Why do digital photos deteriorate with age?

[Big Boy]

I always assumed that digital photos would retain their sharpness forever. However, I've noticed that photos taken with my first digital camera (3.1 megapixels) are starting to lose their sharpness. I'm talking 15 years ago, and 3.1 was pretty good back then.

My son has today posted a memory of his rugby team winning the cup 15 years ago. OK, it was a foggy night, but the photo looks more like a painting now.

rugby.jpg (31.59 KiB) Viewed 618 times

This isn't a one-off, just a current example. I have many examples of photos taken in good conditions that seem to be suffering.

Why?

[buksida]

The digital data itself does not degrade over time, but the medium on which images are stored may do. Additionally, editing photos multiple times will introduce some element of degratation. It could also be that camera technology has advanced to much that old photos just look that way now becuase we're used to super high quality and resolutions these days.

[hhinner]

My first digital camera was a HP Photosmart 618 back in 2001. It was only a 2 MP camera but the pictures are still as good (or bad) as when they were taken, even being kept on Google photos as well as external HDDs.

As buksida says, multiple edits (how many times?) could contribute to degradation but you should always keep the original as well.

[PeteC]

Are they on your computer, or some kind of flash drive? My thinking is that any external drive may be getting old and corrupt. A guess....

[Big Boy]

I rarely edit my photographs, and still have every original. All of my digital cameras have been point and shoot Sony models.

Back in the day, people used to comment on what good quality images my point and shoot was producing. A few were even used in local publications.

I was wondering if it was better computers with more advanced software now displaying my older photos poorly.

[HHTel]

I have pics of the kids taken some 15 years ago on a 5 mega pixel which was very good at the time. They've always been kept on disk and they're as good today as they were then.
Certainly, printed versions deteriorate but keeping the original allows you to reprint them.

[Big Boy]

I've been through a few older photos since starting this thread, and indeed, some are as good as the day I took them, which makes it even more of a mystery (nice bit of nostalgia too).

To confuse it even more, some of the bad photos are in the same folders as the decent photos. I guess it's just sods law that the photos I need to find are the ones which have gone bad, or very possibly they were always bad. However, there were a couple of prints taken on display in a local bar - they were really sharp, but the originals are yuk. Bar and photos are long gone now.

[STEVE G]

Are they stored on disc BB? I've had writable DVD'S that have deteriorated way faster than they're supposed to, I suspect because of poor manufacturing in the first place.

[Big Boy]

No, they're on the computer hard drive.

[hhinner]

If you Google jpeg repair you will find multiple software offerings, often with free trials, which might work for your photos. It would be interesting if any of them can identify any problem with the rugby.jpg photo and then repair it.

[laser]

That's too bad but gives a warning.
Data can be corrupted due to many reasons (material degradation, cosmic rays, power surges...), in the camera, on the original storage media, during transfer in memory, after transfer on the hard disk, on file opening and saving, etc. Hard disks have dedicated chips & circuits to detect, and if possible, transparently correct such errors, move data to unused/safer sectors, log failures, warn the operating system, etc...but all these will fail eventually. Similar issues arise with memory corruption... nothing is perfect. Instead of guessing, it would be prudent to check the health of the laptop, *ASAP*.

Flipping a single bit in a file (here in the given jpg) can have fatal, significant, negligible, or zero effect. It depends on which particular bit has changed, and of course whether permanently or temporarily. For illustration, I changed a single bit of the original jpeg file using a hex editor to cause quite significant changes.

messy.jpg (31.59 KiB) Viewed 287 times

Restoring the file merely involves changing the corrupted binary number 11010 back to 10010 (decimal 12) at file offset 4352 decimal. However, finding some randomly corrupted bit or bits in the "original" file would be a formidable = hopeless challenge.

Lastly, reliable and affordable long-term data storage may be important. The best solution I tried is from the author of OllyDbg (the beloved & mighty tool of software reversers). The idea is to print (store) the data (any kind) on paper. Acid-free paper is inexpensive and lasts long if stored properly. The saved info can be retrieved using a scanner and the same (or reconstructed) software that will be possible even in the far future. Like DOS and 16 bit Win 3.1 apps still can run on new PCs, beside that here the source code is available. Find the details and software at http://www.ollydbg.de/Paperbak/index.html