The way things are going soon all archivate silver prints will be all the rage for longevity.
As good as the new printing materials are they cannot compare to the traditional archival silver print.Rain or shine they will last a great deal of time.

Epson state that their inks will last for 75 years for colour and over 100 years for black/white. A properly processed and stored archival black/white silver print should last at least 250 to 300 years. This will also effect the price one can sell a Fine Art Limited Edition print for. I recently offered a gallery some digital prints, they were not interested. I went back with the same images printed by traditional silver method, they were accepted without any problems and sold for a really good price.

This is interesting. As someone who has worked in the retail portrait industry for about 20 years now, I wonder how much of an issue is it that prints "last" to the general public.

*I* care that my work is around for a long time, and I think most people who would take the time to post on this board care, but some people I serve in the studio give me the feeling that they really couldn't care less. They just want a cheap photo of their kid or whatever to send to grandma.

Case in point: I had someone drop by my studio this morning, and ask if I take walk-ins. Of course, I said! They walked out when they found out that the cheapest package I offered (which they could have gotten in black and white, by the way) was $29.95.

I guarantee they headed to some place like Wal-Mart (I used to work for PCA, who ran those studios for many years) to see if they were running a $9.95 "special." Do they think about those portraits being around for 100+ years? Likely not.

I have a portrait that was done of my great-grandmother that was taken at the turn of the 19th century. It is, of course, black and white and looks like it was taken yesterday. Still lovely more than 30 years after her death at almost 100 years old.

I hate to say it, but we live in a disposable society, and it is getting more throw-away all the time. *sigh*

Like a lot of things in life - folks just don't know what they have until it's gone.

Sad, but true. It's comforting to know that some of your work will be aroung for following generations or family mebers to enjoy.

Kiron Kid

I would like to point out that Photo Quality Inkjet Printers are still very much in their infancy.
The photo printing techniques you are talking about have been learned and proven over a period of more than one hundred years. I am quite sure that the first ever photographs produced have long since faded in to history.
Inkjet printers have been progressing at a rapid rate over the last ten years and are already producing fantastic quality and long lasting (pigment based inks) results. At this rate, in a few more years, we will see home printers of comparable quality to traditional methods.
And of course the lifetime quotes presently given for inks are a minimum period so in the right conditions photos will actually have a much longer lifetime.
The major supermarkets often use a different technique to print. Dye Sublimation printers have superb quality and longevity, so I would not be too hasty to dismiss them.

Don