If you’ve been printing or developing photos for several years, chances are some of your photos are already fading and losing their original quality. The fact of the matter is that the properties of most photographic papers and the chemicals and dyes used to print on them do not react well to long periods of exposure to light and air. Even when properly framed and stored, the average time it takes for a photograph to start to lose quality is about six to seven years, with noticeable overall fading usually occurring within twenty years.
So what’s someone to do if they don’t want their favorite keepsakes to have a shelf life of less than twenty years before they need to be replaced? Easy: print photos on canvas.
Canvas art is a new phenomenon in the world of photography, reaching its peak just a few years ago when technology advanced enough to make canvas printing as affordable as traditional photo printing. Printing images on canvas is cheaper than ever, faster than ever, and more widely used than ever. The best part? Pictures printed on canvas can last over a hundred years before it begins to fade.
Look back at all the enduring remnants of the culture around the world. What are the two best preserved formats found by archaeologists over and over again? Stone and canvas. Obviously printing photos on stone isn’t really plausible (or probably something you want to do), but canvas? Canvas photos can be ordered by simply uploading a digital image to a professional canvas printer’s website, or by attaching it to an email to a qualified canvas printing technician.
Now, you may think that printing photos on canvas (or canvas prints in general) shouldn’t last as long because of the way they are printed on the canvas and not painted on like traditional artwork from hundreds of years ago. . Although it seems like a logical conclusion, it is very wrong. Thanks to today’s technology used with canvas prints and specialized inkjet printers, your photos are transported onto canvas prints in a similar way to traditional painting by injecting the canvas with special dyes and inks, which ensures high-quality images with rich, vibrant colors that will stand out in most cases. they will likely remain vibrant and show no color loss until the day they die.
Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. is just one of many reputable organizations that have taken the time to examine modern canvases to try and find out how long they can last before they start to fade. The result is an astounding 60-148 years with no noticeable fading in a humid, sunlit environment. For most people in the United States, you’ll be looking at the higher end of the spectrum, as many places don’t reach regular humidity levels of 60% year-round, the baseline used in Wilhelm tests.
How to know if the canvases will last a long time in the place where you live? Let’s look at some basic weather data. The ten wettest environments in the United States are all in Alaska, with an average humidity of 70-80%. Alaska, one of the most extreme environments possible in the United States when it comes to hosting your canvas prints, also boasts a variable amount of sunlight throughout the year, with some months having nearly constant sunlight. Even in these harshest environments, according to one of the Wilhelm researchers, a high-quality canvas print can last about 70 years on average in Alaska, assuming the owner keeps it in an environment that isn’t fully exposed to the outside elements. . For the rest of the country, where sun exposure is much less constant and humidity levels are much lower, this is fantastic news.
In most areas of the US, humidity levels rarely exceed 30 degrees. Taking the average temperature, amount of sunlight, and humidity in the United States, canvas prints last (on average) over a century if kept in a stable environment. As you can see, printing your photos on canvas is not only affordable with prices starting at less than $25, but it’s also worth it as your memories are sure to last a lifetime.