CanvasPop Review – Our Home Makeover!

Why I Wanted Canvas Prints

Due to COVID-19, I’ve had to halt my travel projects and am spending a lot more time at home. I decided I needed to revamp my home workspace now that I’m spending so much time in my office, and I figured the best and easiest way to do this was to turn some of my photos into prints to display on our walls.

We take so many photos during our travels, but most of them never see the light of day and are just “collecting dust” on our hard drives or laptops. There’s also just something more special about bringing our photos to life in a tangible way through large format prints that digital photos seem to lack. If you’ve ever researched online digital printing services though, you’ll know that there’s an overwhelming number of them to choose from!

What to Consider Before Investing in an Online Photo Printing Service

Even though there’s a huge number of different printing services available, it’s important to note that not all of them are created equal. When you’re deciding which printing service to go with, you’ll want to consider which one offers the best quality, value, price, selection of products, ease of use, and protective shipping of your print.

Every photo printing service site has its own pros and cons, so it’s good to understand the differences before making your decision.

I think it’s helpful to consider what you value the most before choosing which photo printing service to go with. Are you looking to create a beautiful piece of art for your home, or are you looking to sell your prints or have them displayed in a gallery? Is this going to be a gift for someone, or are you just looking to print out some casual photos for yourself?

Regardless of the reasons behind why you’re looking to invest in photo prints, let’s dive into important qualities to consider when deciding on which printing service to go with, and where CanvasPop fits in.

Overall Value

Photo prints definitely range quite a bit in price, and most of the time, I do believe you get what you pay for. I would be wary of photo printing sites that offer deals that seem “too good to be true,” because when it comes to something you’ll want to display and cherish for many years to come, the craftsmanship of the product really does matter.

After using CanvasPop, I believe they offer a good value for the price, and they often have sales and coupon offers that make their prints an even better deal. They also stand by all their products with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, which means if you aren’t happy with your product or they can’t make it right for you, you’ll get your money back.

In terms of price, an 8”x10” canvas print starts around $70, but I often see 50% off coupons on their offers page which brings the starting price down to $35. It’s certainly a better deal than other canvas prints out on the market, and for the quality of the final product, it offers a great value for most people looking to create some beautiful prints to decorate their homes.

Selection of Products

The types of items you can have your digital photos printed on these days is pretty crazy. From canvas prints to photo books, mugs, paper weights and even puzzles, the options are endless. When it comes to CanvasPop though, they seem to follow the motto of “less is more,” and only offer five different types of products: canvas prints, framed prints, photo collages, triptych prints, and pet portraits.

Because of their limited range of products, you won’t have as many options if you’re looking for small personalized gifts, or something that’s more of a novelty type item. It’s also not the right place to shop if you’re just looking to get smaller standard prints without needing them framed.

But if you’re in the market for larger print products, then CanvasPop may be a good choice to look into. I was able to try their canvas print, triptych print, and pet portrait, and I will say that all three of the products I received were very high quality. By having a smaller selection of products, CanvasPop is able to focus on providing great quality products and personable customer service at an affordable price.

Quality of the Prints

You might think that a canvas print is a canvas print, more or less. It’s true that perhaps the process of printing onto canvas is similar, but the materials used, the actual finishing of the canvas, and the craftsmanship will differ greatly.

If you’re just looking to have casual prints to hang around your house as a temporary decoration, then a no frills, budget-friendly photo printing service may be just fine. However, if you’re looking for prints to gift or have cherished memories you want to display for years to come, then it helps to go with a higher end photo printing service.

CanvasPop’s canvas prints and framed prints are made with the highest quality materials in the industry. This means the canvas prints are made with archival, museum quality canvas which uses minimal brighteners that are designed to last over 100 years.

Most cheap canvas products are made with optical brighteners. These brighteners can create a brighter canvas, but they shorten the lifespan of the canvas, and it will eventually start to crack or fade. CanvasPop’s canvas is water, fade, scratch, crack and warp resistant. Their framed prints use 255gsm vibrant luster fine art paper, while the frames are made from Roma Moulding, which is handcrafted in Italy. The finishing is toxic and chip free and made from 100% real pine wood.

Once your order is placed, it’s then processed and made by real people in North America, and they keep you updated every step of the way.

Of course, there are even higher end printing services that come at a steeper price, and this may be a good choice if you’re a professional photographer looking to sell your work as premium art products, or display them as part of an art gallery. If that’s the case, you’ll definitely want to shop around and pay attention to the quality of stretching the canvas and its finishing.

Who Is CanvasPop?

By now, you probably have a good sense of the type of photo printing service you’re looking for, and since this is a review for canvaspop specifically, I should probably let you know a little bit more about the brand. 🙂

CanvasPop was founded in 2009 and specializes in turning digital photos into high quality wall art. They pride themselves in providing the best customer service possible and ensuring that their customers love their entire canvaspop experience, from the ordering process to their customer support, all the way to the final products.

They back up this claim with their 100% Love Guarantee, meaning that if you aren’t satisfied with your product, they’ll reprint it for you for free, or give you a full refund. All of their prints come ready-to-hang out of the box with protective rubber bumpers and a gallery-strength piano wire or sawtooth hanging hardware for smaller pieces. The nail to hang your print is also included.

And although canvaspop offers a limited selection of products compared to its competitors, with the products they do make, they make them very well.

Who is CanvasPop for?

• Photographers or artists who want to turn their work into high quality wall art
• Gift shoppers who are looking to give a high quality piece of art or cherished memory to their friends and family
• Anyone who is printing their photography work for the first time
• Someone who is looking to print larger prints – the smallest size Canvaspop offers is 8”x10”
• Someone who is looking for quality over quantity
• Anybody who wants to display their work, favorite photos and cherished memories for years to come.

Who is CanvasPop not for?

• Someone looking to casually print off images to frame themselves
• Someone looking for prints that are smaller than 8” x 10”
• Someone wanting to create other products with their photos, such as mugs, calendars, ornaments, etc.
• Someone looking to sell their work as high end premium art products

CanvasPop: Our Experience Ordering Three Different Prints

We were able to try out three different products from CanvasPop: the canvas print, triptych, and pet portrait. Read on to learn about the details of each product and how I used them at home!

Canvas Print

The canvas print is CanvasPop’s most popular product and probably what they are best known for. The canvas itself is treated with ultra protective UV-matt laminate, which means that the print will never crack, flake, fade or bubble, and it’s guaranteed for life. As with all of their products, it includes the necessary wall mount making it super easy to hang right out of the box. 

You can choose a canvas print in a variety of standard sizes in square, portrait, and landscape format. You can also create your own custom size, which is what I ended up doing.

Why I Like It and How I Used It at Home:

During the canvas print design process on their website, you’ll notice that you can choose from a variety of different edges and frames. If you go with the no frame route, you can choose from having a black border, white border, or photo wrap – which means your print will be stretched around the edges of the canvas print.

All these choices are at no extra cost. You also choose the depth of your canvas if you decide to go without a frame. And if you don’t like the black or white border options, it’s possible to get a custom border color – you just need to contact CanvasPop’s customer service team and they’ll be able to customize the color to your preference.

I ended up getting a custom sized 14” x 20” canvas print with a white wood frame. The other two frame options are a black wood frame or espresso wood frame.

Since I’m including my canvas print as part of a larger photo wall gallery in my office, I thought having the white wood frame would give my canvas print a more polished look and tie in better with my other prints as part of my wall gallery theme. I really love that CanvasPop has this option to add a frame around their canvas prints!

Besides the finished quality of the product, another reason I went with a CanvasPop canvas print is because of the different options available to add an artistic filter to your print.

This was a unique feature about CanvasPop that I didn’t really find on other photo printing sites. Many photo printing sites now give you the option to upload photos directly from your Facebook or Instagram pages, and CanvasPop is no different.

However, I find that with the amount of photo compression that happens from social media platforms, it’s hard to get a high quality print if you want them in a larger format to display in your home.

My photo that I made into the 14” x 20” canvas print was taken in low light, and I was afraid it would look too grainy when enlarged. I decided to add their “oil painting” filter on top of my print to give it a unique painting-like look, but it also smoothed over any of my grainy photo concerns. They have several artistic options like this that are recommended for low resolution photos.

But if you aren’t interested in adding any type of filters to your photos and are still afraid of low resolution, CanvasPop did confirm that there’s no need to worry about your image getting pixelated when you try to enlarge it on a canvas or framed print.

They specialize in printing lower-resolution photos and enlarging smaller images found on Instagram, Facebook or your mobile device, and also offer suggested print dimension sizes when you upload your image.

Their team of designers will also offer advice, adjust the contrast and colors of your photos, and even remove red-eye at no extra cost. They have photo enhancement, touch up, and makeover services as well for an additional fee.

Triptych Print

The triptych print gives you all the benefits of CanvasPop’s classic canvas print, but with a unique twist of splitting your image into 3 different panels.

It’s a commanding art piece that can bring together any room and is a great way to display your most epic or dynamic photos. Triptychs are also water and fade resistant and printed on museum-quality archival canvas. They start off at a size of 30” x 20”, and you can choose from a 0.75” or 1.25” depth stretched canvas.

I ended up going with a landscape design for my triptych at a size of 48” x 32” to put over our bed headboard. It’s also possible to create a custom triptych split across more than three panels, and CanvasPop’s customer service team is always happy to help with custom designs.

Why I Like It and How I Used It at Home:

I’ve never tried a triptych print before and really liked the more artistic look of it, especially as a way to display a landscape photo. We wanted the space over our bed to be simple, but also still  be a strong focal point of the room. We originally thought of doing another wall gallery above our bed, but decided that would look too busy for our room.

Putting a triptych print that spans the length of our bed headboard was the perfect way to create a stunning and dynamic display of one of our favorite photos we took at Rialto Beach while making a strong yet refined statement.

Pet Portrait

The pet portrait is an incredibly fun and unique way to create a painting-style portrait of your fur baby(s)!

Like all of CanvasPop’s canvas prints, it’s also made of museum-quality archival canvas so you know it’ll last a lifetime. The print is over a 0.75” depth wood frame, and you can choose from three standard square sizes: 12”x12”, 16”x16”, or 20”x20”.

Once you’ve uploaded a photo of your pet, you also have the option to choose from three different painting styles: Oil Paint (the one I chose), Charcoal (creates a black and white sketched-like look), or Modern (reminds me of Andy Warhol-esque art). Each painting style can also have a custom color designated for the background.

Why I Like It and How I Used It at Home:

If you’re anything like me, then your pet holds a very special place in your heart.

Tom and I have basically adopted his family’s Shih Tzu named Sushi, and we definitely coddle and spoil her way too much. She just turned 13 years old this year, and in honor of her birthday (okay let’s be honest, this was definitely more for the humans as she only cares about her treats…), we decided to create a pet portrait to immortalize her forever.

Does that sound creepy..?

Hopefully if you’re a pet owner, you get what I mean ha. We chose the oil painting style because we really liked how classic and realistic it looked, as if we truly did hire an artist to paint an oil canvas of our dog! We decided to hang it in our office so that whenever we look up from our desks, we can see a larger than life portrait of our favorite little Shih Tzu.

It’s extremely easy to use CanvasPop’s pet portrait tool since all you have to do is upload a photo of your pet, and they’ll automatically resize the image for a portraiture, and create it in the style you choose.

It is worth mentioning though that some photo styles work better than others, and you might have to try a couple different images before landing on one that looks the best when rendered as a pet portrait.

It seems that photos of your pet looking straight on at the camera and at eye level, or ones where they are sitting still, tend to work better than ones where they’re caught in action. I also found close up captures of your pet where they take up the whole frame looks better as a portrait than photos where there’s more background.

Once you’ve found the perfect image of your pet to create into a portrait, the final steps are choosing the background color as well as deciding if you want the name of your pet on the portrait as well. We chose a light blue background to blend in with our office walls and provide a more calm, soothing look.

I think a bright colored background with the modern style would also be really fun and add a pop of color in any room! We opted to leave off the name on the portrait, but that was just personal preference.

Framed Print

The framed print is an elegant and timeless way to display all your cherished memories. Your photos are preserved on 255gsm vibrant luster fine art paper with archival inks, and the frames are handmade with wood, then finished with a vinyl coating in black, white or espresso.

You can also choose between having no mat or 2.5” archival bright white mat for your print, and all framed prints have a crystal clear, low-glare plexiglass insert.

I didn’t choose to create a framed print, but from what I saw on the website, the creation process was very similar to their canvas prints where you choose your image, print size, frame color, mat option, and also decide if you want to add an artistic filter or not to your print. The finished product would add a contemporary elegance to any wall. 

Photo Collage

The photo collage is another canvas print product but as the name suggests, it’s a collage of your choice of images.

What’s nice about this product is that if you don’t know which image to pick from your portfolio, you can just create a collage with several of your favorite images. Just like the classic canvas prints, you choose from a 0.75” or 1.25” depth stretched canvas. Another option is to add a black, white, or espresso float frame instead.

To design your photo collage, you have the option to choose from a selection of different premade layouts depending on the size of the print you choose, and you can display up to 24 images for a canvas or framed collage print.

You also choose a border width for your collage with the options of no border, really thin border, or really thick border. Unfortunately, they don’t offer custom layouts, but if you talk to their customer service, they might be able to help you out. 

Quick Note On CanvasPop Ordering Process

Ordering from CanvasPop is straightforward and simple. Most importantly, they have prompt customer service that you can contact either through online chat, phone, or email if you ever run into problems with your order or while creating your print.

I actually did have a question with my order, but was able to talk to a real person immediately through their online chat function, and even received a follow up email to make sure I had my issue resolved.

I won’t cover the step-by-step guide on ordering since the process is easy to understand once you’re on the website. However, I do want to mention a couple of neat features that may enhance and help you during the print creation process.

Once you’ve selected your image for the print you want, there’s an option in the upper right hand corner to preview your print in 3D so that you can see how it looks from the side as well.

CanvasPop also provides a Free Digital Proof of your order before it goes to the print so that you can make sure it looks exactly how you want it.

This is typically emailed to you within 1-2 business days, but I actually received mine after a few hours of placing my order. For example, I wanted to see how my photo looked with and without the Oil Painting filter, so they provided a digital proof of both for me to choose which I preferred.

If you have any additional questions on the order process or customizing your prints, check out their FAQ here!

Conclusion

After comparing multiple photo printing service options and trying out three of CanvasPop’s products, I can honestly say that I’m impressed with the quality of their prints.

Although there’s a wide range of options available when it comes to creating canvas prints, CanvasPop is an excellent value if you’re looking for a high quality printing service to turn your photos into memorable pieces of art at an affordable price.

Plus, their ‘Love it for Life’ Guarantee ensures that you’re 100% satisfied with your product, or you’ll get your money back. Their excellent customer service and fast response time also makes ordering with them even easier. It’s not every day that you see a hassle free lifetime guarantee, let alone when it comes to most other printing services.

In my opinion, this puts CanvasPop at the top and just goes to show how much they truly believe in their product and care for their customers.

Thanks to CanvasPop for letting me test out their service!