Baby Abe's Photo Book

Written by Brian Segnit
The Xerox Photo Guy
Xerox Corporation
If Abe Lincoln’s mom had his baby book printed on a Xerox iGen4 with Matte Dry Ink it would still look great today.  Abe was a baby about 200 years ago and today’s color photos  will fade over time – when exposed to light and even stored in the dark.   Most of us have pictures in a shoebox,  stored in a closet, that are showing how the quality of the photo has degraded.
As images become as important as text in communicating a message (consumer market for photo is $2B, the B2B market for photo rich documents is $12B today!) – the issue of image permanence has become even more important.  We are seeing continued growth in the photo sector as people move away from the stale 4×6 print to the exciting consumer products of press printed photo books, greeting cards, calendars, and other photo specialty items that are not produced via the traditional photographic process (light sensitive photo paper and chemicals).  This  growing demand for photo quality is driving sales of Xerox iGens, Color Presses, and Xerox 770 into the photo publishing market(see YouTube video @ http://xrx.sm/CJ9) .
At Xerox we engaged Wilhelm Imaging Research ( www.wilhelm-research.com ) who provides consulting services to museums, archives, and is an independent industry expert who conducts research on the stability and preservation of traditional and digital color photographs.  We asked Wilhelm to Certify the Permanence of a Xerox iGen4 print.   Wilhelm Imagine Research awarded the Xerox iGen4 with Matte Dry Ink (excellent for photo quality) the 200+ year dark permanence rating for photo books!  We are proud to display the Wilhelm Certification – now only if Abe’s mom had a digital camera!
For more information on this, or any photo related topic, please feel free to comment below.