Award Winning Photo

Photographic images have always been prone to fading and loss of image quality due to sun exposure or improper storage of film negatives, slides, and prints. Since digital images are stored as data on a computer, the image never loses visual quality, detail, or fidelity as long as the digital media remains intact. The only way to ruin a digital image is to delete the image file, corrupt or re-write some of the image file's data, or damage or destroy the electronic storage media (hard drive, disk, CD-ROM, flash card, etc.) that contains the file. As with all computer files, making backups is the most effective way of ensuring a digital image can be recovered.
Of growing concern for both archivists and historians is the relative non-permanence or transitory nature of digital media. Unlike film and print, which are tangible and immediately accessible to a person, storage of digital images is ever-changing with old media and decoding software becoming obsoleted or inaccessible by new technologies. Historians are concerned that we are creating a historical void where information and details about a given decade or era will have been lost within either failed or inaccessible digital media. It is recommended that both professional and amateur users develop strategies for migrating stored digital images from old technologies to new. Scrapbookers who may have used film for creating artistic and personal memoirs may need to modify their approach to digital photobooks in order to personalise them and retain the special qualities of traditional photo albums.