Print Your Own Art…

Print Your Own Art…

I’ve recently bought an SLR camera and of course I have been taking pictures of anything that moves – and most things that don’t! Over a very short period of time I have managed to build up quite a large collection of some very badly taken pictures, however, hidden in the dross are a couple of gems; coincidences of good subject matter happening at the same time as the correct settings being loaded on the camera – certainly nothing to do with my skill anyway!

So it’s these pictures I have recently wanted to print and place somewhere in the house, but how best to do it? Ok, I could print them at high quality on some decent photo paper, but then the image just looks like a photograph and I was looking for something more like a painting. I know that I could spend ages in PhotoShop or even ask friends who are more proficient at it than me (listen, you can’t be good at everything!) to produce something closer to a painting, but that would take up too much precious time and as my dive instructor Dave would say, that would eat into “beer time” – no I needed a simpler solution.

The answer must be online, so I turned to Google to help me. I first searched for “canvas printing” and was pleased to find a whole host of really good websites dedicated to printing your photos onto framed canvas, sites like www.yourimage2canvas.co.uk and www.photocanvasprinting.com and whilst the prices and ease of use of the website were fantastic, they seemed only to deliver to the UK and Ireland which, of course, was a problem.

I then decided to search for “foto en lienzo” (photo on canvas) to see whether there were any similar sites that cater for the Spanish market and I was disappointed to find a great deal of badly designed websites that were not half as interactive as the sites I had found when searching in English. Then I stumbled across www.mi-arte.es – it was exactly what I was looking for, an easy to use, well designed website that had 4 simple steps to getting my photo onto canvas. The site was all in Spanish with no option to change to English; however my Google Toolbar took care of that.

Remember we talked about the Google Toolbar a few months ago for converting foreign websites into English – www.bluemoonsolutions.es/google-toolbar

The website allowed me to upload my own picture, decide what size I wanted it to be printed, choose a frame and even choose how the sides of the picture should be wrapped around the frame. The site then allowed me to change the picture by adding an effect (just what I wanted as they offered an oil painting effect). The site also offers printing onto aluminium or acrylic or just mounted into a standard frame, there really are a good deal of options available.

Once designed I confirmed my address and payment details and I am reliably informed that my artwork is winging its way towards me – all for less than 50 euros delivered to my door – not bad really! They even offer free delivery by UPS for orders over 75 euros!

I’ve not received the picture yet, so I can’t vouch for their delivery times but if they are as good as their website is easy to use then I shouldn’t have any problems – if you decide to use them, let me know how you get on.