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 approximately six to seven years, and in twenty years, there is usually a noticeable overall fading.
So what can someone do if they don’t want their favorite memories to have a life of less than twenty years before they need to be replaced? Easy: print photos on canvas.
Canvas images are a new phenomenon in the world of photography, reaching its peak only a few years ago when technology advanced enough to make canvas printing as affordable as traditional photographic printing. Printing images on canvas is cheaper than ever, faster than ever, and more used than ever. The best part? Images printed on canvas can last for over a hundred years before they start to fade.
Look back at all the enduring remnants of 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 emailing a qualified canvas printing technician.
Now, you may think that canvas photo printing (or canvas prints in general) shouldn’t last as long because of the way they’re printed on canvas, and not painted on it like traditional artworks from hundreds of years ago. years. . While it seems like a logical conclusion, it is very wrong. Thanks to current technology used with canvas prints and specialized inkjet printers, your photos are transported to canvas prints in a similar way to traditional painting by injecting the canvas with special dyes and inks, ensuring high quality images. quality with vibrant and vivid colors that will make the most of it will likely remain vibrant and show no color fading until the day you die.
Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. is just one of many reputable organizations that have taken the time to search for modern canvas prints to try and figure out how long they can last before they start to fade. The result is an astonishing 60-148 years without any noticeable fading in a humid, sunlit environment. For most people in the United States, you will be looking at the higher end of the spectrum, as many places do not reach the regular year-round humidity levels of 60%, the baseline used in Wilhelm’s tests.
How can you tell if canvas prints will last a long time 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 housing your canvases, also features 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 is not fully exposed to the outside elements. . For the rest of the country, where there is much less constant sun exposure and a much lower humidity level, that’s fantastic news.
In most areas of the US, humidity levels rarely exceed 30 degrees Celsius. Taking the average temperature, amount of sunlight, and humidity in the United States, canvas prints last (on average) more than 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 $ 25, but it is also worth it as your memories are sure to last a lifetime.