Photo To Canvas Guide: All About Bleed

It's one of the most important options when transferring your photo to canvas but just what exactly do 'bleed' and 'no-bleed' mean? In this guide, we'll tell you everything you need to know about bleed. And no, it won't hurt (sorry, we couldn't resist.)

Simply, bleed refers to the type of edges used on the sides of your finished, canvas print. Think of a box canvas print in three dimensions. It has a height and width, but also a depth or thickness. As the canvas is stretched over the frame so as to let no frame show, the sides of the piece are also printed. This means that the edges of your photo can be wrapped around the sides of the frame, giving the characteristic bleed or 'gallery wrapped' effect of canvas prints.

This bleed effect can look great when used with certain types of photo. Landscapes and seascape photos, for example, often look amazing when the photo carries-on around the side of the piece. Photos with lots of background around the edges also work really nicely. However, this effect can also be problematic for some photos of people and objects that are cropped closely.

If the subject is too close to the edges of the photo, it will mean that this part will go over the sides when we stretch your photo on canvas onto the frame. You can see this yourself when you use our Canvas Configurator to upload your image. Our website automatically shows how some of the sides wrap the sides of the stretcher frame. This allows you to get an idea of whether any important parts of your photo will be wrapped onto the sides of your finished canvas photo.

One thing to bear in mind is that the amount of your photo that is wrapped around the size depends on the size of canvas print you are ordering. This is because the frames are always the same depth (1.5".) This means that an 8 x 10" canvas print will wrap more of your photo round the sides than a 24 x 36" canvas print because the ratio of depth to height/width is greater.

The easiest way to understand this relationship is to imagine wrapping a small version of your photo around a matchbox. The photo would be slightly larger than the front of the matchbox; enough to cover the sides as well. A significant amount of the tiny photo would be wrapped round the sides, because the depth of the matchbox is nearly half as long as one of its sides.

Then imagine wrapping an enlarged version of your photo around a table-top of the same thickness as the matchbox. Because the depth is now so insignificant compared to the size of the tabletop, only a tiny proportion of the photo would go round the sides. So how to solve this problem for smaller photos and photos that are cropped closely?

A great alternative to bleed is to have solid coloured edges as the sides of your finished canvas piece. We refer to this as no-bleed. This ensures that your photo only makes up the front of the canvas and doesn't wrap around the sides. In addition to smart, classic options like black, white and grey, our Canvas Configuator gives you a huge range of colours to choose from. You could choose a blue to match the sea, or a rich green to match your woodland scene; the choices are endless!

The best way to understand these options is to see them for yourself, so why not try our unique canvas configurator with one of your own photos today?