What is the Best Resolution for Canvas Prints?

by William Kenny

Choosing the best resolution for canvas prints isn’t hard. Read our simple guide and you should get perfect results every time!

Here at MYPICTURE we make our canvas prints using photos that you provide. We sell a wide range of canvas size formats, so not every format we sell is compatible with every photo our customers upload.

The larger the format you want, the higher the resolution of the image file you upload needs to be. Put simply, if you want a big canvas print, you need a big photo!

In this article we’ll explain more about photo resolutions, tell you how you can find out the resolution of your photo, and list the minimum resolutions required for each of our canvas print formats.

What is a Photo Resolution Anyway?

The resolution of a photo file refers to the dimensions of the image. It’s often called the pixel count, because the dimensions are measured in pixels. A pixel is one of the tiny squares of pure colour that make up any digital image.

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An example of a photo resolution is 1024 x 768 px, with the “px” standing for “pixels”. The photo in question would be 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high.

The size of a photo on your screen can be increased or decreased, but the number of pixels will stay the same – they’ll just get larger or smaller. And if a photo is blown up (enlarged) too much, the individual pixels will become visible to the human eye. This causes the blurry (or “pixelated”) effect you’ll recognise from poor-quality images online.

that’s too big, the dots of ink corresponding to the pixels will be too large – and the image quality will suffer.

You Can’t Choose the Wrong Format at MYPICTURE

But here’s the good news! When ordering at our shop, you don’t need to worry about choosing a format too large and getting a blurry result.

That’s because our product design system analyses your uploaded photo and offers you only the formats best suited to it. We’d rather print no canvas at all than print a substandard one.

But this can be confusing for customers if they’ve got a particular print format in mind but they can’t see it as an option.

What to Do if You’re Not Offered the Format You Want

If the format you want is listed on our Formats & Prices page but you can’t see it as an option after uploading your image file, there are two possible reasons for this:

1. The resolution (a.k.a. pixel count) of your photo is too low for a top-quality print to be achievable in that format.

2. The aspect ratio of your photo doesn’t match that print format. For the same reasons of quality control, we don’t offer you a format if its aspect ratio is too different from that of your image. If we did, your photo would need to be cropped too severely.

Note: See section below for more about aspect ratios!

If your photo isn’t bringing up the format you want, please check the resolution and aspect ratio of your image file. If either is unsuitable for the format, you may need to upload a different photo. But if everything seems to be in order, please get in touch with us and we’ll try to help.

Photo Resolution vs Aspect Ratio

The resolution and aspect ratio of a photo are closely related, but they shouldn’t be confused with one another.

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While photo resolution simply expresses the height and width of an image in pixels, aspect ratio measures the width-to-height ratio of an image.

Example: if an image has a resolution of 800 x 600 px, its aspect ratio is 4:3.

That means it would be perfect for canvas print formats with the same aspect ratio, such as 40 x 30cm and 80 x 60cm. But the match doesn’t need to be exact, just good enough.

How to Check the Resolution of Your Photo

1. Right-click on the image file on your computer and select “Properties”.

2. When the Properties window comes up, select the “Details” tab.

3. The resolution is shown next to “Dimensions” in the “Image” section.

Minimum Photo Resolution for Canvas Prints – the Full List

Below we list all the canvas print formats sold at MYPICTURE, along with the minimum photo resolution recommended for each one.

We hope you find it helpful! 

Square Formats:

Landscape Formats:

Portrait Formats:

Panorama Formats:

"Vertorama" Formats:

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