Canvas Prints: What Works and What Doesn’t

Decorating rooms with canvas prints is fast becoming one of the hottest DIY interior design trends around the world, and no wonder. By using our own photos as an art gallery we retain creative control and can bring any colour, texture, or imagery into our rooms adding a personal touch that can’t be matched by less personal wall décor. Even if we opt to choose from an image library instead of our own photo collection, it’s our sensibility and design eye being served.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can throw any old image into a canvas printing service and come out a star. There are always going to be some images that just don’t work particularly well with canvas art. Here’s a quick guide to what works and what doesn’t when it comes to canvas prints in your home.

Canvas Prints: What Doesn’t Work

What doesn’t work for canvas prints is more about the specifics of an image rather than the subject:

• Small. If the subject of your photo doesn’t fill the frame, it’s going to look strange when hung on the wall. Canvas prints are meant to be showstoppers, and a tiny figure in the background won’t have any impact.

• Blurry. You may tell yourself that it’s ‘artistic’ or it may be the only photo you have of a person, place or thing, but if it’s a blurry mess it will simply be a larger blurry mess on your wall.

• Overly Personal. No one wants pictures of you without a shirt, or candids of your horrific bike accident injuries. While a personal touch to your canvas prints can be a delightful contrast to your design and make a room feel warm, going too far in that direction will just make people uncomfortable.

• Low Quality. If all of your camera phone photos are low-quality, they’re going to look it on the wall.

Canvas Prints: What Does Work

There are some simple guidelines to what will do well on your walls:

• High Quality. First, every photo you select needs to be high-quality. A high DPI and a large size means you can shrink it down or crop it without losing any sharpness or colour detail.

• Foreground. The point or subject of the photo should fill the frame. If it’s a portrait of someone you love, their face should be the picture. Whether a group shot or a landscape, the photo needs a focal point that people can latch onto.

• Colour Appropriate. It’s fine to go black and white – if the room design supports that. Otherwise, make sure the dominant colours in your photo match up well with your other design elements.

While it’s hard to go wrong using canvas prints to decorate your home, people have managed to do so by ignoring these simple pieces of advice. When you’ve reviewed your photos against this and chosen the best ones, we’ll take care of creating the best canvas prints possible.