Hello Everyone:

I have also posted this quiry to ConsDistList, but right now I need all the help I can get!

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. Some pictures "randomly" do not fade at all and others fade rapidly, sometimes right next to each other. Some of the fading appears to "bleach out" the image, while other fade out to a dirty greenish tint. Our last control group faded to the green tint in less than two weeks.

Currently, we have stopped using an inkjet, and are printing our photo scans with a color laser printer. We are also going to try wet mounting the prints instead of dry mounting as well.

What's going on here? Are we missing something obvious? Will the laser printer solve our problem?

Thanks in advance.


_________________
Mark D. Hanson
Curator 
Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum 
1011 Pacesetter Drive 
Rantoul, Illinois   61866-3672 
217-893-1613  ◦  217-892-5774 (fax) 
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