Faded photograph prints

Mark D. Hanson <curator [at] aeromuseum__org> writes

>I have inherited a puzzling problem. We have a hallway along one
>wall of which a photo timeline runs. The hallway is lighted by
>fluorescent tube lights in enclosed fixtures. It is an interior
>hallway with no windows. The photos are color scans of primarily
>black and white originals printed in color on glossy photo paper
>from an ink jet printer. The prints are then dry mounted onto foam
>core.
>
>The photos appear to "randomly" fade at an alarming rate. We have
>tried using different papers and different printers, but to no
>avail, we have tried to isolate a correlation to lighting hotspots,
>but none exist. Photos fade just as quickly in darker areas of the
>hallway as in brighter ones. We have tried control groups of
>multiple picture using the same print settings, printer, ink
>cartridges, box of paper, and dry mounting materials and technique.
>Nothing seems to work. ...

I don't know which printers you have tried, in my opinion and
experience only the printers with pigmented ink (like Epson 2100,
4000, 7600, 9600) could be used, eventually sprayed with Lyson Print
Guard or similar. If you are printing to get black & white prints,
you might better use only black inks like those from MIS Associates
<URL:http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/qn.html>

However, the cause of the fading could also be ozone in stead of
UV-light, especially if there is a source of ozone (like laser
printers) nearby. At our photographic department we have had a
similar problem, that turned out to be caused by the ozone that was
emitted by our flash units. with best regards,

Casper Cammeraat
Team manager, Dept. of Optical Technology
National Library of the Netherlands


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:36
                 Distributed: Sunday, January 30, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-18-36-002
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