Free Poster and Canvas Maker

Resolution for printed posters

Print resolution is the thing most people get wrong, and it cannot be fixed after the fact. The working rule is 300 DPI at final print size for anything viewed close up, and 150 DPI is acceptable for large pieces viewed from a distance.

A 12 by 18 inch poster at 300 DPI needs a source image of roughly 3600 by 5400 pixels. A photo straight from a modern phone camera usually clears this comfortably; a picture saved from a social media feed usually does not, because those services re-encode uploads down to screen resolution.

Choosing a frame

The frame is doing a specific job: separating the image from the wall behind it. Black borders suit high-contrast and monochrome images and disappear against dark walls. Wood tones warm up landscapes and portraits. Gold trim reads as formal and works for keepsakes and anniversary pieces.

The width matters as much as the colour. A wide border makes a small image feel deliberate; a narrow one on a large image reads as a mistake.

Captions

A caption anchors an image in time and place, which is most of what makes a personal print worth hanging. A place and a year is usually enough. Long captions compete with the image rather than supporting it.

The caption sits below the image inside the frame, in the same serif face used across the site.

Your photo stays on your device

The uploaded photo is read into a canvas element in your own browser and drawn there. It is never transmitted, and it is deliberately not written to local storage either, because image data would exhaust the browser's storage quota. Your caption and frame choice are saved; the photo is not, so reload the page and you will need to select it again.