Digital images for 'eternity': color microfilm as archival medium

摘要

In the archiving and museum communities, the long-term preservation of artworks has traditionally been guaranteed by making duplicates of the original. For photographic reproductions, digital imaging devices have now become standard, providing better quality control and lower costs than film photography. However, due to the very short life cycle of digital data, losses are unavoidable without repetitive data migrations to new file formats and storage media. We present a solution for the long-term archiving of digital images on color microfilm (Ilfochrome~R Micrographic). This extremely stable and high-resolution medium, combined with the use of a novel laser film recorder is particularly well suited for this task. Due to intrinsic limitations of the film, colorimetric reproductions of the originals are not always achievable. The microfilm must be first considered as an information carrier and not primarily as an imaging medium. Color transformations taking into account the film characteristics and possible degradations of the medium due to aging are investigated. An approach making use of readily available color management tools is presented which assures the recovery of the original colors after re-digitization. An extension of this project considering the direct recording of digital information as color bit-code on the film is also introduced.