Color Is on a Clock

Color dyes fade and shift even in complete darkness — cold slows it, nothing stops it. And cellulose acetate film degrades, releasing acetic acid, which accelerates the degradation of everything stored with it. A single deteriorating negative can affect an entire box.

Photographic collections are also frequently the least catalogued material a family owns, because they accumulated rather than being acquired. That makes triage difficult: nobody knows which negatives matter until somebody looks, and looking through unsorted material is precisely what accelerates handling damage.

• Cool and dry, held continuously — heat accelerates every process.
• Color material treated as more urgent than black and white.
• Acetate film checked and isolated if it has begun to degrade.
• Archival enclosures rather than the original envelopes.
• Complete darkness.

Degrading cellulose acetate releases acetic acid, which accelerates the degradation of anything stored alongside it. A single deteriorating negative in a box will affect the rest, which makes isolation more urgent than it appears.

The characteristic vinegar odour is the practical indicator. If a box of older negatives smells of it, that material needs separating rather than being left in place until somebody has time to sort it.

1. 01Store cool, dry and dark, continuously.
2. 02Segregate acetate film from other material.
3. 03Flag material showing signs of degradation.
4. 04House in archival enclosures where the originals are unsuitable.
5. 05Condition report on intake and on movement.

If you have color transparencies or negatives of any real importance, digitize them. Storage slows the shift and does not stop it, and the honest position is that the image should exist somewhere that is not chemically active.

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