Come in and check out the Fred Thornhill Gallery we have on display. We have some great prints from Fred here that really show off the beauty of the Kawarthas. We’re also showing prints from Mark Ridout Photography, AMD Collective, Josh Pitter and more. We have a stellar announcement coming in the next few weeks which we are very excited about. Stay tuned for more details very soon.

This studio will house all the production of canvas and fine art prints. We have a fully stocked design studio complete with iMac computers loaded with Adobe Creative Suite for graphic design. We’re offering commercial printing services through our network of specialized trade printers. Business cards, brochures, posters, stationary and business forms are all available through Spitting Images.

We are beginning to build an inventory of photography lifestyle products, including brands such as Kikkerland, Umbra and Lomography. Come in and browse our selection of photo frames, pinhole cameras, photo strips and more photography gifts. Lomo cameras (and film!) will be arriving soon.

We are so excited to share our new studio with you. Whether you are from the Peterborough and Kawartha Lakes area or will be vacationing here this summer, we’d love to see you drop by.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our family, friends and customers who helped and had patience with us through this experience. Special thanks to Fred Thornhill, Ben Grant, Ian Grant, Savarin Lumber and Twist Marketing Inc. Your contributions really made this studio come together.

As always, we have a number of promotions and announcements coming up, so watch this space for all the details. To get in touch, you can reach out to us online where you can find our BlackBerry numbers or through our social network. You can BBM by scanning this barcode or by adding the following PIN: 22B34F7D.

To get your voucher, place your order at our online store.

We’re making it a New Years resolution to be more active with our social media networks. Expect our facebook and twitter accounts to have more updates on a regular basis. We have a number of blogs, tutorials and featured artists that are on our to-do list, which we will be tackling as soon as we’re back in the office.

We’ll have a number of promotional programs that we’ll be running in 2012. They will be announced through all our online channels, specifically our e-newsletter; The State of the Art. If you’re not subscribed already, click here to get signed up so you don’t miss any of these exciting offers.

We have a new line of Floater Frames to enhance your canvas prints. They come in a variety of colours and styles. We will be posting more information and pictures very early in the New Year for you to see. For those who still prefer a solid 1 piece pine frame over the new ones, we will still offer them. The turnaround time will be longer because they are hand-stained on demand. Contact us for more information if you are interested in either of the floater frames we carry.

Finally, we are very proud to announce that Spitting Images will be opening our first retail location right here in Bobcaygeon this spring. Although we’re being deliberately vague on the specific details, it will feature a large format print studio, design studio, gallery, and we’ll be offering a selection of photography lifestyle retail products. More details will follow in the New Year, so subscribe to our blog, or follow us on our social channels to stay up to date with all the details and announcements.

Again, we’d like to thank ALL our customers for trusting your images with us. Your responses and feedback have been overwhelming. All the sleepless nights, calloused hands and paper cuts have been worth it. We look forward to seeing more of your images in the new year, and look forward to meeting many of you next year at The Canvas Studio in downtown Bobcaygeon.

Lara and Kevin.

Existing orders sent before December 1 are still on track to ship before Christmas. If you have any questions regarding orders currently in process or haven’t seen a proof of your order, let us know. Send us an email or call at 705-341-4198.

For the latest news about Spitting Images, head to our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter.

These frames signify a more durable, attractive and eco-friendly finishing option to your canvas prints. Our new floating frames will be available for the same price as our previous designs, for a limited time.

More information (and pictures!) will be made available very soon as we update the information and ordering sections of the website. If you have questions about this new product from Spitting Images, please email info@spittingimages.ca

http://www.spittingimages.ca

Client: Grant Renovations
Designer: Kevin Foster
Specs: 16pt card stock. 4/4 Offset printed
Designed with: Adobe Illustrator CS4
Typefaces: Helvetica Neue LT Std, Adobe Garamond Pro.

Canvas prints allow for more creative design options than flat prints because there are 5 sides to a canvas which should be considered when designing your file. These extra sides can be used for artist and studio branding, creative borders or can simply allow the image to continue off the face of the canvas frame.

This first tutorial outlines the most basic canvas setup – the full gallery wrap.

This wrapping technique has the photograph continue around the sides of the frame. It’s easy to set up and appears seamless when viewing the image on the wall. It’s important to remember when choosing full gallery wrap, that the image needs to have extra background that isn’t critical to the composition. A portion of the image isn’t always visible when wrapped around the side of the stretcher.

With your image open in Photoshop, decide on what size you want the canvas to be. For our purposes, we’ll assume a 16″ x 20″ canvas. Select the cropping tool (press c).

At the top of the window in the cropping options, enter 20 in (width) by 24 in (height). The extra 4″ will wrap onto the sides and back of the stretcher frame. You don’t need to enter a resolution here. However, if you choose to add text or a logo to the side of the frame, you should resample the image to 300 pixels per inch to ensure your text or logo is sharp.

Crop your image as desired, keeping in mind that 2 inches on all sides will be on the side of the frame. Press return to accept the crop.

Click on view>rulers (command+r) to bring up rulers for the document. Zoom in so you can clearly see each inch on the ruler. Drag guides to .5″, 2″, 18″ and 19.5″ from the left and .5″, 2″ and 22″ and 23.5″ from the top. This will give you an idea of how the face of the canvas will look when framed as anything on the outside of the rulers will be the side of the frame. The .5″ guides are where the canvas wraps around the back of the frame, as our standard stretchers are 1.5″ thick.

If you are adding text or a logo to the sides, try not to have it too close to the guides. As a general rule, keep a safe area of about 1/4 inch.

That is really it. Make sure your file is flattened and we recommend you save as a TIFF with LZW compression checked. For more details on file formats, see our Guide to Accurate Image Reproductions.

You are now ready to send your file to us for printing.

Thanks for reading this tutorial. I hope it helps you when designing files for canvas prints. Stay tuned for part 2 where you’ll learn how to set up  a mirror style canvas wrap.

AMD’s work spans event and wedding photography, corporate commissions, as well as portraits and self published editorials. Through collaboration with Spitting Images, they have successfully showcased their art in galleries, restaurants, and cafes across Ontario, and continue to grow their library of fine visual media.

Aaron Alleyne captures raw images of downtown Toronto. His photos reveal the essence of urban life from landscapes and ball games, to protesters and streetcars. Aaron has directed music videos for fellow AMD artist Miles Jones, Low Level Flight and Ashleigh Semkiw.

Dave Yan also known as DJ Serious & Dave Serious is a Toronto based DJ and producer and photographer. On a recent trip to Japan, Dave captured portraits and landscapes of a pre-tsunami life.

Miles Jones is an award winning hip hop artist who’s work has been featured on CSI Las Vegas and was played throughout the coverage of the 2010 Olympic Games. His music videos enjoy regular rotation on Much Music and MTV.

Check out their website, www.amdcollective.com for their latest projects. They keep regular updates on facebook and twitter as well, so you can see where they’ve been, and where they’re headed.