A reader wants to know what to do about the color prints she has
on display in her study. The prints are fading rather badly, she
reports. Her study is in a room that was originally designed as
a greenhouse. Hanging pictures in the bright light of a
greenhouse is merely one insult in the long list of abuses
photographs suffer at our hands. But at least it lets our eyes
get the message. When the prints begin to fade, we know they`ve
been stressed, like plants left too long without water. The only
sure-fire way to stop color prints from gradually fading away is
to put them in an air-tight envelope and freeze them solid.
(Embalming might work, too, but I don`t know anyone who has
tried it.) Since having your pictures sealed in a freezer and
having them handy to look at are two irreconcilable notions, we
might want to consider another alternative: doing everything we
can to slow the inevitable. In its booklet ``Storage and Care of
Kodak Color Films,`` Eastman Kodak Co. has this to say about the
stability of color