Gifts that last longer than fruit cake

Photo gifts provide a personal way to celebrate the holidays. This Christmas Creative Memories has introduced high-gloss photo panels. More information on photo gifts, including instructions on how to resize a StoryBook, is available in my December Tech Notes column tech-notes_200812.

Photo panels are unlike traditional prints in that the prints are produced with an inkjet printer and then thermally transfered to the panel. These panels resist abrasion, water, and other stains. They also have extremely good fade resistance showing only minor color shifts after laboratory tests designed to simulate forty years light exposure under relatively high home lighting conditions. In the photo below, the test target on left shows the photo panel before light exposure and the test target on the right shows the panel after light exposure.

Photo Panel test targets. Light exposure simulates 40 years light exposure, with an average light level of 250 lux for 10 hours per day.

About Mark Mizen

I have over twenty years professional experience in all aspects of photography and digital imaging. I am Chair of the ISO WG5 TG2 committee responsible for physical properties and durability of imaging material and am currently with HID Global working on systems for security printing for IDs, licenses, and credit cards. Previously, I was Director of Digital Development at Creative Memories from 2009 to 2012 and was responsible for the Creative Memories digital products and services. I also established and directed the Creative Memories Technology Center, which evaluated new products prior to product introduction, assisted with production difficulties, and provided technical information to support product sales.

View all posts by Mark Mizen →

2 Responses to Gifts that last longer than fruit cake

Lisa McGee says:

December 1, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Who cares- I’ll just print another one. No wonder CM is so expensive! paying for all this garbage!

Mark Mizen says:

December 1, 2008 at 11:09 pm

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for your comments and the chance to clarify a commonly held misunderstanding about digital printing. While it is true that products can be reprinted at a later time, the actual fact is that the required files are frequently unavailable. Problems arise due to lost CDs, hard drive crashes, or computer viruses. The images that will survive are the images that are printed. In addition, most customers have relatively high expectations of photo gifts and are unwilling to simply “print another one.”

Mark