Tips to Taking Good Care of Your Digital Prints

You can use your home inkjet printer to make prints, but take caution in how you store your prints!

If you have decided to use your regular inkjet printer to print out your digital photos, take caution. Most inkjets do not produce archival quality pages. The dyes used in most inkjets are organic, and they will fade (relatively quickly) with time. Why? For the most part, you can thank those good old UV rays. Those high energy photons from the sun have a bad habit of damaging the molecules in organic dyes (among other things). What happens over a long period of time, is a long, slow, fade to white for your prints. Keep in mind that traditional prints will fade in the sun too. It's a relative thing. The importing thing is that ink jet prints will tend to fade a lot quicker than your "regular photo prints".

Some hints on taking care of your prints for longevity's sake:

• Store your prints in an album. This has other benefits, like protecting your photos from hazards like liquids and fingerprints.
• If the photo is for display, use a frame (even an inexpensive one from a dollar store). The frame will only be marginally useful in preventing fading, but it will keep liquids away from your pictures. Depending on the ink used by your printer, it may be very easy for a single drop of water to ruin your print.
  
• Keep your photos out of direct sunlight. If you wish to display your photo, choose a location that receives minimal direct sunlight.
  
• Make a couple copies of your prints. One for your fridge, and another for archiving in an album.
• Consider using a professional digital printer, such as the online photo developers listed in our links pages. These services will print on regular photographic paper and thus will last every bit as long as prints from your regular film cameras - which isn't forever, but it's pretty good!
• If you insist on printing your photos at home, consider higher end printers that use "pigment" based inks. Prints from these printers will stand much more exposure to UV rays and therefore last much longer in many situations.
• Some papers are better than others. Read the packaging. Prints made on "photo paper" will generally last longer than "copy paper"!
  
• Always keep your digital files! Even if you take good care of your prints, there's no reason to NOT keep an electronic copy of your files. Burn them to a CD and keep them off-site (like at the office or a relatives house, or a safety deposit box). Then, even if a disaster strikes, you'll be able to reprint your photos.
  

Leonard

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Published on: 2003-10-06 (5097 reads)