Choosing a canvas wrap style is one of the most important parts of preparing artwork for canvas printing. A beautiful image can lose important details if the wrap area is not planned correctly. Whether you’re printing photography, digital art, or illustrations, understanding how image wraps work helps ensure your final canvas looks curated from every angle.
In this guide, we’ll explain the differences between image wrap, mirror wrap, and border color wrap, how to properly prepare your file, and what we recommend if you want to keep the full image visible on the front of the canvas.
This guide covers how to prepare your canvas for image wrap, including essential setup techniques and best practices to help ensure your final print looks sharp, balanced, and professionally made.
- What Is a Canvas Wrap?
- Image Wrap vs. Mirror Wrap vs. Border Color Wrap
- What To Do If You Want an Image Wrap
- Recommendation to Keep the Full Image on the Front
- Best Practices Before Sending Your File for Printing
- Final Thoughts
What Is a Canvas Wrap?
A canvas wrap refers to how the printed image extends around the sides of the stretcher bars of the canvas. Instead of the artwork ending at the front-facing area, part of the image is folded around the edges to create a frameless, gallery-style presentation.
Because of this, additional image space may have to be kept in mind during file preparation. This extra space is commonly referred to as bleed or wrap allowance.
At Lumaprints, these are the bleeds for the canvas:
- For 0.75″ wraps: add 1″ extra on each side
- For 1.25″ wraps: add 1.875″ extra on each side
- For 1.5″ gallery wraps: add 2″ extra on each side
For example:
- A 16×20″ canvas with a 0.75″ wrap will result in a 18×22″ file
- A 16×20″ canvas with a 1.25″ wrap will result in a 19.75×23.75″ file
- A 16×20″ canvas with a 1.5″ wrap will result in a 20×24″ file
- Important Note: If you want a mirror wrap or a solid border wrap – there is no need to prep the file ahead of time as Lumaprints will do it automatically for you during ordering. This example is for those who intend to have an image wrap and want to keep certain elements on the front of the canvas.
Image Wrap vs. Mirror Wrap vs. Border Color Wrap
When preparing your canvas, there are several ways the sides of the canvas can be finished: image wrap, mirror wrap and border color wrap. We will explain each in detail but to preface, Lumaprints offers all three options when you order your canvas print. In the case of the image wrap option in particular, we have useful information that will explain its customizability.
1. Image Wrap
Image Wrap extends your artwork or photo around the sides of the canvas. When you upload an image to Lumaprints and select Image Wrap, approximately 1–2 inches of the image’s side (depending on the canvas depth) will wrap from the front face onto the edges of the canvas. This means that part of the image around the perimeter will be used to cover the sides rather than remaining visible on the front.
If you would like a custom design on the sides of your canvas instead of a border color or mirror wrap, a later section of this article explains how to create your own wrap. You will still select Image Wrap when placing your order, but now your file will include the custom wrap intended for the sides. This allows the main image to remain fully visible on the front while your custom-designed wrap covers the edges of the canvas.
This creates the classic gallery-wrap appearance where the artwork continues naturally from the front onto the edges.
Best For:
- Landscapes
- Abstract artwork
- Images with extra background space
- Paintings with natural edge continuation
Things to Watch Out For:
When you upload the image as-is with no added wrap, important subjects near the edges can get wrapped onto the sides. Faces, signatures, text, or critical composition elements may partially disappear from the front view if the image is not prepared correctly.
2. Mirror Wrap
A mirror wrap reflects the outer edges of the image onto the sides of the canvas instead of extending the original image.
This option helps preserve more of the front-facing image while still creating wrapped edges.
Best For:
- Images with subjects close to the edge
- Photography with close-up crops
- Artwork where preserving the front composition is important
Advantages:
- Keeps the entire image visible on the front
- Avoids cutting off faces or important details
- Produces a clean gallery-style presentation
Mirror wrap is one of the safest options when there is little extra space around the image. When placing an order with Lumaprints, selecting this option will automatically add in the mirror wrap so you don’t have to prepare your image to include it.
3. Border Color Wrap
A border color wrap uses a solid color on the sides of the canvas instead of extending or mirroring the image. This keeps the entire image intact on the front without extending or distorting any part of the artwork.
Best For:
- Minimalist artwork
- Typography or graphic design
- Images with no safe bleed area
- Photographs where edge cropping would disrupt the composition
Advantages:
- Preserves the entire front image
- Creates a clean and modern presentation
- Eliminates distortion or awkward mirrored edges
This option is especially useful when the artwork was not originally designed for gallery wrapping. Similar to mirror wrap, this option is always available when ordering on Lumaprints. Just select Border Color Wrap when selecting a wrap option and select the color you want.
What To Do If You Want an Image Wrap
If you want to create a custom image wrap, preparation is critical.
In contrast to mirror or border wraps, image wraps use the actual image itself around the sides. If you’re fine with certain elements going onto the side, you can continue onto ordering the canvas with the image wrap on Lumaprints but if you would like to ensure the image is only on the front of the canvas, below we can show you some options to consider.
Tip: Leave Additional Space Around the Subject
When shooting photography or creating artwork intended for canvas printing, compose with extra room around the edges whenever possible.
Keep important elements away from edges, including:
- Faces
- Text
- Logos
- Signatures
- Key focal points
A general guideline is to keep important details several inches away from the edges depending on your wrap depth. In cases where the image has already been designed or captured, we will explain how to add space to the sides of the image to accommodate for the wrap.
Add Proper Bleed Space
During setup, extend your canvas size to include the wrap area.
This can be done in a design software such as Photoshop by increasing canvas dimensions and adding guides to separate:
- The visible front area
- The wrapped edge area
- The safe zone for important details
This structure prevents unexpected cropping and ensures nothing important is accidentally pushed onto the sides during production. Lumaprints has templates you can use to create these wraps on your own. And as a reminder regarding the added bleed space for each canvas depth:
- For 0.75″ thickness, the bleed is an extra 1″ on each side for the side and the back of the canvas. (2″ total to both height and width). The bleed is needed because the image stretches over to both the sides and back.
- For 1.25″ thickness, the bleed is an extra 1.875″ on each side for the side and the back of the canvas. (3.75″ total to both height and width)
- For 1.50″ thickness, the bleed is an extra 2″ for the side and the back of the canvas. (4″ total to both height and width)
For Example, an 8×12″ image with 1.5″ thickness would be sized to a 12×16″ image
Create a Natural Image Extension Using Lumaprints’ PSD Template
We’ve provided Photoshop templates to help you prepare your canvas wrap.
This will guide you step by step on how to create print files for the image wrap option when ordering from Lumaprints.
To follow along, make sure you have an image editing software with rulers and the capability to resize, crop and prepare your print for custom image wrap. We will be using Adobe Photoshop to demonstrate creating an image wrap and recommend you use it as well.
The examples in this tutorial use an 8×12″ canvas with a 0.75″ thickness. We recommend enabling rulers, grids, and snap-to-grids for accuracy.
Ideally, the maximum file size of the final output is 100MB for it to be uploaded onto Lumaprints.
Step by Step
- Open the image you would like to display on canvas in Photoshop.
- Set the size of the image that will be on the front of the canvas. In this case, the canvas front face dimension is 8×12.
- Resolution should be set to 200 pixels/inch
- Open “8x12x75.psd” Template. (Name will differ depending on size)
- Copy Your Image by “Select All” and “Copy”.
- Paste the image onto the layer of the template named “Your image here”
- The image will appear. If your image was sized bigger than the template, you can move the image around to select which part of the image is shown.
- For Example, if the image you are copying from is 8×13″, and you are pasting into a 8×12″ template, you can move the image around.
- If your image exceeds the red space, please delete anything else outside of the red space.
- You can see where the sides of the canvas and the back of the canvas will be from the guides provided in Green and Red colors. Click the eyeball next to the “Side/Back Borders” layer to hide these guides when you are preparing to save the file down for print.
- To add your custom wrap, we suggest using “content-aware” fill. To start, use the tool on the left side menu called “Rectangular Marquee Tool” and select one of the sides by dragging the mouse over the red and green area to create the rectangle. It should snap to the grid. For best results, save the corners for last.
- Next, right click on the image and select “Fill”.
- Select “Content-Aware” in the Contents dropdown menu and click ok
- This should result in filling in the bleed with matching assets like so (Red/green border removed for visual clarity):
- Do this for all sides one at a time for best results. Make sure you do not include the corners. This is what it should look like after you “Content-Aware” fill all four sides:
- There will be cases where the “Content-Aware” tool will miss the mark on how things should look. No worries, We suggest spot treating these areas by selecting these smaller areas of inconsistency and redoing the “Content-Aware” fill until it looks correct.
- Now you can fill in the corners, just like how we did the sides. This should result in all areas filled in:
- To confirm the whole area is filled in properly, you can hide the guides via Ctrl+H or going to View> Click “Extras”. To see guides again, just repeat the same actions of Ctrl+H or View>Extras. Ensure there are no lines or transparent areas remaining in the image.
- With everything looking good, flatten the image by right clicking the image layer and selecting “Flatten Image”. We do not want to see the Red/green areas, those are simply guides for your reference as you’re creating your custom image wrap.
Layers should now be flattened to save the image (“Save as”) as jpg. or png. and in Adobe RGB via Edit>Convert to Profile:
Now you’re ready to upload your image onto Lumaprints and select “Image Wrap” for your wrap option.
If content-aware fill does not provide the look you are going for on the sides of the canvas, consider the following common methods for fill in the sides:
- Extending backgrounds like skies, walls, or textures
- Cloning or blending edges
- Continuing brush strokes for painted artwork
- Making a specific design for the side like a pattern or ornate details.
For paintings and textured artwork, extending brush strokes or background textures often produces the most natural results.
For photography, extending skies, walls, water, or foliage usually works well.
Link to Canvas Wrap Templates:
Additional Resources for Image preparation:
Final Thoughts
Proper canvas preparation is the key to achieving a clean, professional print. Understanding the differences between image wrap, mirror wrap, and border color wrap helps you choose the best option for your artwork and avoid losing important details during production.
If you want the classic gallery-wrap effect, plan for extra bleed space early in the design process. If preserving the full composition matters most, mirror wraps or border color wraps are often the better choice. Preparing your file properly before printing ensures your final canvas looks professional, intentional, and refined from every angle.
