The image stability performance of various printing technologies and printers from many suppliers is improving, yet the ability to provide comparative information to a broad range of users with changing requirements remains elusive. This paper seeks to:• analyze the ways that users want to print and use images• define the likely environments that the prints will encounter• assess the image stability of prints from a range of products and technologies• match the image stability performance with the user expectations• provide a proposal for a user friendly print stability rating systemThe long term stability of images produced by the leading print technologies is defined by a number of sophisticated and complex accelerated tests. The results of these tests for a large range of print systems are reviewed in order to demonstrate the difficulty of reducing the results to an easily understandable form. A methodology for communicating the results in a way that can be useful to most levels of users is proposed.