The canvas printed digital image is massively popular today with nearly every photographic laboratory and print shop with digital facilities offering the service of producing a stretched canvas print.
Very few photographic laboratories and digital print shops are aware of the many benefits laminating a digital canvas print offers. It can be laminated in approximately three minutes giving the print a waterproof coating, a certain amount of UV protection and it makes sure that the edges of the canvas do not crack when being stretched around a stretcher bar frame.
If you do have a heated press, either a vacuum or mechanical press and produce digital canvas prints then ask us for a sample of the laminate. You will be surprised at how easy it is to laminate the canvas and give it the protection that will add years to the life of the precious image.
Before the age of digital photography and inkjet printing photographers used film in their cameras and printed the images onto photographic paper. These papers consisted of a light-sensitive emulsion, involving silver halide salts suspended in a colloidal material – usually gelatin-coated onto a paper.
Photographers then, as now were always looking for different and unusual ways to display and to add value to their photographic prints. If they owned a vacuum or mechanical mounting press they could laminate the prints giving it protection from both moister and UV degradation.
It was discovered that if you were careful you could separate the laminate and the emulsion from the photographic paper backing. The photographic image without the paper backing was very thin and if it was then remounted onto a sheet of canvas it produced an image very much like an image painted on canvas. Some photographers added clear varnish brush strokes to enhance the laminated print to make it look even more like a painting.
This process became very popular world-wide. It was commonly called ‘canvas bonding’ and was demonstrated at most photographic trade shows as something that could be achieved if you owned a heated mounting press.
Digital photography and inkjet printing was slowly being introduced to the market and as the quality of digital photography got better it largely took over from film. There are still the traditionalist using film but the majority of photographs taken today are digital.
Please contact us through the contact form or email sales@mountingsubstrates.com if you would like any further information on laminating canvas prints, or samples of the laminates.