What Is Printable Wall Art?
In digital art terms, a printable is an artwork that you can either buy online or in our case get for free. You will have access to a downloadable digital file, in our case in JPG or PDF format. From this, you can then print your art directly from your printer at home, or for a more professional result, have it printed in your local print shop. This form of wall art is so affordable you can update your decor whenever you feel like it.
How To Download Digital Wall Art
What Sizes Are Available?
Many printables come in a variety of sizes and ratios, but in order to save you a lot of work, all our download files are based around the well known metric format of A5, A4, A3 etc. This means that the aspect ratio stays the same even if you decide to alter the resolution. Simply put, an aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between the width and height of an image. Whereas many aspect ratios offer 2x3 (1x1.5) or 5x7 (1x1.4), by using metric sizing, all our aspect ratios are 1x1.41.
What is High Resolution?
All of the download files for our printables are high resolution 300DPI. DPI stands for the number of dots in a printed inch, and is used to determine an image resolution. Basically, the more dots the higher the quality of the print, thus the more sharpness and details. 300DPI is the optimal size for a clear and crisp printed picture, but you can, of course, reduce the resolution slightly to resize, make the image larger. However, bear in mind that any image printed with less than 150DPI will start to look quite pixelated and blurry.
What Paper Is Best?
To achieve a high quality print, the quality of paper that you use is very important. It is recommend that you print on a much thicker and heavier paper than your standard "photocopy" 80gsm paper. I would say at least 120 to 160gsm would give a decent result. If your printer can handle it, you could always try printing on card with a minimum weight of 240gsm. Printing on a heavier paper is vital as it will give your print some rigidity, and help to prevent curling and warping.
Most people would recommend paper or card with a matte finish, especially for artworks, as they create a smoother look. In general, using glossy photo paper would be less recommended although this sometimes works for certain poster art.
The Print Shop Option
If you are reluctant to print your printables at home, or unable to achieve the quality that you want with the equipment you have to hand, you can have them printed at your local print shop or utilise one of the many online printing services available. This will offer you a lot more choice on the paper or card type and thickness that you would prefer to have your digital art printed on. Many of these services also offer the option of print to canvas, which you may want to consider.
