Questions and Answers Section
Prints fading
You will have experienced many prints fading over time, this is because:-
The effect of course is the sum of the parts, so while any one of these causes fading, more causes it to happen faster.
To be fair to many manufacturers they only intended it to be decorative disposable art, and perhaps expected that you would buy more regularly to replace it. Technology has of course also moved on, and using the best that is available today, we can do so much more than could have been done before.
A conventional magazine page or litho page will fade if left in sunlight for even a few days, and many prints historically have been made by this method. Also historically many people did not realise that UV light was also present in most forms of artificial light, so even if you pulled the curtains and never allowed any sunlight in, these prints would fade.
Today there are several different types of ink that can be put through printers, some types fade and some do not. Often those with the most vibrant colours do fade, which means we need to have far better images to get good bright prints from the inks that do not fade. The printers we and others use will take either ink type, but of course we use the type that does not fade. The combination of Ink and paper that we use the manufacturer say is stable, and colour will last 80 plus years and black and while well over 100 years, providing of course that it is mounted properly, behind ordinary glass and kept out of direct sunlight and dry. There are no standards to these tests and each manufacturer does their own, using bright lights for a short period and then calculating the effective time before noticeable fading will occur. For this reason the manufacturers estimates may not be completely accurate. Most of us would expect to see some fading occurring over time with unprotected prints, even using the latest inks.
Standard off the shelf mounts are not acid free, and have a limited life as do the work put in them, conservation quality mounts are made using completely different material so although to start, they look the same, they do continue to look the same for many years to come. Of course to be fully effective you need all parts, including mounts, backing boards, tape etc to all be conservation grade.
Moisture is another cause of image damage, prints need to be dried (cured) for at least 7 days before mounting and ideally once mounted sealed into the sandwich between waterproof backing board and the glass with tape, so no moisture can enter. As you would expect we do this.
Even using the above, UV light may cause some fading to occur if the image is constantly subject to it. This is why you see some people suggesting that collectable art work should be kept out of the light. The other alternative is to use some form of film or filter and some people add spray varnishes or use plastic film, but this makes the image far less clear. Special preservation glass is designed to block more, with slight variations, museum glass blocks 90% or more of all the most harmful frequencies, with so little UV getting through, that no noticeable fading should occur even if used and in normal indoor light for many years, perhaps even for centuries.
Even with all this protection you should still avoid placing any art in direct sunlight, outdoors, in wet or humid places. So conservatories, glasshouses and swimming pools should be avoided. While no one can foretell the future, you will see we have done all that we can to make sure that your art work stays in as good a condition as possible, for as long as possible, and that you can fully enjoy it. It is important to us that you do feel that you can enjoy the art and use it in your normal living conditions, we don't want you to either feel that the art you buy is likely to deteriorate badly if you have it on normal view or that you have to live in a partly lit gloom, like some old historic houses, in order to protect your art works.
As we said above the effect is the sum of the parts, as we have all the parts sorted, we are happy to give you a guarantee for your entire lifetime that if any images or mount fades or deteriorates we will replace it. Of course we don't expect to have to, and you can make full use of your print, enjoy it to the full, confident that it will last.