Turn Your Instagram Photos Into Works of Art on Canvas

canvas art

Dreami of hanging your Instagram photos in your living room? A new service will allow you to do just that, printing your best snapshots on “museum-quality canvas.” The service is called Instacanv.as, and it officially launches Wednesday.

With Instacanv.as, you first choose which of your images you'd like transferred to canvas.Users sign in with their Instagram accounts and choose a photo from their Instagram profiles, or browse through shots from other contributors to the site. The canvas prints come in three sizes: 12 inches by 12 inches, 16 inches by 16 inches, and 20 inches by 20 inches. Your photos can be printed on either black or white canvas. Pricing starts at $31.99 plus shipping.

Virtual Gallery for Sellers

If you fancy yourself an Instagram photography pro, Instacanv.as allows you to set up your own virtual gallery and sell your prints to site visitors. Each time the service sells one of your prints, you receive 20% of the purchase price, and the rights to the photo remain yours. The company touches your photos up using a proprietary algorithm that allows the site to resize photos up without making them blurry, which is done in order to ensure quality prints, it says.

While Instagram photographers may be itching to sell their works of art right away, the early success of Instacanv.as has the site struggling to catch up. The gallery waiting list is “tens of thousands” of users long according to the company, and it may be a while before you can sell those first prints.

silk painting

There is a way to jump in front of the line and get your gallery sooner: Ask friends and family to like and tweet your gallery’s “coming-soon” page. Each like, tweet, Google +1, or Pinterest Pin will give you a point. The galleries with the highest number of points each week are given priority by site administrators.

While Instacanv.as seems fresh, it’s actually not a new idea and already has a fair amount of competition. Prinstagr.am will print your photos on t-shirts, cardstock, and even in poster form, while Bumblejax offers a similar service to Instacanv.as, printing photos on a range of materials including acrylic, bamboo, and aluminum.

canvas art

Instacanv.as is one of the cheaper options out there though, and Matt Munson, the company’s CEO, says the company is focused on keeping the sometimes fickle Instagram community happy (just look at the hub-bub over Android users being left in). That may be a task in and of itself.