According to Mark at Aardenburg, oba can be added to the coatings which is bad, or added to pulp when the paper is made, not nearly as bad.
It’s interesting how BC doubles down with this characterization on their blog.
https://blog.breathingcolor.com/optical-brighteners-in-prints/I just pulled canvas prints and proofs going back 15 years. What I see is quite a bit of variation.
I’m seeing three degrees of glow with the Lyve canvas that have always been stored in a flat file. Some proofs I had that were not varnished are quite bright glow, others that were coated with a Fuji sprayer and timeless are far less fluorescent, what I would consider negligible. And I’m seeing some inbetween, possibly less varnish, sometimes I would spray my proofs with Premiere Art. I’m also seeing glow with the varnished Chromata but the unvarnished Lyve glows quite a bit more.
It should also be noted that heat can also change the “ whiteness” of media overtime. I’ve seen a lot of that with gelatin silver prints, what archivists call thermal fade.
My feeling now is three fairly heavy coats of Timeless should protect them.
To put in perspective, I looked at a non varnished test of Frederick 901 WR poly/cotton canvas and it explodes with burning white purple glow which is brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. Maybe 10 times brighter than the Lyve.
And I agree I would rather put three coats of Timeless on Lyve than switch to a 100% cotton that would be difficult to control when stretched.
John
The OBAs in Lyve are in the canvas not in the inkjet receptor coating. How that impacts its display life I don't know.