Pitfalls to avoid when printing your photo on canvas.

Printing a photo on canvas has never been easier however in order to get the most from your order it helps to have some understanding of what is involved in ordering a good quality canvas print using your own image. Having a basic knowledge of the process will help choose the right provider and also help ensure that you are satisfied with the final result.

There are a number of suppliers both online and shop outlets and to coin a phrase some are good, some are bad and some are ugly! This means that while there are many companies offering quality canvas printing services there are also a number of other offering poor quality with little actual expertise in Giclée printing. An important question to ask is: Is the printing company a specialist in printing photos on canvas? There are a number of companies that don’t have the correct printers, canvas or inks to achieve the best results.

What printer are they using? A canvas print should ideally be printed using a ‘wide format’ inkjet printer, this process of spraying the ink onto the canvas is called ‘Giclée printing’ and produces the best results.  A commercial inkjet printer is very different to a standard desktop inkjet printer, and is much larger. Giclée prints are usually over a metre wide and are often affectionately referred to as a “knitting machine” as they look very similar. The industry recognized market leader in terms of quality and efficiency is the Epson wide format printers, the latest and greatest if there is the Epson 11880.

What inks are they using? The Giclée printing process of spraying the inks allows the image to display all the tonalities and hues of the original. The process also using light fast inks, these are UV resistant and will help prevent the canvas print from fading. The alternative method of using a high-speed flatbed printer uses standard inks that are not UV resistant. These inks are also more likely to be scratched off as they tend to just cover the surface of the canvas as opposed to fully soaking into the canvas as the Giclee process does.

What type of canvas is being used? There are hundreds if not thousands of types of canvas with a massive range of quality, in Australia, the quality of paper and canvas is described in terms of gsm, this is the weight of the material and is quantified in grams per square meter. For example, the pages in the white-pages telephone directory are typically about 60 gsm, photographic prints will generally be upwards of 200gsm although some cheaper foreign brands will be less.  A quality canvas print should be printed on canvas with a gsm measure of at least 350gsm. Ideally 390+.

What stretcher bars or frames or being used? This pitfall is another that can easily lead a consumer astray. If a cheap stretcher bar is used there are often a number of ugly side effects seen very quickly. Firstly if the bars haven’t been kiln dried then they will dry after the canvas has been framed, this will cause warping and will distort the surface of the canvas. Secondly, if the frame hasn’t been tapered the sharper edges of the canvas will begin to push through the canvas causing an imprint of the frame and in worse cases eventually tearing the canvas edges.

Does the printer have an in-house graphic designer? Most photographs if not taken by a professional have some room for slight improvements. An image may be slightly over or underexposed or simply need its colours being sharpened to produce maximum effect. Many portraits also have some ‘red-eye ‘ and lastly, there are occasional other small defects such as sunspots on the image, these are all small details that are easily corrected using basic image manipulation. However many ‘photo-labs’ don’t have the ability to make these improvements and will simply print the image without making these corrections, this is often seen in the large retail outlets that are increasingly trying their hands at canvas printing. These small image adjustments should also be free and part of the service provided.

In summary, I hope this article has provided some useful information regarding printing photos on canvas. If these questions are asked before commissioning a company to print your photos on canvas then they will drastically decrease the likelihood of using a non-professional canvas printing company and getting an unsatisfactory print.

This article was written by Blue Horizon Prints, specialists in printing photos on canvas with an emphasis on great quality at low prices.