Canvas Print From Photo - How It Works, Part II

In Part I, we got your photo to the canvas printer and ready to print. Now, the rest of the process.

The computer programs used to take your “original” photo to “ready to print” are quite sophisticated. Your photo is evaluated, enhanced, etc., in one program. The printing of the image is done in another, utilizing a print template. Most canvas prints are printed for a gallery wrap, which is wrapping the printed canvas around the stretcher bars to the back. This makes for an elegant canvas and eliminates the need for a decorative frame but does not preclude one.

In the preparation phase, you will have found out if your photo image can be gallery wrapped or if a border needs to be added for the wrap. A word about borders. Since canvas does stretch, getting pluperfect alignment of the edges is nearly impossible and there will inevitably be some bleed over to one or two sides, though great efforts will be made to keep such bleed negligible.

The canvas most used is a poly-cotton blend - more resilient to time and stretches cleaner than 100% cotton canvas. Your image is printed on the canvas using an inkjet printer and the inks are typically rated to 100 years for color integrity. This means that if you take reasonable care of your canvas, it will be around for generations! Once dry, the canvas print is coated with a protectorate (against U/V rays). This is usually an aqueous coating, not oil-based, and can be painted on should you want to add oil or acrylic paint to your finished canvas. The printed canvas should dry for a day and the coating needs anywhere from a few hours to a day (depends on the product).

The wood stretcher bars come in almost every conceivable length. However, most companies do only a specific set of sizes, staying with the most conventional. You usually have a choice of thickness of the bars, the two most popular being ¾” and 1 ½”. The difference is how far off the wall it sits. The 1 ½” does make a much classier canvas. If you are going to add a decorative frame, the ¾” is recommended.

Stretching is an art in itself, needing to keep the canvas even on all four sides yet still accommodate the changes due to stretching. And if the image has a colored border, the job just got tougher! The canvas must be very taut which takes precedence over everything. This is why the print template mentioned earlier is so important. The computer artist can see how the image will fit, can see the “face” of the canvas, and make adjustments before the canvas is actually printed. With bordered images, the frames may be assembled and measured (the bars are mass produced and are not perfect to measure!) so the print template can be adjusted accordingly before printing. This does not necessarily eliminate a bleed over but helps to minimize it.

There are many companies out there that print photos on canvas. Some do lots of different things and do the canvas printing as part of the mix. Most do the canvas prints exclusively. Be mindful that the entire process is quite involved and takes caring by the professionals you have “hired” to create your canvas. It is not like ordering out of a catalogue. You are taking something personal and creating a new something personal - whether the canvas is a gift or for yourself. Choose well. Choose wisely.

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