Interview with Henry Wilhelm on print permanence

On May 5, 11:09 am, "=\(8\)" wrote:
"Wayne J. Cosshall" wrote in .com.au...







Hi all,

Some of you may not have seen my previous interview with Henry:
http://www.dimagemaker.com/article.php?articleID=39

Certainly longevity testing is still very much a work in progress. They
are now doing ozone tests, do tests at various humidity levels and are now
adding the flesh tone tests. The problem is simply one of the number of
variables. When you start adding various pollutants, etc to the mix the
number of tests goes up exponentially. I know Henry comes in for a lot of
flak, and I am and have been critical of some of his test approaches, but
I do believe that Henry is making a really genuine attempt to get it
right. Henry advocates testing at a higher light intensity than some
others do, such as Kodak, for example, to more realistically reflect real
situations. But he has to standardise on something.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker,http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/
Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography
http://www.experimentaldigitalphotography.com
Personal art sitehttp://www.cosshall.com/

DBLEXPOSURE wrote:
Patrick Ziegler ImageQuest Photography
"Pete D" wrote in message
...
"John McWilliams" wrote in message
news Bill Again wrote:
"=(8)" wrote in message
...
Does your "interview" cover why in their testing they don't test with
real world conditions, like varying humidity, heat and cold
fluxuations, airborne polutants, dirt and other airborne substances?
All of why by the way plays an important part in the life of anything
you place on your walls?

This is why there testings is worth dog poo. Until they add in
invironmental factors like those found in average peoples homes their
tests will alway be a joke. They also need to spend less time trying
to duplicate museum like environments and more in duplicating the
evironments of the people that will be buying most of these printers,
papers and inks and that is the average consumer.

=(8)
Well that's pretty negative. As it happens I disagree with most of
what you say. Although these"tests" are not real world stuff they are
nevertheless an indication of how the ink/paper will, or might, react
overtime. This is better than no idea at all.

So thanks Wayne.
My thanks, also; plan to read this week.

"=(8)" sure knows a lot, but won't say who he is. Not impressive.

--
John McWilliams
Oh gosh John, someone on a newsgroup not giving their full name and
address, I do however agree with Bill but will say that a little more of
the variables could have been added to show the affect, of course all
long term testing is still only an indication of what might happen.

I have not read the Wilhelm article but I will say this. Permanence
testing is done using the known processes that affect the majority if not
all artwork. The results of this sort of testing are not to be taken
literally but used as bench marks to compare different ink/paper
combinations and printing processes.

If testing results state the a certain ink/paper combination or process
have a life of 150 years, I do not think you are to assume that the print
will last 150 years; only time can prove that. The results should be
used to weigh one product or process against another. With that said,
the testing procedures HAVE to remain the same and not be dinked around
with over time. Else, you end up with apple to oranges test results that
do nothing but create confusion.

My two cents...

Patrick Ziegler

www.imagequest.ifp3.com

That is all fine and dandy but then they and the printer makers have no
business pushing their less than accurate numbers like they are gods gospel.
They need to stop with the fine print disclaimers that in the end basically
tell you the testing is bull**** and be more up front about things. Hiding
it in fine print they know most people never read just shows how greedy and
untrustworthy the printer companies are and just how worthless the Willhelm
testing is.

If they really wanted to do real world testing they would take the prints
home and hang them on their walls and do their readings from that as well as
provide the information from the controlled labs tests. Until they do real
world testing outside of a lab their test results will always be ****.

As for the printer makers paying them and the money having to come from
someplace, that too is ****. Consumer reports does just fine without
advertising and many from the manufacturers. Now of course consumer reports
recommendations suck 99% of the time, but at least they suck because they
are clueless and not because of ad money or kickbacks from the
manufacturers.

=(8)


What you are saying is ancient history. Henry Wilhelm admits he
screwed up on the 1270 Epson inks. It took Epson a while but they
pulled the inks off the market. Funny though we had a 1270 in the
studio where I was working and our prints lasted fine it was really a
location, pollutant thing. For what it is worth just having a copier
or laser printer in a closed room with a photo or inkjet print will
greatly decrease the life expectancy. Right now Wilhelm does the best
work around, He originally outted Kodak but he also showed that Fuji
Crystal Archive paper has a life expectancy of 40 some years not 75 as
Fuji says. That is using the same parameters as what gives HP Vivera
inks a 200 year life expectancy. When getting up to the 100 and 200
year levels accelerated testing is all that can be done and Wilhelm
has become the standard for printing materials. Whether there is a you
divide the time by 2.5 as been suggested or just take it as a
standard, and know that a 25 year Wilhelm life expectancy will last
less than a product with a 100 year Wilhelm lfe expectancy. It isn't
crap it is just all we've got to go on. If you sell inkjet prints you
will know that this is the first question a serious buyer will ask. If
you give them the Wihelm numbers they are generally satisfied.
Some folks just can't forgive a mistake.

Tom

In article .com,
tomm42 writes


What you are saying is ancient history. Henry Wilhelm admits he
screwed up on the 1270 Epson inks. It took Epson a while but they
pulled the inks off the market.

Wrong! The inks currently available for the 1270 (and the 870, 880, 890
and 1280) are still exactly the same as the original inks and have
exactly the same problems. In fact Epson admitted that they could have
taken the inks off the market and replaced them with less bleach prone,
but otherwise less stable, inks but specifically ruled that option out
because it would "change the colour characteristics" of the inks and
would require new profiles to be loaded into all of the printers already
sold. For customers who were unaware of the problem this would have
resulted in an unacceptable loss of quality and fade free life in their
prints.

Funny though we had a 1270 in the
studio where I was working and our prints lasted fine it was really a
location, pollutant thing.

Wrong again. It was an oxidation thing - specifically oxidation of the
cyan ink, with the light cyan ink being much more susceptible to
oxidation that the dark ink. *ANY* oxidant that came into contact with
the ink in the right conditions (mainly temperature, pressure and
continuous replenishment) bleached the cyan ink. Pollution often
REDUCES the amount of oxidants, specifically ozone, available at low
altitudes.

Ozone is a strong oxidant which certainly caused the ink to bleach
rapidly under significant concentrations and that is why it was used by
Epson to assess how robust their proposed solutions to the problem were.
However oxygen itself is quite an aggressive oxidant - if it wasn't you
wouldn't be alive - and when exposed to a continuous flow of warm air
the cyan ink faded in a matter of days. In still, or fairly stable air,
the inks were fairly stable, especially if the temperature was below
35degC.

Pollution level actually caused quite a problem in identifying the cause
of the Epson orange plague because there were many cases of people
living in high pollution environments without fading prints who sent
copies to people in low pollution areas which subsequently faded and
vice versa. I myself, for example, took sample prints with me on a trip
to the Amazon in Brazil, probably the least polluted area of the planet,
but they faded faster there than almost anywhere else I tested, and
certainly much faster than here at home in the English countryside, a
relatively low pollution environment by western standards.

For what it is worth just having a copier
or laser printer in a closed room with a photo or inkjet print will
greatly decrease the life expectancy.

No, it doesn't - a guy called Nai-Chi Lee specifically tested this when
ozone was first suggested as a cause. The results showed that unless
the temperature of the environment was above 28degC then a print could
be left INSIDE a laser printer with no effect visible after several
months.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)