Digital decay
Digital decay turns up in 2 fields: printing, telecom & it. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Digital decay in printing
The progressive loss of image quality caused by repeated saving and compression.
The cumulative degradation of a digital image file that occurs when it is repeatedly compressed, re-saved, or transferred across platforms. In prepress workflows, this results in visible artifacts, banding, and loss of edge sharpness, especially in lossy formats like JPEG. It forces prepress operators to request original, uncompressed master files for high-quality print reproduction.
"The client sent a logo they have been passing around on WhatsApp for a year, and the digital decay is so bad I can't even separate the colors."
Digital decay in telecom & it
The gradual loss, corruption, or inaccessibility of digital data over time.
The degradation of digital information caused by hardware failure, software obsolescence, or link rot. This occurs when storage media like hard drives and magnetic tapes physically break down, or when the specific file formats and web URLs required to access the data are no longer supported by active systems.
"We migrated the archives to redundant cloud storage to prevent digital decay on those old magnetic tapes."