The American master of photography, Ansel Adams, said "The negative is comparable to the composer's score, and the print to its performance.” That holds true today as much as it did when first uttered. Although in the digital age the discussion about the print generates more heat than light.

Artists have been producing prints for eons using a variety of techniques. Etching, lithograph, mezzotint and more recently serigraph (the fancy name for silk screen printing) have been used by the likes of Rembrandt through to Warhol. Each used the best technology available to them to transfer their ideas on to their chosen paper support.

Today in the 21st Century as the internal combustion engine has replaced the horse and buggy as a preferred means of transport so digital printing has replaced its predecessors. From the glicee to the home printer the quality and the supports available has blossomed in the past few years. Now artists and photographers can print on canvas, watercolour paper and papers specially designed to compliment the technology to mention a few.

The quality of their prints will rival if not surpass those that have gone before, even those printed on the humble home printer. Yes, it will change its appearance over time but then, so will an oil painting. The occupation of painting conservation is a long and honourable one.

One web site I visited whilst researching this article offered a life time guarantee against fading. Great marketing hype and a pretty safe bet. Fading will happen very slowly and over a considerable length of time. What you will c

ompare the fading against if you even notice it has me beat.

Pollution, ultra violet light and changes in temperature extract their toll on any artefact. If a few common sense precautions are taken, your grand children will be admiring your choices as they contemplate their mid life crisis. Protect them from accidental damage, framed under glass is a good bet. Keep them out of harsh light and extremes of temperature, your car's dashboard is not a good place for any work of art, not too good for anything come to think about it.

If purchasing via the internet a no questions asked right of return for your purchase if it doesn't meet expectations is reasonable. The item you hold in your hand will differ from what you saw on the screen. For starters it is a different medium, ink rather than light and a monitor's calibration will vary in accord with its user's preferences. What you see on your screen is bound to be different to what I am seeing.

With a myriad of printing choices out there today, there are many ways a print may strut its stuff. That it will do so for an acceptable length of time is a given. The life of the subject matter you choose is an entirely different question.

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