Aging Prints?

hellfire500 · May 3, 2007

I have a collection of digital photos which I printed in 2004 from an Epson Stylus Photo 870 onto Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. Certain areas of several of these photos now seem very blurry compared to how I remember them - its as if the inks have soaked into the paper / each other more, reducing sharpness. They are all stored in a large folder with plastic sleeves, so they have enough protection. Do digital inkjet prints have a very limited lifespan? I have a large collection of photos printed post-2004 which don't seem to show any signs of aging yet - considering the cost of developing them, I hope they won't!

gmarquez · May 3, 2007

hellfire500 said:
Do digital inkjet prints have a very limited lifespan?

Answer: it depends.

It all depends on ink/dye/whatever chemistry, and the paper it's printed on.

For example, the Epson 1280 I have was supposed to have good image life on a wide range of Epson's papers. However, after about a year of ownership, I heard that Epson had made a mistake in it's formulation, and that for most ink/paper combinations, the images had a very low life expectancy. Sure enough, my prints that were printed on premium glossy were fading, some VERY noticeably (those under glass but exposed to daylight). I think that this was the reason for Epson to come out with the ColorLife photo papers (re-branded Ilford?), one of the few papers that would hold the inks used on the 1280 without fading. I didn't like it, as I like the look of glossy papers, but it was either the ColorLife paper, or matte. Oh well.

They've re-enineered their inks several times by now, so things should be MUCH better, on a wider range of papers. However, that doesn't help me with the 1280. Oh well, i send out most of my images for printing anyways, and use the epson for some proofing.