We’re going to let you in on a little secret; you don’t need to be a professional photographer with an expensive camera to achieve the canvas print you desire. That’s right, if you’re a budding photography enthusiast you can obtain the same high-quality results by using cheap digital photos prints.

To ensure you receive your perfect canvas, here at Parrot Print we’ve put together some tips that you should look out for when using your digital photo prints for online canvas printing.

Pick The Right Photo
Whether you want to print a photo you’ve captured on your smartphone or you’ve been tagged in photos on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you should be able to print your digital photos without worrying whether they’ll turn out blurry or distorted. To ensure you receive the results you want is down to selecting the best file size, but if you’re not an expert this can be a little overwhelming to understand.

Basically, it’s all down to pixels. Pixels are the digital equivalent of paint blotches on pointillism artwork and each pixel contains numbers that describe its colour and intensity. This is the universal way to describe image quality, regardless of the device used. The more megapixels a digital camera has the higher the native print quality, but with online companies like ours you don’t need to worry about the size, only what photo you want to transfer.

At Parrot Print, we use our own proprietary method to resize your original image up to 800% of it’s original size without any discernible pixelation. So, no matter the size of your image, or the megapixels your camera has, you’ll receive the perfect canvas print every time.

Choose The Correct Canvas Material
Whether you want a canvas print to showcase your latest photography work or you just want to hang your favourite family photo, using the right canvas materials can effect the quality of the outcome. Canvas materials not only enhances the quality of the photo, but gives prints an overall museum-like quality that in many ways replicates the look and texture of a actual painting.

The two main types of canvas materials are cotton and polyester, which each have pros and cons that can affect the overall result of your canvas print. The difference between them is that poly canvases are made from plastic fiber strands, where as cotton canvases are made from cotton fibers.

Cotton canvas tend to have a longer life span than polyester, as they’re more durable. They also hold their value over time, so artists who want to reproduce their paintings should definitely choose this option. To receive a high-quality product you have to be willing to pay the price. Cotton canvases are more expensive than polyester, but if you want the best canvas print cotton is the way to go.

Polyester canvas are the cheaper alternative and the colour tends to be more vibrant on these canvas prints. However, polyester canvases don’t last as long and don’t absorb the ink as well as cotton canvases do. The ink sits on top of the canvas rather than penetrating it. This opens the work up to cracking and stretching in the future. Some poly-type canvases can also run pretty thin, some are even thinner than some print-quality papers.

Here at Parrot Print, we use the best quality canvas, which is a bright white textured, heavyweight 420gsm, premium archival grade poly/cotton blend. This type of canvas is suitable for fine art and photography reproduction, allowing incredible detail, a wide gamut, and eye-popping colour. This mixture allows you to receive the best of both materials, so your canvas print will not only last for years, but will also look outstanding.

If you have some digital photo prints you want transforming into canvas prints, simply upload them here and we’ll do the work for you.