MY TEST PIC

Up untill I bought my Epson 2200, I was printing on an Epson 1200. That old printer was notorious for fading images. I have a few images here and there printed with the 1200 on the original Ilford "Semi-Matte" Photo Inkjet paper -- came in a white box. I know of one print of me holding the Dawg and sitting on the Osyter Beach on the Vineyard. That print which hung in our office at school is so faded, you'd never know it was a color print. Many of the details are gone. However, I have hanging in my photo work area a print of the above image (before I played with the "art" filters in PS) that was sprayed with a UV protective spray, and to my eye, I don't think that print has faded at all. That print has to be a good eight years old. I'm betting it will last as long as the average c-print from the local 1-hour lab. These days, whether I'm printing here at the house on the 2200, or on the schools Epson 4000, I spray all my "finished" prints. One of benefits of spraying beyond UV protections is when printing on luster surfaced prints, it gets rid of the gloss deferential so evident from the Ultrachrome inks on these papers. I was using the Lumijet Protective Spray, but now the store carries Hahnemuhle Protective Spray. Looks to me to be the same product because some of the cans have Hahnemuhle's new label slapped right over the old Lumijet label. The "pear picture" was made with my first digital camera -- Olympus C2020 Zoom -- that was only 2.1-mega-pixels, and came supplied with an 8-meg Smart Media card. WOW! Bought that camera in March of 2000. My second digital camera was a Canon D60 bought in the fall of 2002 in prep for our trip to Cuba early the next year. While I already had several EOS mount lenses from my Canon film cameras, I bought a 17-35mm f/2.8 L used on eBay as my prime "carry around" lens. I still have and use this lens, but sold the D60 to a student a couple of years ago when I upgraded to a brace of Rebel XT's.