3 Ways To Prevent Canvas Prints From Fading or Deteriorating

Canvas prints are sleek, attractive, and timeless. Their flair and texture complement most home decor while making a striking statement on large walls. They also provide a frame-free way to display and elevate your art and photography in exhibits and shows.

With the help of a giclee inkjet printer, quality media, and archival pigment inks, canvas enables you to reproduce your artwork, creating museum quality prints that will last for generations.

However, environmental conditions can lead to deterioration in even the best-quality canvas reproduction. This post highlights three ways to prevent fading and material degradation in canvas prints.

Keep Canvas Art Prints Away From Humid, Damp Environments

Excessively humid environments are rarely favorable conditions for storing or displaying fragile or valuable treasures, and your canvas prints are no exception.

Your canvas art print might look perfect in your bathroom, but the moisture from the shower and sink will likely cause it to degrade faster than it would in a more suitable place. This is because tiny water molecules in humid air or steam absorb into the canvas material, interacting with the ink and causing it to fade.

For this reason, it's best to avoid displaying your cherished canvas prints in bathrooms or above sinks or stoves, or in storage spaces without climate control.

Avoid Displaying Canvas Art Prints in Direct Sunlight

Like with most textiles and other natural materials, direct sunlight negatively impacts canvas art prints. Sunlight's ultraviolet rays create an effect called photolysis which breaks down the chemical bonds that enable the colors in the ink to adhere to the canvas.

Therefore, consistent exposure causes the colors to fade bit by bit, and over time, your canvas art print will become permanently less vivid.

You can mitigate the risk of photolysis by displaying your canvas art prints in areas with no or little exposure to direct sunlight from windows, skylights, and other sources.

Note that fluorescent lighting has a similar effect on canvas art prints as sunlight.

Keep Canvas Away From Extreme Heat

Heaters, fireplaces, or other heat-generating devices can subject canvas art prints to conditions that impact the image's quality over time. Damage may include color fading and the deterioration of the canvas material, causing your print to warp or split.

For all of these reasons it is best to display your valued canvas art prints in a climate controlled space, away from sources of humidity, direct sunlight and heat. 

At The Stackhouse Printery, we seal our canvas prints with a giclee gloss coating that helps protect them from heat, sunlight, and moisture and makes them impenetrable to UV rays. We also offer custom rolled canvas prints to transport your images without damaging them.