Do Cheap Canvas Prints Mean Bad Prints?

Cheap canvas prints don’t have to mean bad canvas prints. We reveal where you can find low prices as well as high-quality canvas!

When we’re considering our next home-decor purchase, too often we assume a close link between quality and price. True, a hefty figure on the price tag is sometimes an indicator of premium performance – but this isn’t always the case. Here we take a look at what really determines a high-quality product, and why one shouldn’t stress the price factor that much.

What Is a Photo Canvas Print Actually Intended For?

First, a quick overview of why we buy canvas prints. Mostly bearing a stock image or a photo of the owner’s choice, a photo canvas print consists of a fabric canvas that’s stretched over a (preferably wooden) frame.

Their basic function is to complement the rest of the decor in an interior space, playing a similar aesthetic role to an oil or acrylic painting. It’s a less expensive – and therefore more common – alternative to a real painting. Thousands of millennials across the country are already decorating their rooms with these pieces of customized art.

When it comes to printing our beloved photos, it’s the details, contrasts and resolution that matter the most. If you find a print that excels in all these areas and comes with a durable top-quality frame too, you’ve hit the jackpot.

How to Tell a Quality Canvas From a Lackluster One

Firstly, it’s all about the edges. If the canvas isn’t stretched over the middle point of each stretcher bar (there are four of them in the classic version) and the clamps used to hold it in place are unevenly distributed, you might have a problem. It’s a strong indicator that the canvas might not be optimally stretched and that it might come loose from the frame after a few months. More often than not, it’s defects like these that explain the low price. But this isn’t the case for all low-cost manufacturers and distributors.

As a case in point, CanvasDiscount.com uses highly sophisticated machinery that cuts each canvas to the same exact dimensions, while skilled workers apply the clamps evenly by hand.

Superior quality comes as standard with CanvasDiscount.com. Client satisfaction is key to our mission and essential for our success, and the best way we can provide that satisfaction is by making sure our products do justice to the cherished photos we’re asked to print.

The Bad and the Good of the Wood

The next essential is the stretcher frame itself. This too can throw up a range of problems if the manufacturer has decided to cut costs and follow the easy path.

A substandard approach to wood processing will reveal itself before too long – think weather-induced frame warping and other defects. The production process at CanvasDiscount.com has been finessed to avoid these unpleasant surprises, and consists of the following steps:

• Careful selection of spruce wood from responsibly maintained forests

• Drying process to prevent weather-induced distortion and other damage

• Further processing to make stretcher bars perfectly smooth and even

• Manual assembly of stretcher bars

• Stretching of the canvas to achieve the perfect level of tension

All of this is done to resist the adverse effects of the local climate, as the fiber of the canvas is vulnerable to changes in humidity, temperature, and sunlight. A canvas that gets too heavy will work itself loose, which in turn leads to creasing of the image. This is easily the most common canvas defect.

If you’re buying online, you can’t feel the quality by hand – so the best you can do is some careful fact-checking. Spruce and pine woods are the most widely used materials for the production of canvas stretcher bars, and also the most trustworthy when it comes to endurance. Pay attention to the type of wood used in production and – if this is stated – whether it undergoes an industrial drying process.

About the Print Itself

The original color palette of a photo image can be somewhat subdued when it appears on a canvas print, due to the naturally softening qualities of the canvas fabric. However, this is never apparent enough to be seriously detrimental to the reproduction quality.

Manufacturers will go to great lengths to convince potential customers that their prints avoid this natural process, but this is all but impossible unless the organic canvas material is replaced with a different substance. The quality of the final product is ultimately decided by the printing technology used. At CanvasDiscount.com we can faithfully reproduce the sharpness and contrasts of your original image, and all our products are hypoallergenic and manufactured according to a strict eco-friendly policy.

We use exclusive HP latex inks at our printing facilities, but we can still keep our prices low because our streamlined production processes are so cost-effective. Almost single-handedly we’ve proved that cheap prints don’t have to mean a compromise on quality.

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Lastly, the real quality of canvas on the wider market can often contrast wildly with the fancy presentation of the merchandise. You might have encountered terms such as “giclée” and “museum quality”. While they sound glamorous, these terms are often used for no reason other than to justify overpricing the stock. Of course, any sensible manufacturer will flatter their products, but some of the language used can verge on false advertising. Make sure you read the reviews – or ideally watch some videos showing how the product looks in a real living space!

Consensus

There’s enough information floating around for you to do a little research before you make your purchase. When it comes to price, our general advice is to follow the middle road! It’s true that an extraordinarily low price can be a strong indicator of second-rate manufacturing. Meanwhile, some companies make grand claims about revolutionary printing techniques in order to inflate their prices to eye-popping levels – when the product quality itself is often no more than decent.

Without making cynical promises, CanvasDiscount.com produce dependably great prints at permanently discounted prices. Proving that cheap canvas prints don’t have to mean a compromise on quality!