Anatomy of a Wood Frame Canvas Print
- Not all canvas prints are made alike, nor are they of the same quality
- The frame on which the canvas is mounted is just as important as the canvas itself
- Look at the Frame Supports
- Check Those Staples!
- A Square Frame Results in Nice, Tight Canvas Corners
- What About the Actual Canvas?
- Recommended Photography Gear
I’ve purchased dozens of canvas prints over the years from a variety of online printing companies.
All of those purchases have taught me a number of things, but the two most important lessons are these:
Now, you might be thinking - well, duh! Of course not all canvas prints are made alike. Yes, this is an obvious point, but what’s interesting is the sheer variety of construction methods that canvas printing companies use to build their canvas frames.
Honestly, some companies look like old pros at it while others send you a wood frame canvas print that looks like something a kindergartener put together in their art class. So, perhaps my first point shouldn’t have been, “not all canvas prints are made alike,” but instead, “many canvas prints are just plain crap!”
But, I digress…I don’t want this article to be about how so many canvas companies make terrible canvases.
Instead, I want to focus on what you should look for in a high-quality wood frame canvas print. Believe me when I say that if the wood frame is well-built, the canvas on the front will be a quality product as well.
Let’s get to it!
Editor’s Note: I recently purchased my very first canvas print from CanvasPrints.com, and am so impressed with the quality of the wood frame (and the canvas, too!), that I’ll use it as an example of what you should look for in the best-quality canvas prints.
Table of Contents
Look at the Frame Supports
As you can see in the image above, the frame of my CanvasPrints.com print has a robust center support. This support serves two very important purposes.
First, the support ensures that the top and bottom portions of the frame don’t sag over time. While the canvas isn’t heavy by any means, it is stretched very tightly across the frame. To help counteract that, a center support is needed.
Second, the center support ensures that the canvas isn’t floppy, for the lack of a better word. The canvas isn’t stapled to the center support - obviously, since the staples would be in the middle of the canvas - but that support nevertheless helps keep the canvas taught so when you view it, there are no bumps or waves in the canvas (as you can see in my CanvasPrints.com print above).
So, when you’re shopping for a canvas print, be sure you check into the support structure that’s added to the frame.
Check Those Staples!
Over the years, I’ve noticed that one of the primary factors in the quality of a wood frame canvas print is the frequency of the staples that hold the canvas to the wood frame.
This might seem like a minute or even a silly detail to obsess about, but the best wood frame canvas prints I’ve purchased have had a high number of staples.
As I mentioned earlier, the canvas is wrapped very tightly onto the wood frame. To keep that tension, you need a large number of staples. As you can see in the image above of my CanvasPrints.com print, there’s an ample number of staples to prevent the canvas from disconnecting from the wood frame.
Of course, you can staple a canvas to a frame all you want, but if the frame itself isn’t square, it won’t matter. So, as you inspect the number of staples on the back of a canvas, take a moment to check that the frame is actually square, that the rails of the frame are straight and true, and that the frame’s joints are tight. If you see gaps between the frame’s pieces or frame components that are bent or twisted, red flags should go up!
A Square Frame Results in Nice, Tight Canvas Corners
A couple of years ago, I ordered a canvas from an online printing company to see what the quality of their prints was like.
When I unboxed the print, one of the first things I noticed was that the corners of the print were not well done. By that, I mean that the canvas was bunched up instead of laying flat as it should be.
If the wood frame under the canvas print isn’t well built and square, the canvas can’t be wrapped around the corner in a way that has a pleasing appearance. And since you can see the corners of a canvas print, it’s important that they look nice!
As you can see above, my wood frame canvas print has impeccable corners. It looks like a present that’s been wrapped! The fold is neat, clean, and flat, and the excess canvas extends around the frame where it’s stapled in the back.
When this canvas is hanging on the wall, there’s no messy bunches of canvas in the corners to mess with how the canvas hangs. Instead, CanvasPrints.com knocked it out of the park, so the print hangs perfectly flat against the wall - just as it should!
What About the Actual Canvas?
Clearly, the most important component of a wood frame canvas print is the canvas. After all, that’s what you look at while it’s hanging on the wall!
The canvas should retain the colors of the original image, be full of contrast, and have good detail in the highlights and shadows in the image.
What’s more, you shouldn’t see any streaks or blots of ink from the printing process - the canvas should instead be a mirror-like representation of your original shot. Printing companies like CanvasPrints.com deliver canvases just like this, with beautiful colors, excellent details and sharpness, and a nice texture that adds depth, dimension, and visual interest to the print.
But as I’ve demonstrated in this article, the best canvas in the world will look terrible if the frame underneath it isn’t crafted with care. So, when examining the anatomy of a wood frame canvas print, what we’re really talking about is quality control. Does the company make the visible parts good but cut corners on the frame? Or is the company dedicated to all-around quality wood frame canvas prints like CanvasPrints.com?