Photo Canvas Advice: Get Your Photos ... On Stuff !

Need to bring some life into a room?? Botched DIY shelving attempt?? What ever your needs, one of our spanking great big photo canvas prints will do the trick nicely sir.
On a frame chunky enough to stop a herd of rampaging wilderbeast, followed by elephants, an armoured tank division and Marks pie delivery. Holy thick frames batman that's as thick as a thick thing, from thicksville, drinking thickshake, eating a thick slice of toast ... now that's thick.

We do make sense sometimes.... go to our site for the bare geeky facts ....

FUNKY Photo Gifts and Photo Canvas, Amaze your friends ...

Don't Believe The Hype!

One of the biggest and most popular photography trends to come of the 'digital explosion' are photo canvas prints, great looking modern and classy. Unframed and simple they will fit into nearly all types of décor and look great.

"So you can go online a just get one and 'bingo, job done' right?"

1. Its All About The Canvas

There are so many different types of photo canvas, it can get a little bit boring . . . so does it make any difference? It depends what you want for your money, why is a Mercedes more expensive than a Kia?

The vast majority of canvas prints will be PVC coated canvas printed with solvent based inks. The ink can crack on the corners and the whole thing has a 'plasitcy' look and feel. There are some printers who have systems that are excellent. Don't get me wrong, but I'm afraid the vast amount of them are just just jumping on a hot trend to make some fast buck.

The other major alternative is woven canvas for transfer ink. This is uncoated canvas, printed with a water based heat cured ink, very eco friendly and very very hardwearing, it's also used for handbags and shoes. This type of printing involves some pretty heavy weight machinery to 'cure' the prints into the textile. The overall effect is a much higher quality look to the print, its hard to put into words how classy dye transfer looks, so I won't. It just does OK?

2, Its All About The Print As Well . . .

Most large format digital photo canvas printers are stable machines these days and looked after will offer years of reliable service. The fly in the ointment here is that if the owner doesn't look after them or uses cheaper third party inks in them they will be most likely to spit out mile after mile of sub-standard, weak, colour shifted, streaky, PANTS.

This is a tough one to work out online. Your best bet is to look for a quality or satisfaction guarantee, if they are prepared to put their money where their mouth is at least you have some recompense should the quality not be as you expect.

3, . . . eeerrr Its All About The Frames Too . . .

Best on a deep frame, (1.5 or 2 inches is the norm) this will keep it square and true. If a photo canvas print seems cheap it's a good chance it will be on a ½ inch frames and made of MDF or cheap knotty pine that could warp. Look for at least 1.5 inch deep, kiln dried soft wood .. preferably from managed plantations.

You may read on some sites, about 'wedges' on the inside corners of the frame. Here's the heads up on that. If the printer is using poor quality canvas it will stretch over time and need wedges in the frames to re tighten it. This concept came from the days when cotton canvas was stretched and oil painted and the cotton took in moisture from the air and became slack.

If they use wedges in 2007 be careful.

At Photostudirect we know about digital photo canvas printing, we have done it for a long, long time. We are proud to offer just about the best photo to canvas service around and all at a fair price. We have a phone and a person at the end who will pick it up and talk to you .. (how's that for a novel idea?). Have a look at the other sites who offer Photo Gifts and then come back to us, we are that confident our offer is so good.

That's enough boasting for one day.

Thanks for reading

Boffin37