What you hang on your walls says something about you, your personality and your family. Are you the type of person that hangs up lots of fabulous art you’ve collected from around the world? Or do you focus your wall art mostly on things you know and love, like your family, places you’ve been or lived, or memories you’ve experienced?
If you prefer the latter, you have undoubtedly looked at wall canvas prices and options – and you know there are TONS of them out there. In fact, I was looking for a few options myself for our impossibly bare walls at home when a wonderful email popped into my Inbox, inviting me to try out the website Canvas on the Cheap.
They made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse when it came to trying out their service and I was excited to give it a try.
My Experience with Canvas on the Cheap
I found the ordering process very easy and their website was simple to navigate. My biggest problem was figuring out which image I wanted to use. I have taken quite a few beachy sunsets and other photos around the beach in the last months for Instagram so I had almost too many images to choose from. But when I finally did manage to narrow it down, I selected something I had shot with my phone’s camera and not my DSLR.
Although they aren’t explicit about this on their website, if you are selecting a large format, use the biggest resolution you can find. Keep reading to learn why. Because even though they let you upload images from your Instagram account to use for their shots, the results are going to be less than stellar at any sizes except the small ones.
I was looking for their largest format possible because we have rather high ceilings in our condo so I selected 30″ x 40″. Once you’ve selected the size you want, you upload your desired photo. Then you only have a few more options to select.
One includes the depth of your canvas. When you buy a canvas to paint yourself from the craft store, they are often .75″ (what they call a Standard Wrap) — but I opted for the Gallery Wrap option which is slightly more expensive but doubles the depth of the canvas. In the larger format, it makes a huge difference – especially if you don’t intend to frame the canvas.
They do also include framing options as well as a dust cover for the back of your canvas to really up the quality. Need equipment for hanging? They’ll throw that in for you too! It’s really a full-service canvas shopping option.
The Finished Canvas
I was pretty excited about the arrival of the canvas because I have been wanting to order several for a while but simply have been putting it off. It didn’t take long for Canvas on the Cheap to produce our canvas and ship it out…and it arrived a few days later. The colors and format of the canvas and fantastic and exactly what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, the image I selected became quite pixelated in the processing of this large format print. So as I mentioned before, you do need to be careful about the size of the image you select.
I did bring it up to the representative at Canvas on the Cheap and she said that they usually catch the resolution issues before printing. But my issue wasn’t the resolution but just that the image wasn’t large enough. So hopefully that is something they can address with their online software or their proofing team in the future to make sure that images don’t come out looking like they were made to be hung on house walls in Minecraft.
Overall, the canvas is still something we can hang up in our home. But when you get close to it, you definitely notice that the resolution is not right and the image is pixelated. Sad but food for thought for the next round of canvases I order.
The performance of Canvas on the Cheap was great and the quality of the canvas is fantastic. It arrived quickly and securely in a large frame box and I find their prices very reasonable for all sizes of canvases. If you sign up to their mailing list, they have sales running all the time as well for great deals. So I would buy from them again — just make sure I use the largest images possible for printing to make them as sharp and beautiful as possible. I know it should go without saying…but sometimes we all need a reminder.
Have you ordered a canvas online before? What do you use for your wall art? Share your thoughts below.
