Museum Quality  At Lord & Darling Portraits, we see ourselves as providing the same service as that of the painters patronized by royalty from the Renaissance until today.

Those paintings have lasted hundreds of years, and we have the same goal for your portraits. Lord & Darling Portraits uses the best materials and techniques tested and approved by organizations such as Wilhelm Research, the Library of Congress, and the Society of American Archivists to give you portraits that should, with a minimum of reasonable care, last for a century or more.   

Then we go a step further than other studios and offer the option of a digital file copy (in both TIFF and JPEG formats) of your portrait on a compact disc so that you or your descendants can reproduce the image if it’s destroyed in a disaster or copy the image file to other formats as technology changes. The Lord & Darling Portraits  Golden Memories Disc is burned on the finest archival compact disc commercially available, using actual 24K metallic gold.  Independent testing laboratories rate our premium brand of disc to last as long as 300 years in proper storage.  Here is more information from the manufacturer of these amazing discs.

What is "Archival?"  There is no universally accepted definition of “archival" because there are no perfect archival materials. All materials either decay or can be destroyed.

However an accepted meaning of the Society of American Archivists, the US Library of Congress, and many museums is that materials intended for archiving should last at least 100 years without noticeably losing viewing quality. Although some kinds of conventional photographic prints are advertised as "archival," if you read their documents closely, their definition of "archival" is only about 60 years.

Lord & Darling Portraits  uses the methods and materials recommended by the experts to produce wall décor photographs that can be expected to last at least 100 years. We call this our Museum Quality. It's what a museum expects of an investment in fine art, and it's what we offer to you. It’s the primary intention of Lord & Darling Portraits  to provide you with a visual record of your family that has the potential to last for generations--as well as can be determined by the best test laboratories. We take specific steps to maximize that potential. This involves three areas: 

• Using tested, high-quality original materials with a great inherent ability to resist both internal and environmental deterioration,

• Using tested conservation framing and glazing techniques as protection from environmental hazards, and

• Redundancy--giving you the provision to make a perfect copy far into the future if the original is ever damaged or destroyed.

High Quality Materials   The former standard for archival quality black and white photographs had been conventional silver halide prints on high-quality paper, carefully processed, washed, dried, and mounted on acid-free backing. This combination has stood the test of time, proven by many photographs that are now a hundred years old or more.

However, conventional color photographs are produced with color dyes that are not nearly as long-lived as the metallic silver in black and white photographs. Conventional color photographs on continuous display in the average home can begin to fade within ten years. Even the best of conventional color photographs advertised as “archival” will show fading within 30-60 years on display in the average home.

The most current tests indicate that pigmented inks on acid-free 100-percent cotton material (the modern application of the same painting substances used by the grand-masters of centuries ago) can provide photographs of significantly greater lifespan than conventional color dye photographs and an even greater lifespan than conventional black and white (silver halide) prints under the same display conditions. Prints made with quality archival pigmented inks on acid-free paper are accepted by the Library of Congress and preferred by many museums for permanent art collections.

This is also the method preferred by Lord & Darling Portraits. Our wall décor portraits at all price levels are produced with the highest quality pigments and acid-free 100 percent cotton rag paper or acid-free 100 percent cotton canvas. Combined with our recommended framing and glazing techniques, these materials produce a portrait that you can expect to last at least 100 years in the home  before showing fading.

Conservation Framing   Our portrait packages include framing and glazing techniques known as “conservation framing.” This involves UV-blocking acrylic and a UV-blocking spray (over our 100-percent cotton art paper) or the UV-blocking spray alone (on our 100-percent cotton canvas) as well as careful backing and framing with acid-free materials. This combination helps protect the portrait from the deleterious effects of ultraviolet radiation and atmospheric ozone — the two worst enemies of all art. Conservation framing and glazing may as much as triple the expected life of portraits kept on constant display in the home compared to the same photograph under the same conditions without it. Another important factor of conservation framing is that it is "reversible."  That means the print itself is not permanently attached to anything within the frame.  If the frame, the backing, or the glazing is damaged, the print can be easily and completely removed for reframing. Here is more Library of Congress information on conservation framing.

Redundancy  Our Golden Memories Disc is your “ace in the hole” from Lord & Darling Portraits. Whether we use a high-resolution digital camera or a large-format film camera to capture your initial image, you will receive digital copies of the final image on an “archival gold” compact disc rated for the maximum longevity current commercial technology allows. Other studios may offer a "guarantee" to reprint your photograph if it ever fades, but who can guarantee they will still be in business two generations from now?  That's why we offer you (and your future generations) the means to make reprints and additional copies of the digital image as well. Most portrait studios won't give you a high-quality digital copy of the finished image at any price. But offering you the ability to make additional perfect copies is part of our mission to provide a portrait that your family can hand down through generations.