My wife found a groupon for a gallery wrap and I was going to try it out. $45 for a 16x20 seems reasonable for a "tester"
Any of you have experience with them? I"m not keen on the "we'll adjust your photo for you" blurb, I'll have to figure out how to turn that off (or is that important with canvas?
I have had three canvases done by Canvas on Demand. And one pending. Used a groupon recently, and a professional discount code initially.
Prices are good.
I am not impressed with the quality.
First was a landscape that printed nicely with some slight green shift. May have been my fault. Stretch/mounting was very nice and clean.
Second (and third) were from my son's wedding, taken by the pro, who gave me the RAW files. I downloaded their softproof profile, tweaked the images very carefully, and they received an image with blown out whites and muddy darker tones. Eyedropper clearly showed adequate info and again, this was with their softproof profile. I contacted them and they were quick, responsive, apologetic, saw the problem, and immediately reprocessed the canvas at no charge for the canvas or delivery. The second version had detail in the whites but muddy darker tones. Construction quality again was very good.
Since I have no other experience with canvas, perhaps its learning to use the medium. However, given the softproofs, I expected a final product much closer to the PS image. And I am on a calibrated wide gamut monitor.
The morale: You get what you pay for.Let us know your experience. I have one more pending, on groupon. Its a simple image without skin tones and minor color shifts will, shadow detail will not be problematic with this image. So perhaps it will be an issue of matching subject to their work.
It depends on what canvas they are printing on.Some of the better canvases print beautifully......what you are describing is what I have run into on some of the cheaper canvases.......sounds like they are using poor materials
I print a lot on Breathing Color's Lyve canvas then coat with Glamour II. But I don't wrap it. I dry mount to 8 ply board before i coat it. Then usually frame it in one of my handmade roaewood frames with a linen liner.
Sometimes I use a thin black Nielsen aluminum frame. It looks almost frameless that way.
DougDolde wrote:
I print a lot on Breathing Color's Lyve canvas then coat with Glamour II. But I don't wrap it. I dry mount to 8 ply board before i coat it. Then usually frame it in one of my handmade roaewood frames with a linen liner.
Sometimes I use a thin black Nielsen aluminum frame. It looks almost frameless that way.
Thanks for the tips - I decided to skip COD. I don't really have anything that's killing me to not print on canvas at the moment but I'll try the costco route when i do, and get fancy from there.
Got back my latest (and last) Canvas On Demand canvas, using a groupon for a 16x20. Colors OK. Stretcher frame solid. Canvas was not taut and my wife, with a far less critical eye, immediately commented on the "bubbles" in the mat, which were sags. Not acceptable. Not worth my time to have it re-made.
Goodbye COD. They have clearly gone the high volume, low cost, low quality route.
