Canvas Prints Online Offers Digital Art and Photography Tips

Basic tips for achieving quality canvas prints.

In today’s technological age digital photography is the primary source of image capture. This is perfect for giclee canvas prints as we are able to transfer your images straight from your camera to a computer and then to print. However, if you still use your trusty 35mm film camera we can scan the photograph in to a computer and send this to print too.

So, to create suitable photography for canvas prints, get a digital camera of over 3.2 megapixels, the higher the megapixels the larger you can blow your image up onto canvas without loosing any quality.

If you want to get a great image closeup of a flower - use a tripod so you don't get camera shake.

If you want an interesting photograph for quality canvas prints, be aware that you should compose the picture using the rules of thirds - i.e. one third sky and two thirds land or beach or the other way around but break your picture into thirds for best composition.

When using a digital camera, WindowsXP and Mac OSX come prepared to help you with viewing and choosing images, and there are a number of free tools available online to help enhance and organize your digital images. Almost all digital cameras come with software that will help you connect your camera to your computer, and some even come with image editing programs. So don't buy any additional image editing software until you you've tried the available free tools and know that you need more.

Photoshop or not?

Adobe's PhotoShop (CS) is universally recognized as the premier image editing program. Indeed, people often talk about PhotoShop as though it were the only alternative out there. However, it is really designed for professionals. While it is an incredibly powerful and sophisticated program, it can be difficult to learn and operate, and includes many tools that most amateur photographers will never need. At around £400, it also comes with a hefty price tag. However, if your becoming increasingly interested in photorahphy and would like to expose your work on high quality canvas prints, then maybe it is a worthy investment.

Photoshop Elements, Adobe's slimmed down version of the professional software, is a better option for the average user. Stripped of many of the advanced functions, Elements includes the most important tools for amateur digital image editing.

Digital Image Resolution

Digital image resolution is the size of your image, measured in pixels ("picture elements"). A high-resolution image (such as 1600 x 1200 pixels) will result in a better printed photo than a low resolution image (such as 320 x 240 pixels), all other things being equal. If the resolution is too low for the size of the canvas chosen, the photograph will look fuzzy and indistinct. We recommend that you always use the highest resolution setting on your camera to ensure the best reproduction and highest quality canvas print possible.

What is a pixel?

Pixels are the basic building blocks of every digital image. The more pixels in your photos, the better the prints will look. The term "resolution" refers to the number of pixels in the photo.

What is DPI?

DPI (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch) are relative measurements that can mean many things depending on the application for which you are preparing your image. For the purposes of digital canvas printing, this measurement is not relevant and will not affect your image file.

For example, an image that is 1024 x 768 at 100 DPI is the exact same file and has the same resolution as an image that is 1024 x 768 at 500 DPI. Both files contain a total of 786432 pixels in a grid that has 1024 pixels on one side and 768 pixels on the other side. A more reliable measure for giclee canvas printing is the actual resolution, which represents the number of pixels that make up the image.

What is aspect ratio?

Aspect ratio refers to the slightly different rectangular shape of each print size. For example, a 20" x 40" print looks skinny compared to an 20" x 30" print, which is more like a square and the latter is a 1:1.5 ratio which is the same as a normal 35mm photo. To make your image fit these varying print shapes, we typically enlarge the image slightly and crop off what doesn't fit.<back to Articles