Turning Photo Silver Into Gold: Image & Longevity

Silver has been a part of the timeless quality ingredient used for the creation of black and white photographs over a 150 years. Because of its predictable ability to control image tone and stability in the days of film photography silver halide emulsion ruled supreme.

Source: Eastman Kodak

A Latent Image Amplified by Photographic Development
When exposed to light, silver halide crystals forms metallic silver that turns black when developed.  According to H.W. Sands Corp., a trusted leader in the chemical industries global market, “To make photographic film or paper, an emulsion of silver halide crystals in gelatin is coated on to a film base, paper or glass substrate.  A single ounce of silver can produce enough silver halides to take 5000 photographs.”

This ability to capture the light in these crystals that would then be reduced down to metallic silver to form the images is what makes the element of silver so meaningful to photography.

Another Precious Metal Just As Meaningful Now To Photography
As time has marched on in the world of photography, the precious metal silver has given way to its cousin, gold.

Focus has changed from image-creation where silver once ruled. Now, the process of converting those photographs once printed onto paper into digital images using photo scanning, or storing pictures born out of digital camera technology has redirected the  attention to image-storage where gold holds court.

A report from the Canadian Conservation Institute reveals incorporating a gold metal layer into the construction of recordable CDs and DVDs can achieve stability and maximum longevity.

“A CD-player reads a disc by directing a laser light through the base and dye layers to the metal layer, which reflects it back to the player's signal detector. If the reflective layer is altered in any way, it will not perform as expected and the disc cannot be read. The metal reflective layer in CD-Rs has generally been gold, silver, or silver alloy. Gold is very stable, so discs with a gold reflective layer are not at risk for "laser rot" (a term used to describe the corrosion of the metal layer) and hence have excellent longevity. However, silver and silver alloys are susceptible to corrosion, so CD-Rs with these kinds of reflective layers are more likely to fail, especially if they are exposed to pollutants.”

You’ve Got Pictures of Silver - Be Sure to Archive Them With Gold Disc Technology
Disc technology as a media type for storage is an excellent choice. While migration to another media is inevitable, you should consider always keeping your data on the long lasting, stable media disc technology offers.

Investing in high quality gold CD, or DVD disc technology that meets consumer demands for high capacity, long life data storage is vital. When considering disc storage remember turning your silver photos into gold preservation discs will make all the difference in preservation and longevity!

More on gold archival discs.

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