Here, we take a look at Pixum's offerings for wall mounted prints and see how good the print quality is.
| Printed ProductsPixum are one of the leading printed product websites in Europe, offering a wide variety of gifts and keepsakes from canvases and photobooks to calendars, mugs and even phone cases.
As Christmas is a time for giving, and we know a lot of you talented members will be considering making prints for family or friends we have tested Pixum's Wall photo section to help you choose the best medium for your image.
We have on test 7 of Pixum's most popular wall art offerings:
The Ordering Process
There are 3 steps to the ordering process on Pixum.co.uk - select your material, upload your photo and select the size of the product you want.
Clicking the orange 'Create now' button presents you with a selection of products to choose from. You can then upload your photo from your PC, choose one from the Pixum gallery or select one from your dropbox.
Once you have chosen your image you are presented with a screen allowing you to choose the size of your canvas and the ratio (square, 3:2, panorama etc). The silhouette of a woman is a handy guide so you can see roughly how large an image is when next to a person, allowing you to get a better idea of the size you need. Prices vary per product and per size - you can see the prices below for a gallery print in 3:2 format.
Once you click 'Next' you are presented with a room simulator, allowing you to see what the image will look like on a wall. Again, this is a handy guide for scale but also to see if the picture looks right with your colour schemes. You can edit the wall and floor colours of the room to better emulate this for your personal styles.
Clicking 'Add to basket' then allows you to choose a mounting system for the print. 3 are available:
- Wallhanger screws: Your product is delivered with pre-drilled holes. Using four decorative screws (included with your product) to attach it to the wall, the distance to the wall is around 20mm (just less than an inch). This option adds £10 to your order.
- Mirror Wallhangers: The rails are attached to the back of your product and cannot be seen when observing your picture. The image is around 10mm (around half an inch) from the wall. These are included as standard.
- Wallhanger clamping system: The four clamps will be delivered along with your motive. Simply mount the 4 claws on the wall and attach your photo. The distance to the wall is about 20 cm. This option adds £10 to your order.
You are then directed to the basket page, where you can pay and check out. Overall, the ordering process if very clean and fast. We really like the additions of the scale calculator silhouette and room simulation so you can really see how the image will look without actually having to order anything.
Packaging
Our 7 orders arrived separately, over the course of 3 or 4 days. Each print is packaged in a cardboard sleeve with foam padding on the corners or surrounded by bubblewrap, depending on the product. The more fragile products were clearly labelled as such, which was good.
None of the products arrived damaged and all of the acrylic fronted products had a protective layer over the image which could be peeled off, making sure no scratches were made during transit. So, that's a big thumbs up on the quality of the packaging.
The Products
For the purposes of testing, we had the same image printed on all 6 products, in order to compare the quality different effects each product has on the image. Here is the image:
30x40cm Canvas - £34.99
The Canvas is of a sturdy build and the material is nice and thick. The corners are neatly folded and it doesn't feel flimsy. What's a little disappointing is that the folding of the canvas has cut off some of the building on the right. Some sites give you the option to 'mirror' the image along the edges to avoid loss of the image on the front, however there didn't appear to be an option for this. There is a warning on the website to leave important parts of the image at least 4cm away from the edge of the frame.
Colour is vibrant on the canvas and overall it gives a pleasing image.
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40x40cm Forex print - £24.99
Forex is made from 2 thin plastic sheets housing a hard foam centre, making it a really lightweight and durable material ideal for thin walls. This print is square, which means some of the detail to the left of the frame is missing and it also means that the pink sky has been extended upwards to fill the space. Despite these changes, the print quality is good and there is still lots of detail in the image despite the roughly textured surface, which is ideal for places where reflection and glare might be an issue.
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40x30cm Aluminium print - £33.99
The aluminium print is the thinnest of all the prints available and has a matt finish but also a slight sheen due to the metal. This is a really nice touch especially to this image as it makes the moon shine. It has a high-quality finish that will look great on any minimalist wall. This print has the screw mount system holes, which are pre-drilled and enable you to hang your wall art with 4 metal screws.
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40x30 cm Acrylic print - £35.99
We were very taken with the acrylic print, which was rather difficult to photograph well! The print is translucent, illuminating the colours of the image and giving a fantastic depth effect. It really made the image come to life, making the sky glow with colour and really bringing out the other aspects of the photo, too. It's available as a direct print (shown here) where the image is UV printed directly onto the back of the acrylic glass plate, or as a Fine Art print where the image is developed on glossy premium paper and mounted onto the acrylic glass plate.
The print feels strong and sturdy and will no doubt look fantastic when mounted on the wall.
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40x30 cm Gallery print - £56.99
This is a premium wall art option that is designed to give you a gallery-grade product worthy of displaying professionally. The print is quite heavy, but this is due to the layered nature - the image is printed on to the back of the acrylic glass and then sandwiched with an aluminium plate to give you colour brilliance and durability in the same product. The print certainly looks like something you'd see on display in a gallery and we were impressed by the depth and vibrancy of the colours.
The print is quite thick and will stand quite a way off the wall when mounted with the provided clamping system however this is what makes it look special and a league apart from other printed products.
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18" x 12" Framed print - £40.94
Pixum will create a framed print, allowing you to choose from a variety of frames in all different shades and materials to suit your photo and home decor. You can also choose from 4 different mount colours. The image inside the frame here is printed on specially coated photo printing paper. You can also choose to have the photo printed on extra matt, satin-finish, extra glossy and metallic glossy papers.
Image quality is excellent and clear and colours a rich and vivid. A matt finish was the best choice for the image here.
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45x30 cm Pine wood print - £49.95
This is a unique print idea that we've not seen widely available anywhere else. The image is printed directly onto the wood, which inevitably adds a wood grain effect to the image. We were advised against using this image on the wood format by Pixum because of the way the lines interrupt the image, and although the lines of the wood panels do split the image somewhat, we think the wood really adds something to the picture, especially in the sky - the swirling effect works well here. When viewed from a distance, the print will look great as part of a more cosy, natural atmosphere.
It's really well made and there are 2 wooden struts on the back which have the mirror style mounts on the back. It's quite heavy and chunky but once on the wall will make a good feature piece. Despite the added textures from the wood, the picture doesn't seem to have lost much detail - the print quality, to say it's directly on to pine, is really excellent.
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Overall, we were impressed by the quality of all the printed products we tested. All appear to be well made, sturdy and the fact that you can choose your mounting system are an added bonus. For 'wow' factor, we'd recommend either the acrylic print or gallery grade print. These will look really great when mounted to the wall using either the screw mounts or clamp mounts, giving a more modern feel to the images. The framed print is also a great option if you don't want the hassle of searching for a frame to fit your image and you like a traditional large print.
ePHOTOzine would happily recommend Pixum's products for quality printing, great packaging and innovative presentation ideas.
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