Another data point about inks and fading

[DanK]

As a consequence of retiring, I recently lost the office I had been using for 18 years. I was given a very small space, but with too little wall space for photos, so I took home a carton of photos to reuse the frames.

These were all Neilsen anodized black photo frames. The photos were all printed using dye-based Canon printers, mostly an old Pixma Pro 9000II. The frames come with UV-protective glass. the photos were exposed to considerable UV, many of them for many years. I noticed fading on only one.

Last night I started printing new photos to put in the frames. I pulled out one of the frames, and it did not look black; it was sort of a dark magenta gray. My first thought was that it was the artificial lighting in the room, but I recently replaced all of the lighting with high-accuracy Soraa bulbs, so that seemed unlikely. Then I noticed that I had a similar frame still unused in a bookcase, so I pulled it out. It was black, as it should be.

I had two reactions. First, I had never thought about frames fading. Very annoying. One more problem with long-term displays.

Second, I realized what this means about printing, for people who don't need archival prints: if you use UV glass, which is not very expensive, prints made with good dye-based inks can last longer than the frames you put them in. And none of these prints were made with the current line of Canon dye inks, the ones used in the Pro 100, which are supposed to be longer lasting.

[xpatUSA]

Interesting point, Dan.

Welcome to the ranks of the retired!

[Manfred M]

Not at all surprising Dan. Pigments do fade and if one thinks about it, the paint on the frame uses a CMYK-like colour process. The "blacks" are really what amounts to a very, very dark blue (think anthracite coal), so if you take that colour away due to fading (mostly UV exposure but also possibly some other environment impacts) and magenta is one of the colours that will be left over, so that's why you can see that shade.

The general "rule of thumb" is that UV resistant glass will double print life and applying a UV resistant spray will double print life as well. Both processes, especially the spray will also protect the image and substrate from environmental contaminants. I haven't used a spray in a long time but the last time I did, I found it did give the images a slightly yellow tone. This makes sense as yellow is at the opposite end of the spectrum from UV. UV filters for camera lenses often had a slight yellow tinge too.