Having a photograph printed on canvas gives it a bit of the painterly texture of an oil portrait. To elevate a snapshot to gallery status, eliminate the commonplace. Whether you manipulate your own digital images or have the lab do it, “crop out recognizable objects, like the living-room lamp, and zoom in on faces,” says Jay Jeffers, an interior designer who works in San Francisco and Los Angeles. (Canvas is not a good choice for a bathroom. Humidity may cause it to shrink or warp.)
Where to get it: Photoworks (www.photoworks.com) prints digital pictures of up to 36 by 48 inches on canvas. Specify the final size of the image and verify that at least three additional inches of blank canvas will be left on all sides. (In this unframed photo, an inch or so of white was retained as a border.) The piece will arrive rolled up in a poster tube in about a week.
Cost: About $100 for a 24-by-36-inch canvas.
How to hang it: You’ll need a stretcher (an easily assembled wooden understructure for canvases; about $20 at art-supply stores) and a staple gun. Place the canvas on the stretcher, center the image within it, then turn the whole thing upside down and staple the canvas to two opposite sides of the stretcher, keeping the image taut but not distorted. Repeat for the other sides.