Christine Widdall

Giclée Prints and Print Longevity

The prints that I make for sale are made from the highest quality giclée pigment inks. Giclée is a French work meaning "sprayed or spurted" and there are numerous machines available in both desktop and large format sizes to print on all kinds of media.

However, that is not to say that all prints made in this way will have the same long lasting properties. Prints made from older dye ink printers were notoriously poor at keeping their colour and used to fade in a matter of months.

In recent years, manufacturers of printers woke up to the idea that their customers wanted longer lasting prints and there have been great advances in printer and ink technology. The current spate of pigment printers from manufacturers such as Canon, Epson and Hewlett Packard boast inks that can last over 200 years, longer than traditional photographic processes. Tests on the longevity of ink prints tend to concentrate on the effect of light fading and figures are often quoted for prints kept in dark storage, behind glass or in open air. However, there are many other agents that can damage our prints. But if a few simple precautions are observed, our prints could now long outlast their makers!

Prints that are kept in archival boxes, in the dark, in low humidity and cool temperatures will last the longest, but let's face it, we want to enjoy looking at our prints. By understanding some of the processes which can damage our prints, we can take the necessary measures to avoid them as far as possible.

A summary of some of the things that affect print longevity:

Contact with chemical vapours or materials - this includes airborne contaminants, such as spray furniture polish and cigarette smoke and also materials in direct contact with the print such as mounting glues, mounting card and contamination from fingerprints. It is always preferable to use museum quality mounting card wherever possible. At the very least, make sure that the mounting board you are buying is pH balanced; prints suspended in window mounts by tape hinges along the top edge should last longer than prints that are glued down;
Temperature and moisture. High temperatures will reduce print life. Avoid hanging pictures in the bathroom or kitchen unless they are well protected from moisture in the air;
Light (more is bad, direct sunlight that also heats the image is worse). UV light is worst of all, and so special UV-filtering glass may be used in your picture frame (at an increased cost, of course). Always hang framed prints out of direct sunlight;
Ozone in the air - dye inksets of the 1990s were particularly prone to damage by ozone;
Different colours of ink may fade at different rates, changing the colours of your print over time;
Dyes or pigments. The keeping qualities of pigment inks are many times greater than dye inks; until recently, dye inks were unstable and pigment inks were flat and dull, but everything is now changed.....dye inks can last up to 100 years and pigments can be bright and saturated; pigments still, however, outlast dyes;
The mixing of different inks on the paper, potentially resulting in interaction between them e.g. using a different manufacture of black and colour ink cartridges (more typically associated with older dye inksets, as pigments tend towards being inert anyhow);
Mould - there is an increased risk in more humid and warm conditions;
Paper finish - photographs on gloss finish papers do not last as long as prints on matte papers in general;
Inks on an inappropriate paper type; the ink manufacturer's own paper products will generally give longer lasting results than compatible papers - certainly the longevity figures quoted by ink manufacturers relate to their own papers only; this may be more applicable to dye inksets than to pigment inks.

More information on print longevity can be found on the Wilhelm Research website. Henry Wilhelm is the world's leading expert on print longevity.

Page updated June 2008