Zaza Gallery Canvas Photo Print Review

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

So about a month ago (jeez, it’s been a month already…!) I wrote that a company called Zaza Gallery that makes canvas photo prints had offered to give me a free canvas if I would review the product here on the blog. The technology that drives many of today’s photo products is evolving so rapidly that I’m always interested in hearing about and trying out new vendors, so I was happy to take them up on it.

Their initial offer was for a 16″ x 20″ photo canvas. I shoot on Canon cameras, whose sensors are built with a 3:2 aspect-ratio frame (meaning the width of the image is 1.5x the height) and like many pros, whenever possible I use the entire frame when composing my shots (this is a good practice, as it maximizes the sensor area that you’re using for your final composition, thereby maximizing the image quality). As a result, the 16×20 canvas was a different aspect ratio (5:4) than my intended composition. I brought this to the attention of the company, and they generously offered to instead provide me with a 16×24 canvas, which matched my images’ 3:2 aspect ratio.

Zaza directs that for best quality, the image file that customers provide for printing have a resolution of 300 dpi in order to preserve detail in the final print. This is good, because in order to achieve the great detail of true professional-quality prints, high resolution is essential. For a 16×24 print though, this works out to 4800×7200 pixels, or approximately 35 megapixels, which is a higher resolution than even the best pro cameras widely used today (there are a small number of exotic systems that can achieve this resolution natively). What this means is that to make a Zaza canvas print properly, photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom is needed to increase the resolution of image files (known as “up-resing”). Since up-resing can result in nasty pixelation, artifacting and other image degradation if not done carefully, images that will be used to print high-quality prints such as canvases must be originally captured in the highest resolution possible.

In any case, for this test canvas, I chose to use one of my more recent photos (featured previously on the blog as the first Photo of the Day, here) which I called “Daybreak”. Here is the photo:

I chose to use this photo because it would really put the Zaza printing process through its paces: With its heavily saturated colors it would test Zaza’s ability to color-match, the absolute blacks in the silhouettes and sky would test the ability to achieve true black, and the smooth fade-to-black in the sky would test Zaza’s ability to print smooth gradients.

I prepared the image file according to Zaza’s specifications, with the appropriate resolution, format (Zaza takes standard JPG files) and embedded sRGB color profile (color profiles are essential for accurate color reproduction) and sent the image off. In about a week and a half (which is a normal turnaround time for canvas prints like this) I received the finished canvas. It was packaged well-protected, in a cardboard box in a plastic bag covered in bubble-wrap. Here is the finished canvas:

Zaza offers a number of different wrapping style options – a traditional “gallery wrap,” in which the image extends beyond the edges of the frame and continues on the sides, white and black wraps, in which image extends only to the edge of the frame and the sides are white or black, and finally “mirror wraps” and “blur wraps,” which are the best of both worlds: the image extends only to the edges of the frame (meaning the image is not cut off), but the edges are colored either by a reflection of the edge of the image or a blur of the edge of the image (which is nice so that the sides, if visible when hung, have some color and look like a real gallery wrap). I elected for the blur-wrap style. I haven’t seen this option with other canvas print vendors, and it is really nice. Your image doesn’t get clipped, but you still get nice coloration on the sides of the frame.

The quality of the final product is very good. The frame is sturdy and the canvas is stretched quite taut and stapled very securely. As far as the print quality:

-The color reproduction is very good. The colors matched the file I provided, and the saturation and vividness are excellent. Neither over- nor under-saturated.

-The blacks are truly black, the white truly white. Overall, contrast is excellent.

-Detail sharpness is average. On extremely close inspection I can make out a bit of fuzziness in the details, but this is to be expected from a file that was up-res’ed. And in any case no one viewing the print on a wall will get close enough to see the level of detail that I was inspecting. No complaints here.

-Like nearly all canvas prints I’ve seen, the print reflects a moderate amount of glare light, so care must be taken in regard to where the canvas is hung to avoid glare light. But again, this is common for canvas prints.

So there you have it, that’s my review! This canvas will hang proudly on my studio wall. Good job Zaza!

Tags: 300 dpi, Adobe, artifacting, aspect ratio, blur wrap, Canon, Canvas, Canvas photo print, color matching, color profile, color saturation, detail, gallery wrap, glare, image degradation, Lightroom, megapixels, mirror wrap, Photoshop, pixelation, resolution, review, sharpness, sRGB, up-resing, vendor, vividness, Zaza Gallery
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