Best Printing Ideas for Christmas
Photo by xavierarnau via iStock
With the holidays rapidly approaching, you might be thinking about gift ideas for your loved ones. Or, perhaps you're a professional photographer in need of quality prints to offer your clients for the holiday season. Whatever the case, we've got some great options below.
From metal prints to canvas to innovative photo tiles that snap together, there is a wide range of the best printing ideas for Christmas.
Better still, you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get a high-quality print. Each of the options below offer you the height of quality and affordability, too.
Snaptiles just released a plastic-framed photo tile that allows you to swap out the photo in each tile. See it here!
Best Printing Ideas for Christmas: A Metal Print
I love metal prints. There's something about the modern, sleek look of them that I find quite eye-catching.
And while I'm a landscape photographer and really appreciate how the aesthetic of metal prints adds to the appeal of my images, metal prints certainly aren't just for landscapes.
In fact, printing on metal is a great idea for portraits, wildlife images, architectural photos, and many others.
Metal prints come in all manner of sizes, too. You can get something like an 8x10 for a small nook in your home, or you can get a large-format print that's 40x60 to be a showpiece in a large room.
Many metal print companies also offer different shapes of prints, like portrait orientation, landscape orientation, and square format.
There is also a lot of variety in terms of the finish. You can choose from matte, semi-gloss, or glossy, and pair any of the three with a white or clear finish.
Matte prints have the lowest reflectivity and might be a good option for a room with a lot of light. Semi-gloss prints kick the reflectivity up a notch, and glossy prints are extremely reflective.
White metal is a prime choice because it enables the colors of the print to be deep and highly saturated. By contrast, clear metal has a translucent coating that reveals the brushed silver aluminum underneath for a very striking appearance.
If you've been following our 2021 Metal Print Shootout on YouTube, you know that not all metal prints are alike. That means you need to do your due diligence before ordering a metal print, that way you're sure to invest in a print that's actually worth your money.
One printing company that I highly recommend is Metal Mouth Prints, and there are many reasons for this.
First, the quality of their prints is absolutely off the charts. From clean edges to impeccable color accuracy to beautiful contrast and sharpness, their prints look like a million bucks.
Which leads me to the second reason why I recommend Metal Mouth Prints - they won't break the bank. Pricing starts at just $20, and most prints come with free shipping.
Third, Metal Mouth Prints has an innovative mounting system that I think will revolutionize the metal print industry. It's called the éZi mount, and it enables you to swap metal prints as often as you like.
Basically, the éZi mount attaches to the wall, then the print floats in front on a high-quality metal frame. Swapping out prints takes about 30 seconds and doesn't require any tools, so it truly is an easy way to display different metal prints throughout the year.
Be sure to pop over to Metal Mouth Prints to learn more about this innovative feature and explore the other options they provide for metal prints.
Best Printing Ideas for Christmas: A Canvas Print
Another great option for your Christmas printing needs is a canvas print.
Where metal prints are sleek and modern, canvas prints are more traditional and classic. The slight texture of the canvas gives images of all sorts - portraits, landscapes, seascapes, and abstracts, to name a few - wonderful depth and a greater feeling of movement in the image.
Canvas prints also come in all manner of shapes and sizes, and there is a wealth of finishing options, depending on which printing company you work with.
For example, I've been a customer of CanvasHQ for many years, and they offer a wide selection of customizations, from border colors to canvas finishes, image effects to the type of frame.
Likewise, you can order just about any size of print you like, from six inches up to 96 inches. You can even order a diptych or a triptych to expand your image over two or three canvases, respectively.
Of course, just like with metal prints, canvas prints aren't all made alike...
Not only do you want to work with a canvas printing company that offers lots of customization options, but you also want to work with a printer that prioritizes quality. That's why I like CanvasHQ so much (and that's why they won our 2019 and 2020 Canvas Print Shootouts).
For example, each of their canvases is made with premium materials that range from commercial-grade inks to archival-quality canvases to kiln-dried wood for the frames.
Speaking of the frames, they're hand-built and include plenty of bracing to ensure the frame stays square and true. The canvas is then hand-stretched over the frame to create a print that will last for decades.
And, again, we find that just like metal prints, impeccable canvas prints don't have to drain your bank account.
CanvasHQ prints start at about $20, and since CanvasHQ almost always has a promo code available, you can usually save 15 percent or more off your purchase.
I have dozens of their prints in my home, and each one that's arrived has been as impressive as the first. I have no doubt you'll find the same to be true if you opt for a canvas print this holiday season!
Visit CanvasHQ today to learn more about the printing options they offer.
Best Printing Ideas for Christmas: Snaptiles
Another interesting way to display photos is with Snaptiles.
This innovative method of displaying images on your wall gives you the ability to be as creative as you want with the display.
Just attach the wall mount to the wall (as shown below), attach the first tile, and then the subsequent tiles connect to one another with the embedded rare earth magnets. It's a quick and easy way to display multiple photos at the same time!
And since you can easily connect and disconnect each tile, you can rearrange the images, create different shapes, and swap out images as you please.
Where metal prints might be more formal and canvas prints might be more classic, Snaptiles are certainly more fun.
I ordered a group of Snaptiles a while back, and my wife, my son, and I had all kinds of fun making different shapes on the wall of his bedroom with the tiles.
So not only are Snaptiles a great way to print and display your images, but they can also be a fun family activity.
Each tile is 8x8 and is printed on premium SBS acid-free archival paperboard. The tiles are one-inch thick, so the display has some nice depth to it to give it a three-dimensional appearance. Since they're so lightweight, you can hang many different tiles together without fear of them damaging the wall or falling off.
And like the other two printing options discussed above, Snaptiles are affordable - $49 for four tiles and $9 per tile thereafter.
Give Snaptiles a try today, and see just how much fun you can have printing and hanging photos!
