Photo archiving solutions
by
Jonathan Eastland
Processed Kodachrome slides have the highest rating of any colour reversal (diapositiv) photographic film for their dark storage capacity to maintain colour veracity over long periods.
Ideally, safe dark storage for this material would comprise inert polypropylene hanging files housed in solvent-free painted metal filing cabinets sited in a cool and dry environment. Professional archivists recommend refrigeration as the ultimate safe storage method, but this could get expensive for the 100,000 plus collection; like all power dependent devices, refrigeration units need regular and proper maintenance to ensure a trouble free life.
For many guardians and owners, archive storage technology stops with the standard office filing cabinet, its contents left to cope with seasonal changes in local climates forced upon it by the needs of library operators to stay warm in winter and cool in summer. Excessive temperature and relative humidity fluctuations can take years off the life of any image artifact, but can have particularly devastating short term effects on photographic film emulsions.
In 2005, I began another time consuming editing and cleaning task to rescue what I could from a large collection of 50 year old Kodachrome slides that were stored for nearly two decades of their life in the damp and windy attic of their author's home in west Britanny, France. Years of hot and cold, dry and damp conditions has taken its toll on a fascinating record of life in Indo China towards the end of French Colonial rule in the region. Dark storage has, however, mostly preserved the original processed colour of the slides; it is mildew and fungus that has caused the real damage.
The collection of over 2,000 images is the work of Jean Corre, a catholic missionary attached to the French military. An enthusiastic photographer, he recorded his travels through Vietnam and Cambodia (and possibly Laos), diligently annotating each box of processed slides. He omitted dates but deciphering Kodak's film rebate codes has established slitting years for the film and these seem to fairly closely match what is known about Father Corre's movements between France and S.E.Asia.
The solution to saving these documents from further decay is digitalisation; obtaining high quality scans of each worthy frame. Once these are electronically stored (by duplicating each image file to a variety of storage media.), they can be cleaned with a little help from Photoshop.
For many images however, this would have meant long hours of painstaking reconstruction work to eliminate the miles of micron fine tracery left by fungus spores feeding off the gelatin support of the film emulsion.
Over the years, many different types of colour reversal materials have been subjected to physical cleaning before scanning using a variety of proprietary cleaning fluids - anything from a full blown soak and wash with different strength detergents to swabbing with carbon tetrachloride, surgical spirit B.P. or acetic acid. Results have been varied with almost every application causing emulsion swelling and softening and further damage.
For this collection, I have been using a powerful cleaning agent supplied by the Process Control Co. of Aylesbury in the UK. Aspec is an anti-static alcohol based solution which when carefully applied to the emulsion side of the image cleans away most foreign matter without damaging or swelling the emulsion. It dries within seconds, allowing repeated application to stubborn marks. However, what it, like all other solution types cannot do, is repair the tiny holes eaten through gelatin, nor the translucent tracery of fungus spores revealed once the debris has been cleared away. Nonetheless, the application of Aspec has certainly helped speed the process of image restoration, in some cases, producing digital files in need of little further work.
Aspec will not work with all types of non-hardened film emulsions, so it's best to trial it first on older materials for which processing provenance is unknown to gauge the reaction. Aspec should not be used on glass negative plates either - Autochromes included - as the gelatin support of these invariably tends to be thicker and softer than that found on film.
Aspec anti-static photo emulsion cleaner is supplied by
The Process Control Company,
Griffin Lane, Aylesbury, UK.
HP19 88F.
tel: 44+(0) 1296 484877
email: info@pro-co.co.uk
ends.
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Copyright; Jonathan Eastland 2007
www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com 2007.
www.ajaxnetphoto.com 2007.
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