On distinguishing age from metallicity with photometric data

In the study of galaxy integrated light, if photometric indicators could extract age and metallicity information of high enough quality, photometry might be vastly more efficient than spectroscopy for the same astrophysical goals. Toward this end, we search three photometric systems: David Dunlap Observatory (DDO), Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut (BATC), and Stromgren systems for their ability to disentangle age and abundance effects. Only the Stromgren [c_1] vs. [m_1] plot shows moderate age-metallicity disentanglement. We also add to the discussion of optical to near-infrared Johnson-Cousins broad band colours, finding a great decrease in age sensitivity when updated isochrones are used.