Yellowing of a framed print?

[tom.nevesely]

Hi guys,
I was recently changing out some framed photos at home when I noticed that on one of the pictures there was some definite yellowing, especially near the mat and I’m wondering if anyone can tell me why it happened.
Here are the details:

• The image was printed on Epson Ultra Premium Lustre paper using my old Epson R1800 printer.
  
• The photo was then framed in a cheap Ikea frame, with (I’m guessing) cheap plain glass and a cheap, probably not acid free, mat.

• The photo was on a wall in the basement that received a few hours of direct sunlight each day in the afternoons.
• The photo had been on the wall for about 5 or 6 years.

Now, according to Wilhelm Imaging Research, the print should have lasted 64 years under glass or at least 34 years bear bulb but in my case is didn’t even last 6 years.

I’m including a scan of a portion of the print. Here you can hopefully see (as indicated by the arrows) the yellowing of the print, especially on the white clouds. The area where the clouds appear white is where they were covered by the mat.

Another thing that I noticed, that may or may not be related, is that on the inside of the glass (closest to the print) I could see a ghost image of the printed image. Like if some of the ink from the print off-gassed and settled on the glass.

Since this was just a print at home, and one that I could reprint at any time, this wasn’t a big deal but I still would really appreciate if anyone could tell me what happened and why.

[Paul2660]

The ghosting, is Outgassing.  This will happen with any RC print from Epson, or Canon (not sure on HP).  it's because the glycols in the ink are not able to pass through the back of the print due to the RC coating.  Thus they move the front and stop at the glass.  You will tend to see more off the effect over darker areas of a print, more black or dark blue etc. 

No way to avoid this besides:

1.  Waiting to frame an RC print over 2 to 3 weeks allowing most of the outgassing to pass.  You can speed this up by laying newspaper over the face of the print as it will absorb the gasses faster.

2.  Heat up the print, in a dry mount press.  I never see this issue when I dry mount RC prints 185 to 205 degees F, for about 5 minutes.  This just moves the process forward and gets most of the glycols out.  You will still see just a bit.

3.  Use a non RC paper, fibre based, like Epson Exhibition Fiber or Canon Platine.  There are a lot more, but these are two I use.  You will not get outgassing to the face as the fibre base allows the gassing out the back. 

The yellowing, more than likely from the lighting, both Tungsten and fluorescent lights will cause this and sooner than later, fluorescent are very damaging.  The use of a UV protective glass will help prevent this, like Tru Vue Conservation Clear.  I am willing to bet your mat faded considerably also. 

With mats to prevent fading, use a non paper (framing term) mat.  Paper mats are the lowest grade, and will yellow very quickly, the cores also will look yellow.  You can pick pure cotton rag, expensive or alpha cellulose much less.  Crescent makes a great line of brite cores, that will not loss their white core over time.

Paul

[Wayne Fox]

Hi guys,

• The photo was on a wall in the basement that received a few hours of direct sunlight each day in the afternoons.
• The photo had been on the wall for about 5 or 6 years.

Now, according to Wilhelm Imaging Research, the print should have lasted 64 years under glass or at least 34 years bear bulb but in my case is didn’t even last 6 years.

I’m puzzled by the scan, it does look a little odd, however, can’t see the yellowing in context with the entire image so not sure why it would be so distinct like that.

 However, a few hours of direct sunlight every day for several years is far more UV light than traditional images and which the wilhelm rating is based on.

[Paul2660]

I believe the mat covered the rest of the file, so it did not get any light, if I read his first post correcetly.

Paul

[Alan Goldhammer]

IIRC, this paper has lots of Optical Brightening Agents that suffer burnout when exposed to too much light for prolonged periods of time.  When that happens you get yellowing of the paper.  This would be consistent with seeing it in the clouds area and the fact that you don't see anything where the mat covered the paper makes this the simplest answer.  If it were acid leaching from the mat board, you would see degradation in other areas.  Direct sunlight is the worst thing for prints.  With respect to outgassing being an issue, most of the gasses are gone within 24-48 hours after printing but if you have intense sunlight heating up a print other chemical reactions can occur that would lead to deposits on the framing glass.

With respect to Paul2000's comments:  never use newsprint to cover anything you value as being archival.  It's certainly not acid free and you can get inexpensive acid-free sheets to place over prints while they dry.  UV protectant glass negates the benefits of papers with OBAs that provide paper brightness.  Blocking the UV will mean the dyes will not fluoresce and your print will not be as white.  It also does not deal with the high temperatures arising from direct sunlight.

Hope this helps.

Alan

[MHMG]

• The photo was on a wall in the basement that received a few hours of direct sunlight each day in the afternoons.
• The photo had been on the wall for about 5 or 6 years.

Now, according to Wilhelm Imaging Research, the print should have lasted 64 years under glass or at least 34 years bear bulb but in my case is didn’t even last 6 years.

I'm not quite sure how direct sunlight enters your basement, but I guess the architecture of some homes can have a basement with one open side and picture windows as well, so assuming your assessment of "a few hours of direct sunlight on the print" is true, I can tell you that direct sunlight on a print will easily reach 25,000 - 50,000 lux on the surface of the print. If it happens on average for 2-3 hours per day as you have noted, then the mathematics of accumulated light exposure quickly works out to an order of magnitude higher than the average daily light levels assumed by the Wilhelm extrapolation of accelerated light fade exposure to real world conditions. In other words, WIR assumes 450 lux for 12 hours per day, but in your environment, this light level on this print can easily be running about 4500 lux or greater over a 12 hours of light intensity integration even if the light on the print for every other hour in the day save those few hours of sunlight was zero!  Hence, your conditions suggest that you had about 10x the exposure dose per year more than the assumed exposure dose in the WIR prediction, and thus the 64 WIR display year rating becomes 6.4 years or less in your specific location. The yellowing you see is burnout of the OBAs along with perhaps some supplemental yellowing of the degraded OBAs beyond what is caused by loss of fluorescence alone because Epsom Premium Luster is an RC media that has additional possible staining issues.  Also, for your image, this yellow color cast is additionally disturbing because it's being contrasted against the complementary colors of the blue sky, thus causing a disturbing loss of colorfulness in the blue sky. All in all, your fading result is not far out of line with the "easily noticeable" fade appearance predicted by the WIR test if only WIR and the industry had not inadertantly conditioned the consumer to believe years on display predictions are absolute rather than relative to the actual real world conditions.

The haze on the glass is as others have noted, off-gassing of ink solvent chemistry (notably glycols) from the print. It's a very common problem with RC media because the RC media have polyethylene layers that prevent the ink solvents from diffusing further into the paper core of the print or out the back side, and thus the solvent off gassing ultimately has to vent through the front side onto the glazing. I'm not sure any reasonably workable "drying" method before framing a few days or weeks after printing can ever totally cure this effect. Sooner or later the frame will have to be opened and the glazing cleaned if the print is an RC inkjet print, IMHO.

Thank you for posting this example of print deterioration. It is a very instructive example to demonstrate how the print owner has a very large role to play in choosing display conditions that can greatly promote or quickly degrade the ultimate "life" of a print, a role that essentially gets ignored if one takes the print permanence ratings commonly cited by manufacturers at absolute face value.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Paul2660]

IIRC, this paper has lots of Optical Brightening Agents that suffer burnout when exposed to too much light for prolonged periods of time.  When that happens you get yellowing of the paper.  This would be consistent with seeing it in the clouds area and the fact that you don't see anything where the mat covered the paper makes this the simplest answer.  If it were acid leaching from the mat board, you would see degradation in other areas.  Direct sunlight is the worst thing for prints.  With respect to outgassing being an issue, most of the gasses are gone within 24-48 hours after printing but if you have intense sunlight heating up a print other chemical reactions can occur that would lead to deposits on the framing glass.

With respect to Paul2000's comments:  never use newsprint to cover anything you value as being archival.  It's certainly not acid free and you can get inexpensive acid-free sheets to place over prints while they dry.  UV protectant glass negates the benefits of papers with OBAs that provide paper brightness.  Blocking the UV will mean the dyes will not fluoresce and your print will not be as white.  It also does not deal with the high temperatures arising from direct sunlight.

Hope this helps.

Alan

Alan, with RC paper, I really don't think it matters too much, I don't view RC papers as archival either.  But as you point out there are many other options.  I don't use this with 100% cotton or any fiber based paper.

Paul

[tom.nevesely]

Wow! Thank you all for the great comments, I’m learning so much. I would have never thought that the sunlight and the oba’s would have played that big of a role in this after such a relatively short time.

Like I said before, this was a print in my home that I could have reprinted anytime so no big deal. In this case I’m actually swapping it out for a newer image but I have sold a number of prints printed on this paper in the past.

I have since stopped using the Epson Lustre paper. Mainly because I didn’t like the feel of it and now use Ilford GFS or Canson Baryta. I’ve also been looking at matte papers but find they don’t quite have the colour gamut I would like – especially in the greens and I shoot a lot of landscapes so green is important to me.

Thanks again everyone; you guys are awesome!