Before we begin to prepare our soccer star for a mounted, gallery wrapped canvas, there are a few things to consider. Not every photo is perfectly suited for mounted canvas. Ideally, your shot will have plenty of head and foot room, or less important parts that can be wrapped and still have a good composition. This is our starting photo.

Before we start our file prep, we need to decide on a final print size. In this example we'll be creating a 20x30" mounted canvas. You then need to check this page. This is very important, as it shows the actual size you'll want to crop, to compensate for the gallery wrap. Notice for the 20x30" size, the actual print size is 22.0 x 32.5". This is what we'll be cropping our original photo to before uploading to SmugMug.

Open up Photoshop or your favorite image editor, and select the crop tool, and put in the exact numbers given to us by the Mounted Canvas Prints screen above. For our 20x30" size, this is 22.0 in. X 32.50 in. Leave the resolution/DPI box blank. This tells us that 2 inches will be used to wrap the sides (1 inch on each side), and 2-1/2 inches will be used to wrap over the top and bottom for this print size.

Now, we just crop how we like, leaving plenty of head and foot room. Remember, at this size, 2.5 inches vertically and 2 inches horizontally are going to be additionally lost (wrapped around the frame).

Here is our new, very exacting, crop. This is the size that will be uploaded to SmugMug, then sent to the lab. But how can we get a better idea of how it's going to wrap?

Back in Photoshop, choose the Selection Tool, and set it to "Fixed Size" and put in the final canvas size after wrapping, in our case, 20x30". Now, click on the photo. Try your best to center the selection. Voila! This is a good representation of the viewable area of your new canvas print. Anything outside the selection will be wrapped; anything inside will be visible.

Another very important thing to consider here is that with a high quality print such as canvas, it will likely end up in a frame. While you cannot usually predict the type of frame, most will obscure a little more of the viewable area of the canvas, so keep this in mind when cropping!

Here is what we can expect from wrapping and the mounting process. Next, we head off to SmugMug to upload our photo and place the order.

Upload your photo, add it to the cart, make your mounted canvas selection. Notice, there is NO red crop box. If you DO see a red crop box, it should encompass 100% of the entire thumbnail. Do NOT crop mounted canvas prints in the shopping cart. Here's why:

This red crop box represents the same 22.0 x 32.5 crop that we made in Photoshop. This is NOT to adjust the visible portion of the 20x30" print. If we leave this crop, it will crop our original file, then take an additional 2 x 2.5" to wrap the canvas to the frame, and also force the lab to upscale your image, stretching it so it equals 22.0 x 32.5. Don't do this!

Here is our finished canvas print. Plenty of headroom for a frame, and just what we expected to print.

Overview

1) Choose a good candidate for canvas with plenty of head/foot room.

2) Review the ACTUAL dimensions here.

3) Crop to exact size, then preview with a selection.

4) Upload, add to cart, but never crop within the cart unless you fully understand that this crop is BEFORE wrapping.

5) Enjoy your new, gorgeous, mounted canvas!