Best Canvas Review – from a Pro Photographer

Today I’m sharing an honest and in-depth review of the products we purchased from Best Canvas/Canvas Discount. For full disclosure, for my initial order I received a discount to facilitate our previous post – but I have since ordered a lot more product from them, as you will see! All thoughts and opinions shared on my site are 100% my own.

Best Canvas/Canvas Discount Review

This post is a follow-up to our post on How to Create Gorgeous Gallery Photo Walls.

All of the photo products that were shown in that post were ordered from Best Canvas/Canvas Discount (Best Canvas is the Canadian site and Canvas Discount is the US site) so I thought it would be helpful to share an honest and in-depth review of the products and experience of ordering.

In the blog post below, I go in-depth into the ordering, shipping and product quality that I experienced, but if you want the TL;DR version – I’d recommend them to friends and family and I’ve already placed more orders for products from them. Yes, there were a couple hiccups – which I share below so that you know exactly what to expect.

If you decide to try them out, use SUGAR25OFF to get 25% off your order at BestCanvas.ca (for Canadians) and CanvasDiscount.com (for Americans).

I ordered from the Canadian site as I was using the products to decorate our Canadian home (long-time readers know that we split our time between the US and Canada).

The products that I ordered from Best Canvas included:

• Photo on Acrylic: photos are printed directly on an high gloss acrylic glass panel that is UV-, scratch- and moisture-resistant 
• Canvas Prints: photos printed on a stretched canvas on pine wood frames (I ordered 4 different sizes – from 8″ x 8″ to 20″ x 30″)
• Photo Pillow: photos printed on a washable silk pillow case that comes with a soft pillow insert

They also have a variety of other products including photo puzzles, photo towels, custom blankets, photos on metal, etc.

Ordering Experience

I found the experience of selecting and understanding the products on the website to be really straight-forward and honest. The sites are well-designed so you can easily navigate and understand your photo-printing options and understand the type of product that you will be receiving.

Add-ons (like photo-hanging hardware) were presented immediately as you were designing and adding products to your cart, which I appreciated compared to if they had offered them after I had made all of my selections. I knew the full price of each product upfront rather than having a bunch of add-on costs at the last minute.

Product Designing

When ordering a photo product from their site, they have the options to zoom in and expand the image on your canvas, however they don’t have the option to rotate an image on a product and if there is a limit on how much an image can be zoomed in.

So, if you have a great vertical picture that you want placed on a horizontal canvas you need to edit the photo to be horizontal before uploading it to their platform. This can be done easily using photoshop or free photo editing websites like Canva.com but it does add an extra step.

I found that the previews of the products shown on the website was very accurate with how the products were when received – with the exception of the photo on acrylic (described below).

Their website also saves the images that you are working on – so if you start ordering that great wedding shot as a canvas but decide to switch it up and order it as a photo blanket instead, you don’t need to re-upload the image. (This is also helpful when you’re ordering multiple products – you can see which images you have already ordered in the design screen without having to double-check your cart.)

Shipping Times

Despite ordering my products during the holidays, all shipments were received well below the estimated shipping time – all orders were placed, fulfilled, shipped and received in less than a week! 

The products also all arrived incredibly well packaged with padding and protective plastic sleeves.

Product Quality

Hands down, the price and quality of the canvas prints is the best I could have hoped for.

A big part of my job is photography (and I do freelance photography for food brands and cookbooks), so I notice things like pixelation and saturation that may not bother some buyers. I was incredibly happy with the detail and color accuracy of the canvases that I ordered – even on the smallest canvases, you can see every wisp of hair or every water ripple and all of the colors were accurate to the pictures I uploaded.

The canvases all had even, crisp edges and were cut well on the underside of the canvas so they were easy to hang and fit flush to the walls. There were no messy edges or poor stapling work.

The canvas prints give a softness to the images that creates more warmth than traditional framed pictures while the printed edges gives the photos a bit of extra dimension.

For the photo on acrylic, the acrylic layer was thinner than the images on the website suggested – it’s about 1/10″ and the image on the site made it look thicker – almost like an acrylic photo block. This is a positive as a thicker acrylic piece wouldn’t be as lightweight to hang but I did find the image on the site was a bit exaggerated.

There was a small bubble on the backside of our photo that I worried would be visible when the photo was hung. However, the small blemish is practically unnoticeable when the image was hung. I did have to attach the photo hardware myself, but it was very easy to do since it was self-adhesive and I think it makes sense with this type of product as if it was shipped with the hardware already attached there would be more chances that it would be damaged in transit.

I love the finish of the photo on acrylic. It’s the perfect alternative to framed pictures if you don’t want your image boxed in with a frame or can’t find a frame that fits with the aesthetic of the rest of your wall. It’s glossy and chic and gives pictures a bit of a 3D effect that really helps the subject of the photo pop. While I have a lot of framed paintings in my home, I find the frameless look to be a lot more modern and I will definitely be ordering more of these photos on acrylic in the future.

For the photo cushion, at first I was amazed that the $20 cost included the cost of the pillow insert! Basic pillow inserts can run you easily $10-15.

My pillow cover did arrive wrinkled and since there were no laundering instructions on the pillow cover (or included with the order) I had to get in touch with customer service. They responded quickly and a quick 2-minute steaming with a clothes steamer removed all of the wrinkles.

While I think it’s totally normal to receive satin pillowcases with creases or wrinkles, I would have appreciated clear laundering instructions to be included with the pillow – especially since they are white pillows which will likely need some laundering, no matter where they are displayed. Having to wait on instructions before I could use the pillow insert was a bit of a let down but now that Ella’s cat pillow is proudly displayed on her bed, we’re both really happy with the purchase and I have promised to order two more so that she can have a pillow displaying each of our three cats.

Overall, I found the process of ordering and receiving my products from Best Canvas to be easy and stress-free. (The biggest stress was picking which photos to order!)

The products were all exceptional quality – even more so when you consider their prices. While I did have moments when unboxing where I was disappointed (the lack of instructions with the pillow and the blemish with the photo on acrylic), now that the pillow is steamed and the acrylic is hung on the wall, those disappointments are put to rest and I’m extremely happy with the products.

I would 100% order from them again for myself or for a gift and would recommend them to friends or family.

I’ve shared with Best Canvas/Canvas Discount how happy I was with my order and that I planned to share my experience with my readers and they offered us a 25% off coupon code! Use SUGAR25OFF to get an additional 25% off (when spending $50) on top of the already discounted product range – in total savings more than 90%! (Plus you get free shipping on orders over $150.)

The quality and price of the products I received is incomparable. I checked around to compare the prices of the canvases and photo products I ordered from Best Canvas to other sellers (from big box sellers to smaller, boutique companies) and Best Canvas’ prices beat them out – even if I was ordering a single product and had to pay shipping on my order (which I didn’t – since I ordered enough to get frees shipping on all of my products).

If you order (or have ordered) from Best Canvas or Canvas Discount – I would love to see your projects and hear about your experience! Feel free to leave me a comment or tag me on social media to show off your photo displays.

 

Be sure to pin this post so you can save this Best Canvas/Canvas Discount coupon code!