The European conservation standards
The European standards for the conservation of cultural heritage are written by CEN/TC 346, a committee of the European Committee for Standardization, in working groups of experts nominated by the national standards bodies. Every member country publishes them as its own national standards: in Sweden as SS-EN, through SIS, in Germany as DIN EN, in the United Kingdom as BS EN.
They are not imaging standards. They govern condition reports, sampling, exhibition lighting, transport and the conservation process as a whole. But several of them require photographs, and say what those photographs have to carry. This page goes through what they ask of a photograph, and what the PHOTARCH method does about each requirement.
PHOTARCH does not write condition reports, and no one assesses it against these standards. What follows is PHOTARCH's own reading, given clause by clause so it can be checked against the standards themselves. The terms used here are the standards' own, from EN 15898 and CEN/TS 17135.
What they ask for, and what they leave open
Read together, the standards ask a documentation photograph for a good deal. It should carry a metric scale and a colour reference. It should be annotated, so that its purpose can be understood later. It should be comparable with the next photograph of the same object, so that change can be seen. The instrument should be identifiable, the record dated, the format open and the identifier persistent.
None of them says how. No clause says where the light stands, what the object lies on, whether its shadow is kept, how the scale is measured, or how it stays with the file once the file leaves the software that measured it. That is the gap described under Standards, seen from the conservation side: the requirement exists, and the method is left to the photographer.
Standard by standard
EN 16095:2012 — Condition recording for movable cultural heritage
The standard every condition report on a movable object is measured against. EN 16853 makes it the required basis for the condition part of any conservation documentation.
A fixed set of views, with the view from directly above as the main image and further faces and close-ups as the object needs them.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §6.4A ColorChecker in every sitting. The chart becomes a colour profile for that sitting, and colour accuracy is reported as ΔE2000. The scale is measured and written into the file. The master is kept unaltered, with a SHA-256 checksum.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §6.4Title, description, keywords, photographer and rights are written into every exported copy as XMP and IPTC.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §6.4The same ground, light and views every time, so that two sittings years apart can be laid side by side.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §4.3Notes can be pinned to a point on the photograph, each with a colour, and travel with the object as W3C Web Annotations giving their position in the image's pixels. On a photograph with a measured scale, every marked point can be located and measured.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §6.6The scale in the file states its method (ruler, calipers, target), its uncertainty, when it was set and who measured: see ISM.
ClauseEN 16095:2012, §8.3EN 16853:2026 — Conservation process: decision making, planning, implementation and documentation
Revised in 2026. It applies to objects, collections, buildings and archaeological sites alike. Its new Annex A, Principles of documentation, is normative: documentation of a conservation process has to follow it.
One of fourteen rights statements in every file. TIFF and JPEG with XMP; records in LIDO, Dublin Core and Linked Art; the scale in an open format (CC BY 4.0).
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.4The camera's own EXIF stays in the master. The scale says how it was obtained. A signed C2PA manifest lists what was done to the picture.
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.6Camera and lens as the camera recorded them. The ColorChecker in each sitting is turned into an ICC profile, which is saved and goes with the exported files, so every sitting carries the colour calibration it was photographed under.
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.7The capture date stays as the camera wrote it; the date the scale was set is a field of its own.
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.8An ARK identifier for every object; structured fields beside a free description.
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.9Material, technique, object type and period are linked to the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus.
ClauseEN 16853:2026, A.2.10The standard's bibliography points to ISO 21127, the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. PHOTARCH's object records are published as Linked Art, which is CIDOC-CRM in JSON-LD.
EN 16085:2012 — Sampling from materials of cultural property
The sampling point and the sample itself are photographed, each with a metric scale and a colour reference where that applies. Scale and colour reference are part of every PHOTARCH sitting. The method is written for whole objects, not for samples under a microscope.
EN 16163:2024 — Lighting for indoor exhibitions
Before an object goes on display under new lighting, its condition is recorded with professional digital colour photography and calibrated colour charts, and the recording is repeated at intervals to detect change. Repeating it only works if the second photograph is made like the first. A PHOTARCH sitting is defined by its ground, light, views and chart, so it can be repeated, and each sitting reports its colour error.
EN 15946:2011 and EN 16648:2015 — Packing and transport
A condition report travels with the object, with colour photographs where they are needed. Before and after a loan, the same method gives two photographs that can be compared.
EN 17820:2023 — Management of movable cultural heritage collections
Information about a collection, photography included, is kept accessible and sustainable, and the standard counts digital objects as objects. In the PHOTARCH archive every master has a SHA-256 checksum and every object an ARK identifier, and the PHOTARCH app exports an organisation's records in open formats.
EN 15886:2010 — Colour measurement of surfaces
Measures colour in CIELAB with a colorimeter or spectrophotometer, on stone and other porous inorganic materials. PHOTARCH reports colour in the same space, from the camera against a reference chart. That checks the photograph; it does not replace a measurement of the surface.
Outside PHOTARCH's scope
EN 16096:2012 (condition survey of built heritage) asks for overview photographs from several angles. EN 17543:2021 (finishes of built heritage) asks for a photographic record and defines technical imaging: raking light, ultraviolet, infrared. Both concern buildings. PHOTARCH photographs movable objects, in two dimensions, in visible light.
The remaining standards from CEN/TC 346 cover indoor climate and its measurement, the testing, cleaning and desalination of stone and other porous materials, mortars, showcases, storage buildings, energy performance, pest management, procurement, and waterlogged and archaeological wood and deposits.
Getting hold of them
European standards are sold through the national standards bodies. In Sweden, Riksantikvarieämbetet (the Swedish National Heritage Board) has paid for the conservation standards, so they can be read free of charge after registering with SIS.
References · European conservation standards
- standardEN 16095:2012. Conservation of cultural property — Condition recording for movable cultural heritage. CEN/TC 346.§4.3 change over time · §6.4 visual record, reference units, annotation · §6.6 damage on a scaled photograph · §8.3 metadata.
- standardEN 16853:2026. Conservation of cultural heritage — Conservation process — Decision making, planning, implementation and documentation. CEN/TC 346.Annex A (normative), Principles of documentation: A.2.4 to A.2.10.
- standardEN 16085:2012. Conservation of cultural property — Methodology for sampling from materials of cultural property — General rules.
- standardEN 16163:2024. Conservation of cultural heritage — Guidelines and procedures for choosing appropriate lighting for indoor exhibitions.
- standardEN 15946:2011. Conservation of cultural property — Packing principles for transport · EN 16648:2015. Conservation of cultural heritage — Transport methods.
- standardEN 17820:2023. Conservation of cultural heritage — Specifications for the management of moveable cultural heritage collections.
- standardEN 15886:2010. Conservation of cultural property — Test methods — Colour measurement of surfaces.
- standardEN 16096:2012. Conservation of cultural property — Condition survey and report of built cultural heritage · EN 17543:2021. Conservation of cultural heritage — Finishes of built heritage — Investigation and documentation.
- standardEN 15898:2019. Conservation of cultural heritage — Main general terms and definitions · CEN/TS 17135:2021. Conservation of cultural heritage — General terms for describing the alterations of objects.The vocabulary used on this page.
- standardISO 21127:2023. Information and documentation — A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information (CIDOC CRM).