Canvas & fine art papers - to lacquer or not?

My good wfie and I are getting gorgeous prints straight out of our Epson 9890pro but lacquering is being a bit difficult. A lot of people swear by it but equally a lot of others blame it for discoloured prints and fine cracking, particularly if the print is rolled for transit in a mailng tube. Spray or roll lacquer is another question - is one better/easier than the other?
I know lacquer is supposed to seal and harden the print, but given the colour fastness of the Epson K3 inks I'm just uncertain that it has a real benefit over just careful handling and displaying of prints out of direct sun.
Any comments or input apprreciated,

Hal55

Discoloration depends on the type of coating, and cracking occurs almost solely due to great temperature changes. What you want to use is Italian damar varnish: unlike lacquer, which is hard and intended for things like wood, varnish never truly hardens and is actually viscous, which makes it very suitable for stretching as it deforms with the artwork over time.

Weather is something that's not good for coated artwork regardless of the coating, if its exposed to extreme cold, it is going to start cracking... unless its yacht lacquer, but you really don't want to use that. From my experience, clear and odorless varnish suffers the least discoloration, but any varnish will generally appear transparent if you apply only one coat layer or aren't extremely critical of color.

Varnish in spray cans is known as "fixative" and is used while painting with a medium such as oil paints when you wish to paint over a recently painted area without disturbing the existing paint because oil paints can take an extremely long time to dry; fixative dries in 15 minutes. I wouldn't really recommend using spray, however, because it's very difficult to coat the entire surface evenly without droplets forming. Professionally, this is done in a closed-off room where the vapors are released into the air and are allowed to settle on the artwork, it seems like too much of a health hazard to me.

A nice even coating is what we're having trouble achieving with a spray can. A few times there has been a greyish discolouration mark left and, on the last canvas we did, which was a really lovely print with lots of rich dark fabrics with burgundy tonings, there was the impression that it had, if not flattened the colour, at least lost some of the impressive richness to it originally had. To lacquer or not has us confused, has anyone started off lacquering and decided against it?

Hal55

There are numerous coatings available for canvas that can be rolled or sprayed. I personally roll Breathing Color Timeless on my canvas prints. Others like the Glamour II by the same company. I have also heard good things about Eco Print Shield.

A canvas is not normally displayed behind glazing so coating provides protection. Coating also brings out color on canvas prints. My printer profiles were made with coated targets to allow soft proofing the final coated image.

I have not tried coating fine art paper though I have been meaning to. I am just not sure if I would ever display a print on that type paper without glazing. I would worry about the mat getting dirty though I guess they could be displayed with no mat.

How are you displaying your canvas and fine art prints?

My wife, who is the graphic artist/creative one out of us, is having a great time with Giclee frames and has taught herself the art of framing and stretching canvas with the ambition of displaying and selling prints. The only area which is proving troublesome is spraying, everything else has been picked up relatively easily. It is a lousy feeling doing everything right and then getting problems just from a bit of spray. I suppose there has to be some bugbear in anything and for us it's getting the perfect lacquer job. Still, she has already had a few sales and commissions, without really trading as such, so I guess there is incentive to continue. Heavyweight fine art papers are something I'm keen to try and will be having a go at them over holidays next month.

Cheers,

Hal55

I don't know what canvas you are using, but if you are printing on a water resistant canvas you can roll a water base coating on. If your canvas is not water resistant, you will have to go with a solvent base. For me, rolling is a very easy way to apply coating.

Don't spray the coat on then, get the varnish as a liquid in a bottle, buy a wide artist's brush, dip that into the varnish and just coat it like you were giving something a coat of paint. Obviously the print has to be laying flat on a surface, just make sure you're applying the coat evenly by looking at the print at an angle against some light. If it doesn't look quite right the first time coat it again until it does, sometimes you have to do this 2~4 times. If it were an actual painting, it could have up to 12 coats of varnish.

At the moment it's Epson satin premium, which we were happy enough without being 100% sold on it, until we changed to the matte black ink and were stunned by how much better the prints came out. Why the guy who sold us the printer (a big Epson/Canon wholesaler) told us not to bother stocking the matte black I'll never know. He said he'd only ever sold one cartridge, that no one bothered with it and he only ever kept one 700ml cartridge on his shelf. We LOVE matte black! and will happily use it exclusively for our canvas and fine art papers when we start printing on them.
I'll try and get the roll on lacquer soon and give it a go, hopefully it will be simpler for us than what spray is proving to be.

Hal55

Hal,
You should try the Breathing Color Lyve or the Moab Anasazi. These are matte finish and use MK ink. You can then coat them with matte coating which leaves the image unchanged and is basically an invisible coating. However, when you put a satin or gloss finish on it, the colors really come out.