How long does ink last on paper before fading so much it is illegible? -

I specifically am curious to know how long ink from my inkjet printer will survive on paper without any preservation technique. I know this is a strange question, but I need it for a line in a poem I am writing as a Wedding present. Well, that didn t make it any less strange, sorry!

The answer depends on a lot of factors, including: 1) Actual type of ink used (authentic HP ink? or generic?) HP (and other namebrand ink) have special formulation that lasts longer, esp. on the right paper. 2) Actual type of paper used (generic copy paper, or special inkjet paper?) Inkjet paper have a bit more clay in their composition to help quot;suck inquot; the ink and lock the print in place. Some more advanced paper even has a external protection layer. 3) How much sunlight will this printout get? How about temperature? Sheets left in cool indoors will last a lot longer than those exposed to direct sunlight or higher temperatures. HP claims if you used their ink on their inkjet paper, the printout, if left indoors, should last almost 100 years. (I don t recall the exact figure, but they hired some labs to simulate aging and came up with this figure). I d say it should last for a lifetime if it s properly mounted on a frame and kept at home. After all, isn t that your question? :)

There’s nothing strange about your question at all. Alas, the answer is not simple. As Yogi Berra once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” All of the major manufacturers make high quality inks and papers, and this includes those who make paper for use in various printers. For special uses like those you describe, be sure to buy the company’s top of the line product and avoid those brands you’ve never heard of. With any of these well-known products, your image should last for generations, if properly stored. And there’s the rub. After you choose a quality product (HP, Kodak, Epson, Canon, etc.), what’s really most important is how the image will be used. Image fade is caused by four major factors: heat, light, atmospheric pollutants (largely the gas ozone), and humidity. If, for example, you were planning to keep your wedding image in an album, the most important factor would be heat; light, which you read most about, would have little effect. If you plan to display your image on a desktop or wall, then all four factors are likely to come into play in varying degrees. What’s important then in predicting lifetime is to think about the four factors in balance, which not all testing does. For example, a few years ago a well-known contract-testing lab predicted that images from one of its client’s products would last for years, but it based this largely on light fade tests. Some consumers who bought the product were then dismayed to find their images changing color in a matter of months—due to ozone-induced fade. Over emphasizing light fade is probably the biggest mistake made by many of those predicting lifetimes. Another aspect in predicting lifetimes is determining just what is a faded image. Some people call a just noticeable difference between the original and the kept image an unacceptably faded print, but most consumers, based on real tests, don’t. Your question says quot;illegiblequot;, which is way longer than the times predicted for image fade, where people are considering small color changes, not illegibility. For prints that are on display, you can prolong their lifetime by framing them under glass with a piece of backing material (called a matte). Try not to display them over your hot air duct or in a window and don’t use a air “purifier” that does its job by spewing ozone. But what about your poem? As this discussion suggests (in probably more detail than you ever wanted to know), assigning a “years” number to the prediction is dodgy, even if it’s poetic. How does something like “lifetime” or “for generations” scan? That will almost certainly fit your HP print .