Digital BW, The Print

You have good points there. I thought you were refering to carbon pigments shifting and 
staining. Monochrome color prints are vulnerable, and I would always spray them with 
Premier Art, Lascaux, or Lyson Printguard. 

One of the things that Wilhelm found out the hard way was that inkjet prints, of all kinds, 
are vulnerable to contaminants in the air which are easily absorbed into the pores of the 
media. They act almost like a magnet for pollution. The swellable polimer inkjet media was 
designed to counteract that but it was designed for dye prints not pigment prints like we 
use. As you pointed out, gelatin silver is a much harder and more impervious surface for 
pollution and toxants to penetrate.  My belief from the research of Wilhelm and others is 
that if you are going to work with rag media with the photo inkjet process you need to 
either keep the prints in a portfolio away from junk in the atmosphere, keep them behind 
plexi or glass, or do as I usually do, spray them with one of the non-yellowing sealant 
sprays. But don't tell me that  traditional color dye coupler color photographs held up well 
in normal conditions because I can show you a closet full of yellowed and faded and 
stained artwork on those papers that were only done 20 years ago, thanks to big Kokak's 
lack of interest in preservation.

I still contend however that if you had put any art media that was produced on a soft 100% 
rag paper in a drawer it could have just as easily yellowed. It's not the problem with inkjet 
photography, it is a fact of using delicate papers that we all like so well. They are just 
different, and shouldn't be used by the masses if they are not cared for. Give the general 
public sprayed RC prints and put them in sleeves.

john