How can you tell if a canvas print has UV coating?

One of my clients just pinged me on some prints they bought from me 3 years ago.  The company that we used for the printing closed during the Covid party.  And honestly I can’t recall if the prints had a UV coating.  So my client wants to move one of the prints to a sun room that they have, but want to make sure the print has a UV coating.  Frankly speaking, I have no clue what to look for. 

Can you help me out please?

Thank you!

Sandy

Is it a framed print? Have them get the glass replaced with UV blocking glass. Frame shops have it. Actually, all glass at least partially blocks UV, but this special glass is supposed to be better. It's going to be difficult to know what ink was used to learn how well it resists UV. It might be better to re-print the photo(s) with known IR resisting ink at some point in time, but the the best way to keep a photo from fading is to keep it in the dark, but then it can't be viewed. All prints will deteriorate over time. The best that you can hope for is to take steps to minimize the deterioration rate as much as possible.

Charley

+1 I would just reprint it.  I don't even know how you would tell if the canvas had it or not.  Alternatively I guess you could just hang it, and when it fades (which then you know it didn't have it) replace it at that point.  

Back in the earlier days of digital photography (1998), the computer printing inks were far from UV resistant, but were the only way to print a colored photo at the time, so we made do with what was available and hoped for better in the future. I found that Krylon offered a UV protectant spray, so I bought some and decided to give it a bit of an easy to run and simple test.

 I sprayed one of two identical 5 X 7" photos with this spray and left the other with no protection at all. I then hung both photos on the metal wall of my office room that had the fluorescent lights on about 18 hours a day and 6 days a week. The Sun through a large window of the room also shown on the two photos every afternoon between about 11 am and 3 pm as well. Both light sources had one layer of common glass between them and the photos, the single pane window glass, and the glass fluorescent tube. With the wall being metal, small magnets were used to hang the bare photos without frames, and were placed so as to be on top of the printed areas of the photos.

In just 3 months, the unprotected photo had significant fading where the light had reached it. Behind the magnets the inks had not faded, but the rest of the photo had faded significantly and was quite noticeable when the magnets were moved. The other identical photo that was sprayed with the Krylon UV spray still appeared original and it did not show the shadow under the magnets. About 8 months later the difference was even more pronounced on the untreated photo, but the treated one still had no shadowing where the magnets had been and when comparing both photos the difference was amazing. Visible proof that the UV spray had made a significant difference.  

This test took place in the office where I was working at the time. Again, not a true test by most standards, but one that did show a significant Sun and fluorescent light fading of the unprotected photo when compared to the identical one that was coated with the Krylon UV protecting spray. Computer printing inks, especially those used for photo printing today are much better than they were back in 1998 when those first color printers were having trouble just printing on their first available photo papers. After this test, I was spraying all of my printed photos with this coating, until better computer printer inks became available that did not fade so quickly.

Krylon still offers this UV Protecting Spray, and it can be found in Art Supply Stores and wherever Krylon spray coatings are sold.  www.michaels.com/product/krylon-uv-resis...clear-matte-10429012   . You might want to try some of it on your canvas printing, but I have no experience at all with doing this on canvas or fabric of any kind.

Charley