What will your JPEGs look like in 60 years?

[venchka]

Will you even have them in 60 years?

Folks here are always trying to coax Photoshop into giving their photos a "vintage look." Here are several good examples of "the vintage look" in color. Notice how good they look.

From the Wayback Machine:

14 Rare Color Photos From the FSA-OWI
Even today, many documentary photographers will tell you they are influenced by the works of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and 40s. Under the direction of Roy Emerson Stryker, the FSA sent photographers to document the plight of the rural farmer during the Great Depression and the progress of New Deal programs. When the U.S. entered World War II, the photography program continued under the Office of War Information (OWI).

The best-known FSA photographs are in black and white. Less commonly seen are the color photos by FSA and OWI photographers, shot between 1939 and 1945. Below we present a selection from the works Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection.

http://www.pdnphotooftheday.com/2009/03/628

Another, more recent. Read the photographer's statement. The cool "frame" didn't come from Photoshop.

http://www.pdnphotooftheday.com/2009/02/562

Enjoy!

[kenw]

the question isn't what jpgs will look like. They'll not look like anything since they can't be seen.

However, prints made from jpgs may or may not look the same depending on the paper and printing process used.

[venchka]

Originally Posted by kenw

the question isn't what jpgs will look like. They'll not look like anything since they can't be seen.

My point exactly!

[David_Janaskie]

I LOVE the look of those images. The "off camera" (ha!) lighting a number of them is really cool and is a I look I'd love to duplicate.

[kenw]

Originally Posted by venchka

My point exactly!

but they will when printed "look" exactly like they did on day 1, and will the same 100 years, 1000 years and 1,000,000 years after......

[venchka]

Several from Texas even.

[rockin-photos]

The Dam Carpenter and the Crane Operator were my favorites. Love the feel of those two. The Woman Machinist was pretty good as well.

[studiocygnet]

These don't look vintage. They look like the saturation and contrast was raised, which since we are viewing them over the web, they must have been scanned and adjusted for monitor viewing. I've noticed my Kodachromes taken in the 70's and 80's are losing a slight bit of red. Even the Kodachrome logo on the slides themselves are looking a little pinker than they used to. And they've been stored in Printfile sleeves in a binder, no sunlight. I scanned and printed from a couple the other day, and had to restore a bit of red.

[toverman]

It's surreal to see images from these times in color, just because (as the accompanying text says) most often the b&w images are the ones seen and remembered. I didn't even think the world was in color back then ...

[cooltouch]

Originally Posted by toverman

It's surreal to see images from these times in color, just because (as the accompanying text says) most often the b&w images are the ones seen and remembered. I didn't even think the world was in color back then ...

Yup, it was -- Kodachrome. Probably all those images were shot with Kodachrome. They sure look like KR, at any rate.

I've been scanning a lot of old slides (taken from 20 to 25 years ago) over this past month or so, and I've also noticed some color shifts with my KR slides. Not a loss of red, though. Most typically, they've taken on a bit of a magenta cast, same as many of my E-6 slides from the same time frame have done, although usually not as much.

Best,

Michael

[Dobick]

I was looking through these shots thinking that something about them didn't feel right, like they were just way to modern day looking. I guess because all of the images (even kodachrome slides from the mid to late 40's) that I have seen have a bit of a faded look to them, as well as a strange wide aperture type fuzzyness that because of the age fade and soft haze have a ghostly quality of time past.

These images have none of that, and with the exception of the machinery and the dress styles, no real way to differentiate them from an image taken yesterday.

The one image that I was most struck by was of the filed hands using the hoes. I was stopped in my tracks by the fact that the dirt looks exactly the same. It's not something that I ever even contemplated before...

[jonnydonut]

60 years? surely by then we'll have a way to just use our eyes as our lenses. Hopefully compact flash will be gone and we can just plug our memory card into our ear, or better yet wireless transfer. Photogs will be the ones with little antennas coming out of their head.

.eye files will prob measure up to .jpgs. no need to print them tho. Galleries will all be flat screen TV's and when we want to show our friends our photos we'll just pull out our eyepod B3000, use our telatubbies or just zap the photo to the nearest plasma tv.

Even crazier, I bet someone will come out with "digital photo frames". People will buy these and have loops of photos on a screen in their homes, rather than a print. haha, that will be the day.

[humminboid]

60 years? By then I won't have to worry about no stinkin' JPEGS ! I'll be on the Other Side, where I bet the imaging equipment is 'waaay beyond MARVELOUS, whatever it may be.

[csa]

I was teaching a class last week and talking about how digital is more transient, wondering if we will still have so many of our memories since so many are no longer being printed. I have BETA movies but no player. Is this our future?

[kenw]

Originally Posted by csa

I was teaching a class last week and talking about how digital is more transient, wondering if we will still have so many of our memories since so many are no longer being printed. I have BETA movies but no player. Is this our future?

you miss the point. Digital in itself is NOT transient, altho the media that contains the bits may certainly be.

nitpicky, yes, but a very important distinction. (but i understand your point!)

And therein lies the real benefit: once made digital, transferring those bits to another media time and time again incurs no loss of data quality because it is digital. You can print it today, wait 1000 years and when that print has dissolved to dust, make an exact duplicate print. In the meantime, you've made 100 exact duplicates from one to-be-obsolete media to another. With no losses. Try that with negatives. 100 dupes in series? Can't be done.

True archiving just became possible in terms that we've never before even conceived.