Photo Storage and Preservation
As the field of photography continues to grow and expand, so does the need for affordable photo storage and preservation solutions. Photo sleeves, or clear bags, have proven to be an effective and affordable solution to photo presentation and storage.
Many photographers find that passing a bare print around to be a stressful endeavor. Not so when you use a Crystal Clear Bag™ to protect your masterpiece from the fingerprints of the mauling masses! Crystal Clear Bags have been found not only to protect your work, but also to promote and preserve it better than other alternatives.
Over the years the professional photo industry has migrated from polyester and glassine to polypropylene sleeves. Polypropylene has excellent stress, scratch, and chemical resistance which make it ideal for photographic protection and storage. The most popular of these polypropylene sleeves are called clearbags or Crystal Clear Bags.
What makes them Crystal Clear? Pure polypropylene resin is melted and extruded through a die and then cast. The film is oriented by stretching it in both directions. This process yields the final product called Biaxially Oriented PolyPropylene (BOPP). Large rolls of BOPP film are then converted to bags of various sizes commonly called clearbags.
In Henry Wilhelm’s book “The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs” (1993), he indicates that polyester and polypropylene photo sleeves are an acceptable solution to long term photo storage. One caveat to this recommendation was that “over time, surface-treated polypropylene notebook pages and sleeves may stick to print or film emulsions and are therefore not recommended for applications other than storage of mounted slides”. ClearBags™ Crystal Clear Bags are not treated with any surface treatments or contaminants that could damage your work. You can trust your prints to ClearBags.
ClearBags (www.ClearBags.com) specializes in providing Crystal Clear packaging to the photo, art, craft, and stationery markets. For over 15 years ClearBags’ staff has been working to develop and deliver the highest quality and lowest cost Crystal Clear Bags to the market. With over 1000 sizes and the largest inventory in North America, ClearBags is the #1 supplier of Crystal Clear packaging.
Not only has ClearBags developed an ideal solution for individual print storage, but we have worked with the industry to develop archival quality Crystal Clear Photo Boxes. Instead of using Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) which out-gases the by-product chlorine, we have developed Crystal Clear Photo Boxes made of Poly Ethylene Tetraphylate (PET). PET is naturally acid free so is ideal for long term storage of photographs. PET also happens to be significantly less expense than traditional cardboard storage solutions and ships and stores flat, thus reducing shipping costs and storage space.
The combination of Crystal Clear Bags and Crystal Clear Photo Boxes presents a compelling proposition to the professional and amateur photographer alike. World class photo storage solutions are now within everyone’s reach and budget thanks to www.ClearBags.com.