The real issue at hand is not whether current day digital prints are of 
good quality, but whether they will withstand the test of time. I know our 
State Historic Preservation Office does not accept digital prints and the 
staff is concerned about the future of print. Color prints from as little 
as 20-30 years ago have colors that have shifted. I'm not sure what we as 
preservationists can do about this, but it is something we should all be 
thinking about.

Jillian Adams
Assistant Administrator
Lowell Historic Board

Operations Manager
Loring-Greenough House


At 10:33 AM 2/23/2005, you wrote:
>Both photo shops that we use will still produce
>transparencies/negatives. The majority of our images are now distributed
>digitally (press, catalogues, brochures), but many of them originated as
>a transparency or slide that we had scanned at a high resolution. The
>prints that I've had produced from the digitals are very high quality.
>
>Rachel Talent Ivers
>Registrar/Exhibitions Coordinator
>Bass Museum of Art
>2121 Park Avenue
>Miami Beach, FL  33139
>tel. 305.673.7530
>fax 305.673.7062
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>Behalf Of Lynne
>Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:57 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: No Negative
>
>
>   A resident who lived in our town in the late 1920's sent us some
>original
>photos of his still-standing historic house here. He asked that they be
>returned after copying them. I scanned them at a high resolution and
>saved
>them to a CD. In light of the ongoing debates about digitizing images
>and
>ever-changing technology, however, I also took them to two photo shops
>in
>town and asked that negatives be made of them -- so we always have
>something
>in hand. I was startled when both places said they don't make negatives
>anymore and that they just scan the images too. They did note, though,
>that
>if I brought the CD to them, they could print the images with whatever
>technology they have that produces longer-lasting images than those from
>our
>ink-jet printer.
>     Is this true everywhere? Are negatives now unavailable and useless?
>We
>have many negatives in our collection already and I foresee having to
>jump
>in and start digitizing those images. Is this true of slides, too?
>     Thanks!
>Lynne
>
>=========================================================
>Important Subscriber Information:
>
>The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
>http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
>information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail
>message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should
>read "help" (without the quotes).
>
>If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message
>to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
>"Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>
>=========================================================
>Important Subscriber Information:
>
>The Museum-L FAQ file is located at 
>http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed 
>information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail 
>message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should 
>read "help" (without the quotes).
>
>If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to 
>[log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read 
>"Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).