AFAIK, the length of time that a print lasts is almost completely dependant on the ink used. I don't know what the quality of HP ink is like compared to others so I can't really comment. Although I did pull out some 4 year old Lexmark prints from a cupboard the other day and they haven't faded or discoloured (Possibly due to the darkness of a cupboard?).

It's possibly worth looking into the different inks available. I imagine Google will have something to say on the matter.

Regards Adam

I use an Epson C-84 at home, so far the DuraBrite inks Epson uses for prints are holding up well (about a year old). Their previous generation of inks did fade with time, noticeably over 2 years. Look for acid-free on the paper too. If you are picky, you might archive the image files you like on CD-ROM and keep that with the pictures, hopefully that will outlast the paper and allow you to reprint to verify or replace paper photos at a later date.

-Ken

Helen wrote:

I'm using an HP Deskjet 5550, on good-quality photo paper. My prints lose color in less than a year. Is there a way to prolong the life of a print, other than an extremely expensive giclee printer?
Thanks,
Helen
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Helen wrote:

I'm using an HP Deskjet 5550, on good-quality photo paper. My prints lose color in less than a year. Is there a way to prolong the life of a print, other than an extremely expensive giclee printer?

Just an idea - photo shops (online or real shops) can do prints on real photo paper (the stuff real photos are done with) - for these shops it doesn't matter whether the picture comes from a digital camera or from a graphic program like GIMP.

I don't know what the costs are where you live - here it is a few Euro-cents per 10cm*15cm (4" by 6") print.

Andreas

On Thursday 09 June 2005 06:18 pm, Ken Tanaka wrote:

I use an Epson C-84 at home, so far the DuraBrite inks Epson uses for prints are holding up well (about a year old). Their previous generation of inks did fade with time, noticeably over 2 years. Look for acid-free on the paper too. If you are picky, you might archive the image files you like on CD-ROM and keep that with the pictures, hopefully that will outlast the paper and allow you to reprint to verify or replace paper photos at a later date.

-Ken -----------------------
Helen wrote:

I'm using an HP Deskjet 5550, on good-quality photo paper. My prints lose color in less than a year. Is there a way to prolong the life of a print, other than an extremely expensive giclee printer?
Thanks,
Helen

================

Ken brings up some good points about backing up the pictures to CD for later use, but he also hit upon a point that gave me a thought. The ink has certainly improved in all the printers since so many are doing photos from them now, but the paper is equally as important. HP, of course, recommends HP photo paper for the best results and longest life with their inks, as does Epson with their papers & ink. The papers all work good in any printer, but have been tested to work best with their own inks.

So, in other words, you will probably get the best life out of your printed photos, if you keep things in sync!

regards, Patrick

On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 01:02:56AM +0200, Andreas Waechter wrote:

Helen wrote:

I'm using an HP Deskjet 5550, on good-quality photo paper. My prints lose color in less than a year. Is there a way to prolong the life of a print, other than an extremely expensive giclee printer?

Just an idea - photo shops (online or real shops) can do prints on real photo paper (the stuff real photos are done with) - for these shops it doesn't matter whether the picture comes from a digital camera or from a graphic program like GIMP.

I don't know what the costs are where you live - here it is a few Euro-cents per 10cm*15cm (4" by 6") print.

i would like to second this opinion. my friend and i were standing in an evil yet very inexpensive store comparing prices. the roll of paper that was special cut to print 4x6 inch photos, each photo printed would have costed 40 cents a piece. that number presumes that each print you make is good (not a mistake). the price they charged for single reprints was 26 cents per photograph of the same size.

more than that, the people working at the counter were intelligent, approachable and knowledgible about what the machines could do -- or at the very least, honest and able to tell me who to speak with. as cheap as i am, i have no desire to see these services or people go away. i would rather see more of them.

if you are making prints of your art via photograph printer facilities, there are a few things to watch out for. i was trying to print a poster that was mostly black and the machine they use auto fixes this. it caused the image parts to print washed out. if you are printing artwork, it is in your best interests to talk to someone who understands the machine that will be doing the printing. for this location, it was the simple task of writing on the envelope instructions to not color correct the print. the poster turned out fine, even beautiful and it was extremely (in my opinion) inexpensive.

i come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers, however, the same line seems to have a threshold for quality.

and more news from the print world, they still do not let the raw information about the color profiling out to the general public. i do not know what it takes to have access to this information yet either. for my dollar, i still remember what the manager of the print shop told me about how to handle converting images from rgb to whatever that machine would prefer it in. he said "let the machine do the conversion", the more i read about the way it is done, the more i really really believe in this suggestion.

on one hand, you can believe it is working. on the other hand, you can believe that someone who actually understands it has set up the crazy chain of events and table reading and converting to actually work. i tend to believe the other hand more than the one hand.

thanks for reading this, carol

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:02:56 +0200 Andreas Waechter wrote:

Helen wrote:

I'm using an HP Deskjet 5550, on good-quality photo paper. My prints lose color in less than a year. Is there a way to prolong the life of a print, other than an extremely expensive giclee printer?

Just an idea - photo shops (online or real shops) can do prints on real photo paper (the stuff real photos are done with) - for these shops it doesn't matter whether the picture comes from a digital camera or from a graphic program like GIMP.

Here in Australia, prints are about 20-30 cents a copy. To print your own comes out at 50-100 cents per copy

I was thinking of doing a Christmas card this year. Could be easily personalized with changes to just one layer.

Also, I have made up a couple of test patterns that I send in when I do a batch of printing to check the fidelity of printing.

Part of the test pattern are some borders that are say 10, 20 and 40 pixels in. You get an idea of how much is chopped off. Unfortunately the last two lots have come out with the border (and presumeably) the whole image, rotated by about one degree.

I can only guess that this is a feed problem with the printer but find it hard to beleive that the Agfa print process uses one reel of paper 6inches wide. Anyone know how the mass print runs are done in the big photo shops?

Owen

AFAIK, the most archival photographs produced by computers are either inkjets with pigment based inks especially produced as archival, such as the ultrachrome inks by epson on rag photo quality paper. The other alternative are things like "lightjet" prints produced on Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper. http://www.wilhelm-research.com/ is the recognised leader in this field. Regards all.