John -

If you follow enough asterisks and footnotes, you discover that "Lightfastness rating over 100 years based on accelerated testing of prints on select Epson Papers displayed indoors, under glass. Actual print stability will vary according to image, display conditions, light intensity, humidity, and atmospheric conditions. Epson does not guarantee longevity of prints. For maximum print life, display prints under glass or laminations or properly store them." - which sounds appropriately vague for something written by Lawyers and PR types.

We use the recommended pricy Epson glossy paper for prints, and find that it does really work better than other similar-appearing paper we've tried (the ink doesn't go on as evenly on the other paper, especially in large black areas). And the prints do look a lot better than those we were getting with our good-but-not-top-of-the-line ink jet printer (and those looked pretty good until we had the new printer for comparison).

We also haven't tried sending any of the CDs we've printed through the dishwasher - there was another thread that recommended against ink jet printing of CDs in general because the ink would smear or wash off if the CD got wet. We do need to set aside test copies - I'll check this weekend to see which are the oldest ones we have around and set them aside to check at regular intevals. We'll post our real-world test results in a while.

JudyB