Something occurred to me today. With printed photos, you can tell that they are old because they start to yellow. Also, you can tell the difference in camera technology over the last 100 years. Older photos (especially black and white and toward the beginning of the century) are more grainy, less sharp. Will we be able to tell that a digital photograph viewed on the computer is old just by looking at it?
I'm guessing that the answer is, for the most part, "no". You may be able to tell a digital photograph produced with a more advanced digital camera from one that was produced on a less advanced camera. However, this won't give you a clue to its age.
Many digital cameras are embedding the date and time (as well as the camera information) directly into the pictures they save. My Olympus C2040Z puts the following strings in its JPG headers: "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "C2040Z", "v355u-75", "2003:03:02 10:39:54". The last is the date and time (ripped from an actual picture file). So, I suppose that one day, digital archaeologists could use the headers of images to date photographs.
Where am I going with this rambling? Absolutely nowhere. I haven't had much sleep lately (I'm a new dad). It just struck me as interesting that individuals are losing the ability to discern the difference in the picture of a landscape taken 2 days ago from one taken 20 years ago.
10:23:09 PM 
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