A couple of weeks ago I sent out a message on care and preservation of photos and documents. One of the replies I got (from someone who was in the photography business) had some additional information that I thought might be of interest to all of you. With his permission I am passing it along. Note: As for the the $90 per photo (see last sentence), I think it may well depend on where you live. I happened to live in one of the more expensive urban areas and prices are set accordingly. Those in other, less expensive areas, might do well to check with your local photographers. ************************** Just a couple of comments on reproducing methods: The cost of going to a professional photographer seems high to me. The key might be the word professional. Many one hour labs do copy work much cheaper than that. You might need to specify whether you want color paper or film used, or true B&W. True B&W will be more expensive and harder to find a lab, but is recommended for archival work. The Kodak Photomaker-type machines do great work, but what you aren't told is that the paper they used is a thermal paper. That is not necessarily bad, but it is more heat sensitive than actual photographic paper. The manufacturers say it will last as long as photographic paper befroe fading or discoloring, but I have never seen independant test results that confirm this. There are independant labs that have rated Fuji and Kodak photographic (color) paper as lasting up to 100 years or more, with proper storing. (Side note: Fuji got the best scores of all the papers tested). If you use a photocopier (like Kinkos), or your computer printer at home (regardless of which paper or type of printer you have, laser or bubblejet), you are using watersoluable (sp?) inks (that are usually non-archival), and getting a lower quality print, too. Not only the paper needs to be archival quality. And a laser printer can't "pull" anything out of an image .. it is a printer, not a scanner. It prints what the computer tells it to. The truest "archival" way to keep images is to use good old "true" B&W film (not the type that can be processed in color chemistry (Kodak T400CN, Kodak Select, or Ilford XP 1 or 2), and have it printed on "true" B&W paper (not color paper, but printed with a sepia tint, or as close to B&W as the lab could get it). Then the only variable on the process is the condition of the chemicals, and that they adhered to the process specs (proper chemical temp, and time in each chemical). I wouldn't recommend letting an amateur with a home darkroom try it for me). That may require a custom lab, which might be more expensive, but I would not expect it to be anywhere close to $90 a photo.