Alternatives to Canvas printing

[Justin]

I'm looking at canvas printing but also alternative products, acrylic and so on. What other products are there that can be used to produce high quality pictures?

We have a local company who produce half decent canvasses, not difficult to beat their quality but I'd like to offer different products.

[purpledragon]

blimy justin are readin my diary lookin at canvas printing myself

[Andrew]

Printed metal is an option for sublimation. The 600 x 300 sheets are great. We have done full size images of people in the past by spreading the print over 6 sheets high. It's also easy to produce wall art if needed by splitting the image accross a few sheets as that is a popular thing on canvas as well or just the single sheet. People don't seem to make the most out of subli metal.

[Justin]

What a great idea to make a mural from the metal, can be done in house and metal can look really good, nice one :-) The acrylic prints, box prints etc. all look very nice but if I can use sublimation all the better.

[accdave]

I've also been looking at utitlising the subli metal for small signs etc. We already do ID cards for a football league club with them. Might try the mural software and see how good it is at getting several A3 sheets on one piece of metal.

[Paul]

acrylic every time for me ;)

[pisquee]

we use poly-satin or poly-suedette stretched around wooden frames/stretcher bars. The suedette works better with sublimation paints though, as don't print too well with the amount of ink coming through an inkjet printer.

[TjCanvas]

Hi Justin, if you are looking for someone to do your canvas printing for you we have a very competitive Trade price list and never compromise on quality.

[RogerC]

IMO art canvas prints are best done with solvent ink printers and laminated for vibrancy of colour reproduction and longevity of print though I am prepared to be corrected 'cause you're never too old to learn:biggrin:

PS I do mine on a versacamm....solvent printer.

[Justin]

Following on from this (oldish) thread ;-)

I'm now looking at getting samples printed. Acrylic blocks, Lumenglass and Aluminium as well as ceramic tiles. I've done a tile mural before and it looked great. Been looking at Subli Metals, great prices but there sheets are just 0.5mm thick, would this be a problem?

Moving more towards these premium type items for displaying/selling customers photos so if anyone has any other ideas I'd appreciate it.

[Ian M]

Justin, the 0.5mm is thicker than you imagine to be honest. I have to admit I love doing things on the metal panels as you can get some great effects.

[Justin]

Cheers Ian. I guess 0.5mm is enough for the sheet size, I just noticed some other are 1.5mm thick. I've been doing a lot of white metal water bottles which I guess is pretty much the same surface, yes, the white metal prints really well :-)

I see SubliMetals supply with holes in for hanging on the wall but I wonder if there's a better fixing option...maybe mounting onto a base or using some dividers to stand out from the the wall could be an option?

[Paul]

best idea for fixing them to the wall is this:

http://www.picturemaster.co.uk/images/fixing.jpg

[Justin]

Yeah, I was looking at these but the site I saw them on they were very expensive imo.

edit: Price is coming down now I start to search :-)

[Paul]

alibaba ;)

[Justin]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/x100-STAND-OFF-BOLTS-MOUNT-satin-aluminium-standoff-display-fitting-fixing-screw-/170769956908?pt=UK_DIY_Material_Nails_Fixing_MJ&hash=item27c2aec02c#ht_709wt_648

Cheapest so far,