Digital photos 100 years from now?

[old'un]

The thing that crosses my mind with digital photos is, what happens to them all, how often do people look at them once taken and stored on a disk, usb stick or your hard drive? I remember when stuff was stored on tape or floppy disk, once the devices of today become obsolete will those pictures be lost for ever?.

Not long ago we pulled a large box from the bottom of the wardrobe, it contains hundreds of photos, amongst them are pictures of the wife and I on holiday and lots of family related photos, some dating back to 1910, at the time my sister and her husband plus my nice and nephew were visiting us, we sat for hours looking through these pictures with questions from my nice and nephew as to who the people in the pictures were.

A few years back I did some family research and joined a few genealogy web forums, some of the older pictures were very helpful in contacting long lost relatives after posting them online and being contacted by them after they recognised someone in the picture.

The picture below is of my granddads brothers wedding 1913 it was taken in the Masons Arms Public House in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, I wonder if these digital photos will still be around in 50 or 100 years?

 

[steve_b_wales]

Colour photographs that were developed by the likes of Truprint/Boots etc, have, I've been told, a lifespan (colour retention) of around 35-40 years, if kept in ideal conditions. Black and white photographs can last upwards of 100+ years, and a Sepia toned photograph, even longer than that.

Photographs stored on CD/DVD discs, have a lifespan of around 10 years, but a hard drive, in particular a magnetic one, is the best.

I've come across this:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-store-digital-photographs-493619

[Vince Green]

A lot of old photos are rendered useless because nobody writes on the back who / where / when.  We had to clear out an old aunt's house. There were boxes of really lovely old photos, many of them studio portraits, but we had no idea who they were of or when they were taken. Some of them were very old indeed, I would guess 1880s, maybe even older than that. All people I would imagine I am probably related to in some way 

A lot of pictures today aren't even saved they are just posted on social media 

Edited February 14, 2018 by Vince Green

[yates]

10 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

A lot of old photos are rendered useless because nobody writes on the back who / where / when.  We had to clear out an old aunt's house. There were boxes of really lovely old photos but we had no idea who they were of or when they were taken. Some of them were very old indeed, I would guess 1880s, maybe even older than that 

I agree with you although I find it sad. I had a similar experience clearing my fathers house. Lots of photos of people from another time, people lost to a time and place that no longer exists

[steve_b_wales]

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

A lot of old photos are rendered useless because nobody writes on the back who / where / when.  We had to clear out an old aunt's house. There were boxes of really lovely old photos, many of them studio portraits, but we had no idea who they were of or when they were taken. Some of them were very old indeed, I would guess 1880s, maybe even older than that. All people I would imagine I am probably related to in some way 

A lot of pictures today aren't even saved they are just posted on social media 

Don't use a biro or similar to wtire on the back. Best to use a pencil, owing to the ink could show through into the photograph. I use sticky labels if I need to write something on the back of one.

[markm]

The Mrs always thinks of this.

 

Every holiday / significant she buys a photo book and gets one printed off. They are sat in the cupboard and my sons often get them out and have a look. If she hadn’t done that, most would have been lost by now. 

[old'un]

With most things now being stored in digital format I wonder how the historians and archaeologists will find things out in a few hundred years from now? Even cavemen left us with some visual records.   

[Dougy]

1 hour ago, old'un said:

With most things now being stored in digital format I wonder how the historians and archaeologists will find things out in a few hundred years from now? Even cavemen left us with some visual records.   

 

It's the beginning of the end old'un. It won't matter much longer. Just spend all your money on toys and  sweets. 

[The Mighty Prawn]

2 hours ago, old'un said:

With most things now being stored in digital format I wonder how the historians and archaeologists will find things out in a few hundred years from now? Even cavemen left us with some visual records.   

It's already been dubbed an information dark age!

i work for BBC and they have an archives team trying to transfer all the old VHS and Digitbeta tapes into a digital format but even that has been restarted several times as at one point they were copying to laser disc, then CD, then DVD 

we have a room full of old cameras and players just so this old stuff can be viewed

there will be very little of this era for historians - just piles and piles of obsolete Apple devices 

[Lord Geordie]

9 hours ago, Vince Green said:

A lot of old photos are rendered useless because nobody writes on the back who / where / when.  We had to clear out an old aunt's house. There were boxes of really lovely old photos, many of them studio portraits, but we had no idea who they were of or when they were taken. Some of them were very old indeed, I would guess 1880s, maybe even older than that. All people I would imagine I am probably related to in some way 

A lot of pictures today aren't even saved they are just posted on social media 

I have an old Kodak bellows camera that has a hatch on the back to allow you to etch on the negative. So these clever people in the past came up with the idea to actually add text to the photograph it's self. But today's tech you can add text digitally on an PC. I wouldn't write on the back as it can deform the photographs surface and in certain light can look terrible. 

[steve_b_wales]

7 hours ago, markm said:

The Mrs always thinks of this.

 

Every holiday / significant she buys a photo book and gets one printed off. They are sat in the cupboard and my sons often get them out and have a look. If she hadn’t done that, most would have been lost by now. 

I have to get my holiday photo’s printed so that my 84 year old mother can ‘see them’ because she doesn’t like looking at a screen!

[hawkfanz]

i did my family history a while back,so wish i could find fotos of early members of my family,,best ive got is my gt gt grandparents,portrait on my wall copied from a second cousin who had the original,i get some printed but keep all my fotos on external hard drive,as well as pc.hope they survive for many years.

[silver pigeon69]

If you print off a photo (on your pc printer), i heard that you have to spray lacquer(?) on to the picture or it will fade in a few years?

[steve_b_wales]

27 minutes ago, silver pigeon69 said:

If you print off a photo (on your pc printer), i heard that you have to spray lacquer(?) on to the picture or it will fade in a few years?

The quality of the photo paper does make a difference, as does the quality of the ink used. I have photo paper which works out at approx 45p/sheet, but use a cheaper paper for other things.

[turbo33]

My brother works for Fuji.

His advice is, with digital technology moving so fast, you will lose the photos as new programmes won't recognise them. Get them printed, not from your computer, but from a reliable photographic source. Its the only way to preserve future memories!