Looking for an original and creative canvas for your home? The answer is already in your home! Ever thought about using your favourite pet portraits or creating some animal wall art with your favourite animals? There are endless sources of animal pictures to make amazing DIY canvas wall art!

We’ve loved having images of animals in our homes ever since early humans created cave paintings of the animals they hunted almost 40,000 years ago, and ancient Egyptians depicted gods with animal heads 5000 years ago.

Animal art is perfect for some brilliant prints on canvas in a sophisticated home or a child’s favourite animal in their bedroom – that’s everywhere!

While you look below for DIY canvas art ideas, here are some facts about your favourite animals and pets…

Dogs were probably the first animals to be tamed by humans 10,000 years ago. According to some estimates, almost 40% of homes own at least 1 dog.

Cats have a long relationship with humans from the ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago, they even mummified their cats, and mummified some mice with them for them to eat!

Most wild horses are descended from once-tamed animals that long ago escaped. The only species that is truly wild and has never been domesticated is the Przewalski’s horse, but sadly this horse now only exists in captivity as it has become extinct in the wild.

Fish are a common pet but I think seahorses look great on canvas! Everybody knows that the male seahorses actually give birth, but did you know that seahorses are also monogamous and mate for life? Naww!

Lucky for us chickens aren’t very intelligent animals as there are 6 times as many chickens as people in the world. They do look good in kitchens!

Owls are everywhere these days, on jewellery, bags, harry potter, and even cushions. But did you know a group of owls is called a parliament? Now you do!

Butterflies range in size from 1/8 of an inch up to a huge 12 inches, the fastest butterflies can travel at 37 miles an hour and there are about 24,000 different species!

So if you’re looking for inspiration for a DIY canvas photo use your favourite animal. There is a reason animal print keeps coming back into fashion, it looks good! Visit Photo Canvas to upload your canvas image and make your DIY canvas art and make your home totally unique!

As a complete photography beginner or a newbie novice, it can be easy to get bogged down in photography terms and end up totally confused. If you’re about to buy your first ‘proper’ camera you are in need of definitions for optical and digital zoom, so keep reading!

We all know what zoom means – especially with the amount of camera equipment around us and the increasing quality of smart phone cameras. But to understand how zoom works and can be compared, you need to think about zoom as magnification. A camera with 10X zoom when zoomed in all the way will make the image 10X bigger than you can see with your eyes standing there, simple right? If only!

What is optical zoom?

Optical zoom was originally the only kind of zoom, found on film cameras before the digital age. It is simply zooming in and out of your subject using the camera lens.

By zooming with a lens what you are actually doing is changing the focal length of your lens. If you look through a camera and the subject looks life size then the magnification is zero, and the focal length is about 50 mm. If you zoom in then the focal length gets larger, lenses that can zoom in really far are known as telephoto lenses. Likewise if you zoom out further than life size, making the subject seem further away and smaller than in real life, the focal length is lower than 50 mm. These kinds of lenses are called wide angle lenses.

The higher the optical zoom is on the camera specification then the closer it can zoom in. All digital cameras will have optical zoom, but only very recently is optical zoom starting to appear in mobile devices.

What is digital zoom?

Digital zoom was invented with digital cameras. It is used to make the subject seem more close up, but it is not actually ‘zooming’ in the same way as optical zoom works, it only simulates it with your camera software.

What it actually does is just crop and enlarge the image back to size. You are effectively only zooming in on the already created photo, creating the effect of zoom, not zooming into actual detail – imagine stretching the image out to make it bigger on a computer and then cutting out the same size as the photo the bit you wanted to focus in on.

Using digital zoom results in loss of image quality and resolution, so your photo will look blurred the same way that using a low megapixel camera will do. Remember, your zoomed image doesn’t contain any extra pixels, as most often pixels are larger to make the zoomed portion of the image larger – hence why the image will have less detail and be blurred. This is the most common type of zoom on a phone camera.

Optical zoom vs. digital zoom

When it comes down to optical vs. digital zoom, always compare optical with optical, you should rarely use digital zoom and most cameras have a feature to turn it off. As optical zoom is not megapixel or resolution dependent – the number of megapixels with image is captured with never changes whether you zoom in or not – your images will always be high quality. You can achieve the same effect as digital zoom with image editing software later if you need to without losing any of the image quality in the original.

Image credit: Dave Farmer’s blog

Neither of these are the same as total zoom, which is both added together, and isn’t an accurate description of the zoom power, so ignore this when looking at cameras.

It doesn’t mean you should buy a digital camera without digital zoom, you’d have a hard time trying to find one without it! Digital zoom is not the worst feature ever. It can be useful if you are trying to capture action shots such as a sporting event, or if you can’t or won’t use image editing software later to zoom further. The important point is to know when not to use it – for example mountain scenery isn’t going anywhere in any kind of hurry, so don’t use it for landscape shots.

Good camera zoom

One final point to remember is that when a camera says it has 10X zoom, it doesn’t always mean it will zoom 10X closer. Part of the zoom range of a camera normally includes a wideangle range – it doesn’t start zooming from lifesize, it zooms from further out, so you get less magnification than you expect.

Choosing a good camera for your zoom needs shouldn’t be difficult. Point-and-shoot cameras come with lenses built in, so the zoom they have is what you get. DSLRs on the other hand have a huge range of lenses available so you can change your zoom according to the lens you use, you can even chose super-zoom lenses with up to 30X zoom or ultra wideangle lenses (great for scenic shots).

Don’t forget once you’ve got that perfect shot to print and display it on a photo canvas!

It’s about that time of year you’re thinking ‘”oh no! It’s father’s day soon, and I still have to buy a gift!” Photo canvas is here to help. This is a guide to father’s day ideas for the most original gift of all time, okay but still pretty original and definitely more original than another pair of socks – your dad will love a canvas print! Here’s why…

• This time it’s personal. You’ll agree that a canvas print is much more heartfelt and thoughtful than the standard gift. See below for ideas but you can literally put anything on it – a touching photo of a special day he spent with you, an adorable photo of the whole family, perhaps an image of his favourite hobby or passion. Golf anyone?

• Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Probably (one of) the easiest father’s day gift idea around. You can make a high-quality handmade canvas from the comfort of your own home. Just upload a great photo, add effects or text, and let us handle the rest!

• You have photos everywhere! Thanks to that invention called the smart phone you always have a camera with you to capture photos anywhere you go. Have a rummage through it, you’re bound to find a photo of two of you and your lovely dad which you can make into a wonderful canvas print! The only choice you’ll have to make is to use the one of the family holiday, or that football match that amazing day?

Canvas prints make the best father’s day gifts. Whether you have a sporty dad, a music loving dad, a you-loving dad (of course) or some other special kind, these cool gift ideas will suit all of them – if you can’t see an idea that would, there’s nothing stopping you making one that will suit your quirky dad who loves hot dogs above all else…

Got a brilliant family holiday snap? It’ll look perfect on canvas, just look how high dad can jump!

How about using his favourite shot of the kids? Add effects like making it black and white easily with our online design system.

Is he a new dad? Bless. Give him something to treasure for years, and show off to you when you’re older!

Did you realise you can add a personal message to the back or front of the canvas? It will remain there forever and will really make your dad smile! Why not make up a father’s day poem, pick funny father’s day quotes or jokes, or add the father’s day date to your special father’s day message.

…Help! I’m indecisive, I can’t pick a photo! As the Aussies would say, no worries mate! Take a look at our photo collage maker, simply upload the many photos you can’t choose between and click the button and you have yourself a photo collage generated for free!

Just make sure his father’s day gift reflects how much you care! Check out Photo Canvas for even more canvas print ideas. Happy father’s day fathers!

7 reasons flowers are good for you…

With Chelsea Flower Show in London last week and spring happening all around us, this week we are thinking about the benefits of having flowers in your home, office and the rest of your life.

It’s probably obvious to some but flowers are good for you in so many ways, and not just the standard valentine’s gift for ladies! People in the 1960s were onto something by chanting “flower power” – here are the reasons they make people in hospitals so happy:

1.    Looking at flowers makes you happy. It gives us positive, happy emotions and a general sense of emotional well-being about life.

2.    Flowers make us more compassionate. Living with flowers increases our feelings of kindness for others.

3.    We are less anxious and worried with flowers around. Studies have showed people have lower levels of anxiety, worry and depression.

4.    Flowers make us healthier. They have had well known medical benefits for thousands of years, only now are we starting to realise their importance in modern medicine like in the fight against awful diseases like cancer.

5.  Flowers make us cleverer! Cognitive performance (that’s brain power) is better in workplaces with plants than those without.

6.    Looking to be more creative? Surround yourself with green leafy plants.

7.    Natural energy boosters. Flowers boost our energy levels, as well as our enthusiasm.

So with all these benefits why not have a permanent display of flowers in your home on a beautiful canvas print? You can put as many of these up as you like and they will never fade and wither!

Now be careful when picking the types of flowers you want. If you want to be relaxed use less saturated and bright colours, colours that fall next to each other on the colour wheel and curvy shaped flowers; if you want to be energized and happier pick flowers that have bold saturated colours and bunches with a mix of clashing opposite colours.

Hopefully you’ve found some inspiration for canvas prints to use in your home décor, you can use flower pictures to create spectacular wall art!

20 megapixel camera or 8 megapixel camera? Is it even important? If you are on the hunt for the best photography camera, and you don’t know your MP from your mega pixels to your pixels, read on - you’ve finally found your answer!

To help illustrate you should know about the Pointillism painting technique. It consists of small and distinct dots of singular colour arranged in patterns to form a picture. The most famous example of this in the art world is Georges Seurat’s painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” or Vincent van Gogh’s self portrait. The image below is a skittles advert of the Mona Lisa created by Xilong Liu, using this very technique. It relies on the brain’s amazing ability to blend the colour spots into a whole image.

Image credit: I Believe in Advertising

A photograph is exactly the same – it is made up of pixels, referred to as megapixels because there are so many. Each pixel is a colour dot – or skittle in this case! And the dots form the photograph. The amount of megapixels a camera has is simply the number of dots it uses to create a photo of the same size.

If you are standing far away from one of these paintings you can’t even tell it’s made up of dots. But if you came right up to it and put your face in front of it – it would just look like a bunch of coloured blobs! The more megapixels on a camera the more dots or pixels are used create the image, so the smaller these dots are (to fit more skittles into that rectangular picture above you would need to use mini skittles) and the less fuzzy-round-the-edges the image looks. This is said to have a higher resolution, and is also the way high definition works on TV.

When digital photography was in its early days it used to be important to buy as many megapixels as you can afford, but now there is no need to choose based on this as nearly all cameras have enough megapixels for a quality photo. The higher the megapixels in a camera, the larger the image files it will create and your memory card will store less photos, so sometimes less is more! (Less megapixels = more photos!)

The only time megapixels really becomes important is when you decide what you are going to do with your photo. If the image is just going to go onto your computer or iPad you can use any megapixel camera, but if you are going to get it printed out and enlarged then the bigger it is the more megapixels you will need to ensure it’s not blurry and is high quality.

The reason a DSLR is set apart from a point and shoot and used by professionals – aside from all the extra functions – is they have more megapixels and bigger sensors as this offers the best image quality.

Don’t let a sales person push you to buy higher megapixels unless you really need it. It’s just a shame you can’t always make photographs out of skittles!

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If you need some practice to improve your skills, a seasoned pro looking for some inspiration for your portfolio or trying to learn photography basics for beginners, a photowalk in your local area is one of the best ways to get all of these things. You can join a group, organise a group or walk with friends.

Never heard of a photo walk? It is an alternative to taking photography courses or lessons as often they are run by professionals that can give you advice, and it’s free! Here’s some more information:

What is a photowalk?

Simply walking around with a camera taking photos.  Obviously there’s slightly more to it than that. Most often it will follow a designated route though an interesting local area, perhaps a market or in a park. It’s a very social event not a formal photography class, it could be organised within a group of friends or as a gathering of total strangers all with photography in common, sharing tips and tricks as they go along. It is common to share and talk about the photos after the walk, via emails or in a group on an online site like Flickr. Most importantly they are a fun way to relax and be with other photography enthusiasts.

Image credit: Zach “Pie” Inglis Flickr Creative Commons

What do you take pictures of on a photowalk?

Landscapes, interesting people, public events, architecture, iconic landmarks, wildlife, sunsets, sunrises; whatever you want!  Look at colours, shapes, textures, patterns, light and experiment to find something interesting. The key is to find an amazing location with diversity, that can change with time of day or geographic location. Don’t always go for well known tourist spots, explore around the backstreets and visit different times of the day or year. It also helps to stand still for a moment and look everywhere to seek out your shot.

Image credit: Chris Heuer Flickr Creative Commons

How long is a photowalk?

It varies but can be anything you want; you’re not committed to stay on a certain route or for a certain length of time. But a good standard is around two hours or one to two miles in length. Larger groups of people move slower! You can combine it with a stop for coffee or lunch along the route if you find yourself somewhere with particularly nice looking cafes!

What do you need for a photowalk?

You are going to be walking around for a lengthy period of time and likely will need to travel to and from the destination so the idea is to pack light. Here’s a simple packing list idea:

1. Camera. Obviously. A DSLR or SLR, or even point and shoot are all acceptable options for a walk.
2. If you are bringing a DSLR minimise the extra lenses you bring, and if you are bringing multiple options make sure they’re lightweight. Your shoulders will thank you.
3. Extra batteries and memory card – nothing worse than running out of power or space and being stuck watching other people take photos.
4. Pencil/notebook/smartphone to jot down any ideas you have about photos or locations for later.
5. Comfortable shoes. Don’t forget you’ll be walking.
6. Sunscreen/hat/umbrella/raincoat/gloves or all of them depending on the climate you’re shooting in. Don’t let the weather get in your way!
7. Bottle of water. You may be shooting in a desert or a city, either way you will get thirsty.
8. Snacks. If the walk gets too much, lasts too long, or your attention starts to wonder to dinner this can prove a great motivator, or you might just get hungry!

How do you join and where do you find out about a photowalk?

When it’s all over a photowalk will usually end up in a bar or local pub, so if anything that’s a good reason to go along!

Searching on the internet for photowalk and your nearest county/state/city/town will usually do the trick to find one to take part in near you. Some are free, some are run by professional photographers or tour guides that will charge a fee, or just organise your own!

If you live in London like us or are just on a visit try joining London Photo Walk, they organise brilliant free photowalks in touristy and not-so-well known spots around the city.

If you get really keen World Wide Photowalk organises a huge global annual photowalk in October and you can search for the nearest one for you to join.  It’s free to join, there’s even a competition for best photo and various prizes.

Final thought

This website uses smartphones and google+ to share virtual photo walks with anybody in hospital, housebound or just bored on their lunch break looking to transport to somewhere new or familiar. What a great idea!

Don’t forget to get your favourite photo from your walk printed and displayed on a photo canvas or try a different kind of photo gift over at Bags of Love.

Where is your favourite spot to take photos? It doesn’t have to be in London, we’d love to know!

Use this Photoshop Action to quickly turn a photograph into a photorealistic canvas!

How to use;

• Create a new image. The Canvas size must be 800 x 800 px. Unfortunately there’s no way round this limit (We’ll be writing a step-by-step guide on how to do this soon, so you can follow along click for click if you need a bigger image)
• Ensure the image you want is on a layer named ‘Layer 1’
• Run the action
• …..profit.

A note on sharing: You are free to use our resources for whatever you want. However, if you decide to share this, we ask that you link back to this post and don’t re-host the file.

We all know the question “If your house was burning down what would you save?” Most people would answer this with cherished photographs of their family, childhood or wedding. The photos that capture interests, emotion, relationships and love are the ones we love best.

If you’ve been thinking for a while you want to have the kind of photo you would rescue from your burning house, now is the time to capture that memory! There is no time like the present to go and take a memorable picture.

What makes a photo memorable is subjective and depends on the person. Some people find cheesy family reunion photos very memorable and others may find them tacky or awkward. Taking candid pictures is an increasingly popular request of photographers at weddings or gatherings and can be a totally different way of looking at creating those memorable images. But which is best, candid or formal photography?

Formal Photography

The best examples of formal photography are those family portraits or professional wedding shots of the bride and groom.  It works better than candid shots for large groups of people and they are a great way to gather family members who are never in the same place and at the same time.

The classic portrait can stand the test of time, there is a huge appeal in formal photos – that’s why school photos are still being done! A beautiful perfectly lit wedding photo or family portrait will be the photo that is looked at in a hundred years time by great-great-grandchildren to learn about their family members. If they are shot well, and in a good location these kind of photos will be enjoyed for a long time.

An example of formal photo

Allyson Campbell Photography

The downside of this kind of photo though is that a lot of people don’t like having their picture taken! A formal photo can look posed, awkward or too fake. A good solution if you feel this way is to try candid photography.

Candid Photography

Another word to describe candid photography would be photojournalistic. Candid photos are much more natural, people are relaxed, and they can convey emotion, show interaction and capture fun! More often you want to take pictures of family and friends this way, it requires less equipment and is more spontaneous. It is a good way to take photos of smaller groups that know each other well, or children who find it impossible to concentrate or behave for a large photo shoot!

What is great about these kinds of photos is that you can use a simple point and shoot camera, and these are often preferred as a huge in-your-face camera would not take natural photos – everyone would be aware of you poking a long lens into their conversations! The photos do not have to be perfect as blurring and other faults are an accepted part of the art of candid photography.

An example of candid photo 

Limelight Photography

Candid photos can be a lot more difficult to take and more often than not are taken by accident and luck and not any specific technique! You shots can be out of focus or capture the subject cut in half, halfway off frame. Also standing in a party continually behind your camera with a big zoom lens can look very creepy and people will become obviously uncomfortable in the pictures. Candid photos can make unphotogenic people look more photogenic, but also vice versa, just whatever you do don’t take pictures of people eating food! They will not thank you for the unflattering angle.

Which is best for that cherished “I would rescue from a fire” photo?

The answer is either. Whichever works for you and your family or friends. Just don’t leave those family photos stuck on discs and hard drives!

A Lichtenstein painting is instantly recognisable: the bright bold colours, clean black outlines and characteristic Ben-Day dots. They are remarkable motifs inspired by mechanical industrial printing methods, mimicking techniques but all painted by hand on traditional canvas. Roy Lichtenstein started by copying Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse from his son’s book on to canvas. His inspiration came from comic strips and cheaply printed advertising and commercial imagery such as newspaper ads and catalogues.

As an iconic American image, his work is a huge source of inspiration 50 years later in all areas of design and visual imagery.

In the 1960’s his painting style went totally off tangent with Abstract Expressionism – the in vogue style at the time – in his famous exhibition in 1962 that provoked strong positive or negative reactions from gallery viewers. It is difficult to imagine this kind of art work provoking such controversy and divided opinion nowadays, which is testament to how influential the pop art movement was.

Pop art came from London in the 1950’s, although no one person really invented it, it was inspired by already widespread advertisements and consumer packaging. Pop art is influenced by popular or ‘materialistic’ culture, following the post WWII obsessions with shopping and celebrity. An art critic called Lawrence Alloway was the first person to use the term pop art in print in 1958.

Lichtenstein is criticised for showing no development, progression and little variation in style over his career since 1965 from these first famous comic book works. Many people disagree that his style can be classed as fine art. What makes one creation ‘art’ and another ‘not art’ can be said that the artist has brand value, and can sell an everyday object, like the subjects in Lichtenstein’s paintings. So some feel that he turned the comic into art, and others do not, you can decide for yourself. His later works include some great Chinese landscapes, interior paintings and parodies of Pollock and Picasso amongst others, but always using his trademark printing style and colour palette.

If you’re still unsure, here are some hallmark characteristics of Pop Art:

• Images from popular culture or products.
• Bright colours
• 2D style like comics
• Celebrities or fictional characters from magazines or comics.

The pop in Pop Art is defined as young, glamorous, low cost and for the mass audience. No-one fulfils this more than another famous pop artist, Andy Warhol.

The Tate Modern in London currently has an exhibition of Lichtenstein running until 27th May. It is the first full scale retrospective in over 20 years, and unites 125 of his most iconic paintings and sculptures. Rather brilliantly there is an audio guide with Lichtenstein’s own words about some of the paintings, you should download this on iTunes beforehand. Many of the works, including one of his most famous ‘Whaam’ are displayed with the original drafts and comic book they were based from, a great story for the viewer of progression from the idea to the finish.

If you want to learn more you can follow Tate Modern’s first ever twitter tour, on Thursday 25^th April at 18.00 BST with @Tate #TateTour. Or if you’re feeling creative check out the Pop Art and Lichtenstein style canvases on photo-canvas, where you can create your own work of art using your very own photos.

Canvas Prints For Valentine’s Day

At Photo Canvas we have a wide range of canvas prints that you can personalise for your Valentine with your most precious and most magical photos. If you have a beautiful image that you want to be displayed and shown in your home to all who live and visit there, it’s high time that you thought about the space on the wall that it is going to go and the specific size and effects that you would like it to be and have. Picture your home right now – does the sitting room look a little bland? Is the dining room in need of some design inspiration? If so, and you think you have the photos to do just that, why not transform them into fabulous and stunning canvas prints for your valentine that will make him or her feel so honoured and lucky to have you as an other half. Did you know that in Spanish, the idiom for ‘other half’ or ‘soulmate’ is ‘media naranja’, which, translated into English, means ‘half orange’? Show her how she completes you and gift her a beautiful photo canvas print that she will treasure for many, many years to come. Canvas prints for your valentine that you can customise in just the way you’d like.

Valentine’s Day Canvas Prints

The beauty of canvas printing is primarily that you can use any photos, graphics, or text that you think would look great on canvas. Choose that gorgeous photo from the earliest stages of your relationship, or perhaps one of a day out to the seaside, to really make your boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife feel special and valued by you. He or she will really appreciate your thoughtfulness and will definitely thank you for having designed something extra amazing just for them. When you have personalised a gift solely for the recipient who means so much to you, it inevitably gains an extra sentimental value simply because it is something unique. Canvas prints for your valentine as a beautiful gift for a special day.