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Anti-reflective glass review of TruVue and Artglass

What it is, is expensive and heavy, at least if it's museum quality. Which is why I dry mount my photos. No glare, no cost.
 
Dull, flat, pricey and degrades the viewing quality of a print through the surface finish. I know this from bitter personal experience and the experience of many other photographers and intaglio artists. The UV-retardant clear glass if the standard. Too many photographers have been scathing of the anti-reflective glass for it to be given a sales plug.
 

I believe you are referring to non-glare glass or acrylic which uses an etched surface to reduce glare. The etched surface is done poorly can create a haze over the image. If done well it will just cause a very slight loss of sharpness as long as the glass is kept within 1/8 inch of the image.

Anti-reflective glass that is being tested in this article does not have an etched surface. Instead it uses a special coating very similar to what is used on a camera lens. It can virtually eliminate the reflections and there is no loss in sharpness. The primary drawback is cost for this type, and scratch sensitivity for some versions.
 
For my gallery and most of my clients I use AR glass- there is no comparison to regular glass..

We have moved in a lot of cases to a contemporary frame that involves adding the white border to the print to create the matt , and use 1/4 inch spacers then AR Glass

for people on a frame budget this allows not using a 4ply 4ply matt and put their money on the glass.
Once someone sees a regular glass frame , beside a AR glass frame the move to AR is easy.
 
I agree Bob. I love to show local customers the demo box with the split regular and AR glass. Every time I tap on the AR glass they are surprised and say "wait a minute I thought there was no glass there". Of course the demo is a dark butterfly on a black back ground and black backgrounds are great at exaggerating the reflections. High key images with white mats are less of an issue with reflections.

 

Non-etched but with an interference coating these glass panes lack that resolution distorting effect of the etched panes, but then introduce coloured residual reflections.
 
AgX said:
Non-etched but with an interference coating these glass panes lack that resolution distorting effect of the etched panes, but then introduce coloured residual reflections.
Click to expand...

That is true, if the lighting is too poor for AR to eliminate the glare, it will color it. Nothing is perfect, and everything including no glass has trade-offs. My personal preference is standard acrylic with proper lighting. Visually, very pure, but still provides significant protection.
 
Two big problems with coated glass: 1) it's obviously glass, so prone to breakage with shipping, and tricky to handle in large sizes: 2) it is a poor thermal insulator, so condensation can occur behind the glass under certain common situations (strong diurnal temp or humidity swings
due to daytime only heating or AC, subtropical climates, or poorly insulated perimeter wall). For these reasons optically coated acrylic seems
preferable, but alas, is even more expensive.
 
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