You’ve bought a print and now you’re standing in a frame shop, and someone is asking whether you want glass. You don’t know. The print cost real money and you don’t want to wreck it by guessing wrong.
The answer comes down to three things: what the print is printed on, what protects the ink, and where the wall is.
Paper prints almost always need glass
If your print arrived flat and unframed on paper stock, it needs glass. Paper has no coating tough enough to keep fingerprints, dust, and humidity out of the fibres. Even museum-grade archival matte paper—the kind that holds pigmented archival inks without bleeding or fading—still bruises if you touch it.
Matte paper shows every fingerprint as a slight darkening where the oils sank in. You can’t unsee it once it’s there, and you can’t wipe it off. Glass keeps hands, airborne cooking grease, and the cat’s tail away from the surface.
Use UV-filtering glass if the wall gets direct sun for more than an hour a day. Standard glass is fine everywhere else. The UV filter costs about twice as much, stops about 99% of ultraviolet light (the wavelength that breaks down ink), and adds a faint warm cast you won’t notice unless you compare it side by side with unfiltered glass.
Non-glare glass cuts reflections but softens detail slightly. If you’re hanging the print where a window or lamp reflects off the glass, non-glare is worth it. If the wall is perpendicular to the light, standard glass is sharper.
Canvas prints must hang bare
Canvas prints are stretched cotton and polyester composite with a matte coating already on the surface, printed with non-toxic latex inks that dry waterproof. The coating and the ink together form a skin that does not scratch easily and does not absorb fingerprints the way paper does.
Canvas prints are also thick—usually about three-quarters of an inch deep, stretched on a radiata pine frame. You cannot put glass over a stretched canvas without building a shadow box frame, which adds another inch of depth and about $200 to the cost. Nobody does it.
The coating is not indestructible. A fork tine or a dog’s claw will puncture it. But ordinary handling will not. You can dust a canvas print with a dry microfiber cloth once a month and it will look the same in five years.
Where you hang it changes the answer
A paper print behind glass is safe almost anywhere indoors. A bare canvas print is not.
Bathrooms are the exception. Steam does not hurt a canvas print in a bathroom that vents properly, but a paper print behind glass will trap condensation between the glass and the paper, and you will see mould in about six months. If the room steams up every day and takes more than an hour to clear, hang canvas or hang nothing.
Kitchens are fine for both as long as the print is not directly above the stove. Cooking vapour is mostly water and oil droplets, and both stick to glass and to canvas coatings. You will wipe the glass every few months; you will wipe the canvas about as often. The canvas shows the grease less because the matte surface hides it longer, but it is still there.
Hallways, bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms: either is fine. The canvas costs less because framing a paper print properly—archival mat, UV glass, sealed backing—costs between $80 and $300 depending on size.
What matte coating actually does
A matte coating is a thin layer of polymer and silica (ground glass) that sits on top of the ink. It scatters light so you see the image instead of a reflection, and it hardens into a surface that resists abrasion.
The canvas prints at Printasso have this coating already applied. The paper prints do not, because paper is porous and a coating heavy enough to protect it would look plasticky and block the fine texture that makes paper prints feel like paper.
Some framers offer to spray a matte varnish on a paper print before framing it. Do not let them. The varnish soaks into the paper unevenly, darkens the midtones, and smells like solvent for about a week. It also does not replace glass—it just makes the paper slightly stiffer. You are paying for a problem.
Acrylic instead of glass
Acrylic glazing (Plexiglas, Acrylite, Perspex) is lighter than glass, does not shatter, and scratches if you clean it with the wrong cloth. It also costs about 40% more than glass in the same size.
Use acrylic if you are shipping the framed print or hanging it somewhere a child might hit it with a toy. Use glass everywhere else. Acrylic builds up static and pulls dust out of the air; you will clean it twice as often.
Museum acrylic exists—optically clear, anti-reflective, UV-filtering, about $18 per square foot. It is worth the cost only if the print is worth more than $2,000 and you are hanging it in a bright room. For everything else, standard glass does the job.
The one-sentence test
If it arrived rolled or flat on paper, it needs glass. If it arrived stretched on a frame, it does not. The surface has already decided for you.
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