Everyone around the shop especially liked this one. This was submitted from a photo of a NYC subway sign. We had a little fun with Helvetica, recreated the sign, then printed it on a 2′ x 8′ gallery wrapped canvas. So if you have a project in mind, but it isn’t a traditional photograph, give us a shout, we can probably help.
Another great print hot off the presses, and another happy customer- Can’t you just feel the love people? 
So last week I was visiting The Art Institute of Chicago, ( Best museum & school in the world! It’s my alma mater, so I’m allowed to be biased.) and I totally spaced- left the camera at home. Needless to say there were tons of great photo op’s but I was only armed with my iphone. So if life deals you lemons, try making a panorama. I decided to snap away on my little camera phone. The following series of shots were taken simply by standing in one place, shooting, turning, and repeating. Nothing special, or technical at all.
So what I’m going to show you next is truly one of the coolest features in Photoshop. I downloaded all the photos from my camera to my computer. Then I opened all the photos in Photoshop. Be sure to have only the photos you want to use open. Next go to File> Automate>Photomerge. This little window will open.
Next simply click the “add open files” button, and then click OK. Photoshop begins to work it’s magic. In about a minute Photoshop merges, blends, masks, and adjusts the photos into a panorama. A process that could take hours to perform manually.
Your left with an image that looks something like this:
The next step is to simply crop the image.
You can do any color adjustments you like, but what you see here is “as is” & adjustment free. Pretty amazing! What you probably can’t tell from the photo is that this image is actually 20″ x 86″ in size. I did absolutely zero size adjustments. That will make for really nice sized canvas print. All from a iphone! YAY!
We get lot’s of great photos sent to us for canvas prints and we’ve decided to start sharing some of the ones that we really like with our readers. We hope they inspire.
In this post we thought we would give our customers a better idea of what goes into making a canvas print, from start to finish. So let’s jump right in.
The first thing we do is prep the image for printing. You can see the details of the process here. For this post we’re using a public domain image of the jazz legend Louis Armstrong- By the way public domain archives are a great source for images.
Once the photo has been prepped, we send it to print. We print all of our canvas prints at 1080×1080 dpi. We use eco friendly inks, and archival quality canvas.
Here’s a close up of the canvas texture and print quality:
Once the printing process is done, we allow the inks to dry for about an hour. We then apply a clear semi gloss protective coating on the surface of the canvas print. This does two things: adds UV protection, and increases scratch resistance.
Next it’s time to stretch the canvas print. We use kiln dried stretcher bars. Here’s a closer look.
Here’s a detailed shot of a corner fold:
Once the canvas stretching is done, we then finish the canvas with a Tyvek paper backing, two “D” hooks, and plastic coated wire that’s rated for 30 lbs. Our canvas prints are truly ready to hang right out of the box.
Finally a shot of the finished product!
Well that’s about it, We hope you find this helpful and maybe even slightly interesting. Cheers!
In this post were going to show you how set up your photos for a canvas print using Photoshop. It’s actually really simple to do, and should only take a few minutes once you get the hang of it. You can use other photo editing software to achieve the same results, however we use Photoshop at theprintedcanvas.com, so we’re going to keep the instructions limited to what we know.
Let’s get started.
1) Adjust your color settings.
Open Photoshop. Then go to Edit > Color Settings. Change your working spaces to RGB: Adobe RGB(1998), & CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2. Be sure to change your Color Management Policies to the working space for both RGB & CMYK
Why do this ? Our printers are set to convert files to certain color spaces before the file actually prints. So what this means to you is that if you are using a different color space edit than we are using to print, chances are your prints may look a little different in person than what you may see on screen.
Set your color space in Photoshop
2) Create a file. File > New.
Here’s where we enter our file settings. For demonstration purposes we’re going create a file for 12″x12″ gallery wrapped print that will be using our thick 1.25″stretcher bars. The file should be 15″x15″. This gives us enough image space to ensure that our final print wraps entirely around the sides of the stretcher bar. We have added 1.5″ of space to each side of the image. Set your resolution to 150 Choose a color space of CMYK and a background color of white. Then click OK.
Create a new file
3) Drag guides.
Go to view > show rulers. You should now see rulers on the top and side of your window. Now simply click drag a guide from the rulers to 1.5″ from each edge. These guides will help you show you what parts of you image will be cropped and visible only on the edge of your canvas print.
Drag your guides
4) Open your photo, then drag the photo into the new file you just created.
5) Edit, Edit, Edit - Resize, adjust colors, levels, or apply whatever filter(s) you like at this time…This your time to be creative, so let it rip!
6) Save As…
Once your happy with your image go to File > Save As. Choose .jpg or .tiff as your file format. Be sure to UNCHECK the Layers box. Click Save. That’s it. Your ready to submit the photo to us for printing onto canvas. BooYah!!!
If you have any questions we’d be glad to help. Email us a support@theprintedcanvas.com
If you have received one of our canvas prints you may be wondering how & where to hang it.
Here are a few tips:
1) Hang items at a comfortable eye-line. People often hang art too high or too low, depending on their height. Shoot for about 5 feet from the floor. Make sure you do not hang your art too high. You and your guests will be craning your necks to see it and it will not be as enjoyable as closer to eye level is
2) Protect your canvas print from too much sunlight. Place you canvas prints in a place where you have control over how much light hits them. Our canvas prints are printed with extremely durable inks, but any item that is exposed to lots of sun for long periods of time will eventually begin to fade.
3) Look into specialized lighting. It will bring out nuances in your print that might not be visible otherwise.
4) Equally important is finding a center for your placement.Often there are many factors of how to “center” your art. You may have your couch situated against a wall with a side table to its side and the couch may not be centered. You will need to decide if you must have the art centered on the wall regardless of the couch, or use the couch as a centering tool. It may be tricky because you may have beams in your ceiling that throw the placement off, but that is once again a judgment call.
We hope these tips and techniques have been helpful. Good luck!
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