Storage and Care of Kodak Photographic Materials

Storage and Care of KODAK Photographic Materials • CIS-2017-1 3
The storage temperature for black-and-white negatives
is not as critical as for color negatives, but you should
control the relative humidity. An RH below 25
percent can
lead to brittleness; an RH above 60
percent encourages
mold and fungus growth.
Protect negatives from light. Light affects photographic
dyes; for short-term storage, put negatives in a dark
place—metal drawers or file boxes, for example. Metal is
better than wood or plastic because wood and plastic may
contain preservatives or volatile substances that can affect
the negatives.
Prints
Most guidelines for storing other photographic products
also apply to prints. The dyes and emulsion layers in color
papers make storage of color prints more critical than that
of black-and-white prints.
Select the print material that best suits your needs.
Many factors—light, heat, humidity, and atmospheric
contaminants—can affect the life of a print. Even under the
best conditions, a print on continuous display is likely to
change in time. When prints are intended for display, store
the original negatives or slides properly so that you can
make new prints if the display prints begin to fade.
Because KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA and
KODAK ROYAL and EDGE Papers have excellent dye
stability, you can expect color prints made on these papers
to keep for a long time—many decades for prints on
display under typical home lighting, for example.
Provide a cool, dry, uncontaminated storage place. If
you have prints that you don’t expect to display or that you
want to store for a long time before you display them, you
may want to leave them unmounted.
Avoid storing prints in the original cardboard box or
package. Use archivally safe boxes or envelopes.
The best storage conditions for color prints are the same
as those for most other photographic products. Store
prints in the dark at 24°C (75°F) or lower and at 30- to
50-percent relative humidity. If you store several prints in
one package, interleave them with acid-free paper.
Store prints in albums for convenient access. A less
elaborate way to keep prints, and one that combines ready
access with good long-term storage conditions, is in a
photo album. To get the best results from storage in an
album, keep it in a place where the temperature and
humidity aren’t excessive.
Caution
Fumes from mothballs, mildew inhibitors, wood
preservatives, paints, varnishes, and wood glues can
contaminate drawers and harm photographic materials.
Therefore, open bookshelves may be a better place to
store albums and prints.
Because the prints are in direct contact with the pages of
a photo album, make sure that the materials in the album
are suitable for long-term storage of photographs. Check
these items—cover, pages, plastic sleeves, mounting
corners or
hinges, and ink used for identification.
Mounting and displaying prints. Mounting board is the
most commonly used material for mounting photographs.
Most mounting boards designed for photographic use are
acid-free and pH-buffered. (Use materials that are not
acid-free and pH-buffered only for short-term mounting.)
One method of long-term mounting involves attaching the
print to conservation board with acid-free paper hinges or
corner pockets. These materials are often used with a
window mat placed over the photograph. Interleave
mounted prints with acid-free paper when you store them.