to paper choice as I will be printing double sided - unless I split the books into volumes. I will be wearing gloves during this process but I don't expect people looking at the books will be!

[jpdj]

Lifetime guarantee - in legal terms a difficult idiom. Or maybe it's difficult in the heads of people, not in law.
I've come to the conclusion that lifetime guarantee means that a product is guaranteed for the product's life and this also means that the guarantee is over when the product dies (one way or another).
So it has nothing to do with the life of the buyer, manufacturer, seller, etc.
Which means that "lifetime guarantee" is worthless.

The law and jurisprudence in my country however are simple. A seller has to sell a good, decent, appropriate product. Them issuing a "guarantee/warranty notification" with their product just means they are limiting their legal obligation. And this is easily annulled in court.
A product designed to last 10 or 15 years and failing on you after 2.5 years? Well, the vendor has an obligation here.
But, big corporations have expensive lawyers that are champions at stalling and delay tactics. So, Sony had a camera with suspicious reliability issues and in the US this made owners start a class action law suit. Contrast that with Nikon that had a couple f-ups in the past 10 years and always admitted them sooner rather than later, and solved the problem without debate.

[BlackSwanDK]

What about laminating an A3 print with dye based ink. Does anyone know how long that one will last in comparison to not laminating it. Might be a rather cheap way of making the prints last a lot longer in contrast to using pigment prints. What about durabright...how long does that last.

[andrewgifford]

Hey Keith, great channel and such helpfully constructive videos and reviews. One thing I've been wondering which maybe you or a subscriber may know the viability of; may we one day see decent quality ecologically-friendly inks that may both sustain their good IQ in print and can also be safely recycled once printed onto paper in a safe circular economy?