Digital Downloads: Easily Print and Display Canadian-Made Art

Photo credit: @saraboychukphoto (shop featured digital print)

Filling your home with beautiful, locally-made prints has never been easier! Digital downloads have become extremely popular as of late, and they have made acquiring new décor for your house as simple as clicking a button.

Many local artists, bloggers and photographers have digital prints or ‘printables’ available for purchase (or in some cases, for free!), which can easily be downloaded straight to your computer. These digital prints are usually also available in several sizes, so you can decide which will suit your space and frames best. Once you download the file, you can then simply upload to our Photolab and order as many high-quality prints as you like (for personal use – more on that later) on whatever print surface you like! With in-store and curbside pick-up available at your local London Drugs, we can have your prints ready for you in record time. Many people find digital downloads to be a great way to update their space with locally-made art, as the process can be faster than waiting for a physical print to ship in the mail from the seller, and allows greater flexibility in terms of display.

Below are just a few local options to source digital prints to decorate your home. You can also hop over to Etsy, where there are virtually endless choices for digital downloads for sale from local Canadian artists and photographers!

Fraîche at Home

Photo credit: Fraîche at Home (shop featured digital print)

Photo credit: Fraîche at Home (shop featured digital prints here & here)

Tori Wesszer of Fraîche Living, who is known for her aesthetically pleasing and delicious recipes, also has a collection of style-forward digital prints for the home – many specifically for the kitchen! From coffee guides and recipes to inspiring quotes, all of Fraîche at Home’s prints will add a special touch to your space. They also make a great gift for a foodie! Her digital prints start at just $10.00.

Sara Boychuk Photography

Photo credit: @saraboychukphoto (shop featured digital print)

Photo credit: @saraboychukphoto (shop featured digital print)

Photographer Sara Boychuk’s Etsy shop has a selection of wall art for digital download, featuring scenic landscape images. Her photography captures the beauty of Canada’s great outdoors, with images of the Rocky Mountains to the lush forests of the West Coast. They will add a truly Canadian feel to your home! Her digital downloads are available for as little as $10.00, and she’s even added new prints (including the 2 above) in anticipation of this blog feature, so be sure to check them out!

Clean & Scentsible

Photo credit: @cleanandscentsible (download featured digital prints here & here)

Photo credit: @cleanandscentsible (download featured digital prints here & here)

Jenn of Clean & Scentsible releases the sweetest printables seasonally, to help keep your home feeling fresh and welcoming! Some of our favourites right now include her cute bee and honey printables, lemonade printables and s’mores printables. The featured printables you see above were all printed as 8×10 or 11×14 pearl prints from our Photolab. They’re great for styling a snack table, or just to display in your kitchen or really anywhere else in your home. Jenn kindly offers all of her printables free of charge for personal use!

Printing Your Digital Downloads

Ordering a print of Clean & Scentsible’s lemonade printable on our Photolab website

Printable Sizing

Before making your purchase, make sure to check the sizing of the printable. Our Photolab can print a wide variety of standard and enlargement sizes, but it’s best to double-check to make sure the print isn’t a custom size. If you don’t see a standard print size offered, you can always reach out and message the seller to see if they are able to offer the print in a different size.

Also, just be sure before you purchase that you are purchasing the digital file, as some artists do offer both digital and print versions of their work.

Quick and High-Quality Printing

Digital downloads offer a quick and easy way to get new prints up on your walls. A few clicks online and you’ll have a digital print ready to download. Then it’s as simple as uploading it to our London Drugs Photolab to order in the print size and surface of your choosing! We have a wide range of sizes for high-quality glossy and pearl prints/enlargements, as well as fine art papers including canvas, bamboo, Kauai and Bartyta to give your printables that gallery-quality look.

Our Photolab also offers prints that come framed and matted, so all you have to do is choose where to display them! Or choose to add foamcore or premium foamcore to select prints.

For extra quick turnaround, make sure to order for in-store or curbside pick-up. Otherwise, we can also deliver right to your home.

Note about Copyright

In most cases, these digital download files are meant for personal use only, and not for commercial use. If you’re unsure, just check with the owner first to better understand the copyrights before downloading and printing.

Custom Art

Many Etsy sellers also offer a custom element to their printables. For example, they can customize the artwork to include a name, or in some cases, the entire artwork can be customized. Be sure to check the ‘description’ section of the Etsy listing to see how your customization preferences should be communicated to the seller.

 

If you order prints featuring a locally sourced digital download, be sure to tag us on Instagram or Twitter, we’d love to see how you’ve displayed it!

 

Updating Your Space for Fall with Photos

The days are growing shorter, the air is becoming crisper, and that can only mean one thing: fall is upon us! As we begin to transition to boots and cozy sweaters, it’s also an excellent time to look at updating our space for the fall season too. Especially with the number of Zoom calls and meetings happening from our homes these days, many of us have become acutely aware of how bare our walls are (or how much they could use an update!).

A quick and easy way to breathe new life into your space while also adding some seasonal flair is with some of your own fall photos. Our Photolab has all kinds of options to help you decorate, from beautiful glossy and pearl enlargements to fine art prints like canvas, metallic paper, Kauai and Baryta, which will give your walls an impressive gallery-quality look. Keep reading below to see how some local photographers are updating their space for fall, and find out how you can enter for a chance to win a stunning print from photographer Sonika Arora!

Ashlyn George’s fall photos were taken on a Sony A7III and DJI Mavic 2 and printed on pearl photo paper.

Saskatoon-based adventurer/photographer Ashlyn George of The Lost Girl’s Guide updated her office space for fall with some beautiful landscape images she’s taken. If you’re spending more time in your home office this fall, framing some photos is an easy way to make your space feel cozier and welcoming (so you won’t mind spending more time there!).

“It was perfect timing with the change of season to update the photos in my home office. When not outside adventuring, I like to surround myself with as many reminders of the outdoors as possible. Each image I chose to print from London Drugs Photolab is very personal. I photographed one of my family’s wheat fields during harvest and paired it with a series of photos from an autumn road trip I took to Alaska a few years ago. Images were shot on with my Sony A7II and DJI Mavic 2 and printed with a matte Pearl finish.” – Ashlyn George, The Lost Girl’s Guide

If you’re planning to display your fall photos in a frame, then our pearl prints are a great choice (you’ll want to avoid overly glossy print surfaces when framing). They have a slight satin feel and will give your images a smooth, professional look. Order pearl prints of your own fall photos here.

Lisa Bourgeault’s fall photo was taken on a Canon EOS 6D Mark II camera with a 24-105mm lens and printed on fine art canvas.

Calgary-based photographer Lisa Bourgeault is giving her walls a seasonal touch with a vibrant photo of the changing leaves with the city of Calgary as her backdrop. Her photo was printed on our fine art canvas, and like all of our prints, our Photolab Technicians hand-inspected the image after printing on our state-of-the-art Epson 9000 large format printer.

“This is one of my favourite fall pictures. It was taken early September in Calgary, just at the beginning of fall, but the fall colours had already started to appear and having taken it at sunrise, it just feels magical with all the vibrant colours. I chose to print this picture on canvas because I like the look and feel of it, and I just like the way it looks while hanging up on my wall. It’s really nice to have my picture printed and hung up and being able to see it every day.” – Lisa Bourgeault

If you want to give your wall décor a truly fine art look, we highly recommend trying our canvas prints. Matte canvas prints are water-resistant and composed of 35% cotton with a 65% polyester blend, giving them a uniform finish. They’re professional grade canvas for any giclee print that needs the very best substrate. We print your image on the canvas using a special pigment, right to the edges, so you can frame it flat or stretch it yourself. Order a canvas print of one of your own fall photos here.

Sonika Aroras fall photo was taken on a Nikon D800 camera with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens and printed as a glossy enlargement.

Vancouver-based photographer Sonika Arora has a brand new print to give her space a refresh! Her image of the fall leaves in Stanley Park was printed by our Photolab as a glossy enlargement.

“This photograph was captured in Stanley Park on an early fall morning at sunrise. What drew me to composing this particular frame was how the seawall was blanketed in beautiful fall foliage. I wanted to capture both the leaves and the iconic city view, so I decided to frame the shot from a low perspective. I feel this composition not only showcases the leaves, but it simultaneously draws the viewer’s eyes in towards the city skyline further creating a great balance for a classic fall scene in Vancity.” – Sonika Arora

Glossy prints tend to enhance the contrast in images, making the colours in your photos even more vibrant: perfect for your most colourful fall images! Order a glossy enlargement of one of your own fall photos here. Our HD Pro Glossy prints are also an excellent option – learn more about what sets them apart here.

Start updating your space with photos

Feeling inspired and ready to add some fall festiveness to your bare walls? To get started, upload your fall photos to our Photolab website, or download our London Drugs Photolab App (available for iOS and Android) on your tablet or smartphone to quickly and easily order prints for your space. Need some help with your order? Our LDExperts are always ready to help in-store in the Photolab.

If you’re looking to capture some new fall photos this season, make sure you check out our blog post here with photography tips to help you capture the beauty of fall.

Enter for a chance to win a special fall print

Photographer Sonika Arora will be giving away a print of one of her beautiful fall photos, printed by our Photolab, to one lucky follower on Instagram! The winner will be able to choose either a glossy or pearl enlargement greater than 12×18 in size, up to a value of $99. The print will feature Sonika’s image of fall foliage in Stanley Park that you see above – what a great way to freshen up your space for the fall season!

The giveaway will kick off on the first day of fall, September 22. Make sure you’re following @LDPhotolab and @SonikaArora604 on Instagram, so you’ll know as soon as the giveaway goes live!

Save Your Photos Day: Tips for Safeguarding Your Most Precious Memories

Historic family photos are often relegated in shoeboxes to the attic or basement. Others are proudly showcased in frames hung on the wall, or in photo albums. Whether they’re hidden away or displayed in the home, the reality is that print photographs are susceptible to degradation. National Save Your Photos Day is September 26th, and it’s the perfect opportunity to stop and think about what you can do to protect your precious photo memories.

Environmental factors such as light, heat and humidity can cause photos to fade – especially those taken between 1936 and 1990, due to the methods of film processing used at the time. The other threat to your photos is a disaster such as a fire or flood. Generations worth memories can be destroyed in just moments. Without duplicates or digital backups, those memories will be irreplaceable.

For peace of mind, and to ensure your photos survive the test of time, our LD Experts recommend saving your photos using these helpful steps:

  1. Scan your photos and documents

The first step in preserving and protecting your photos is to digitize them. You can either use an at-home scanner to digitize them yourself one-by-one, or our Photolab can help. Use our Photo Scanning Box service to have mass quantities of your photos digitized all at once. Just pick up a box from our Photolab, take it home and fill it with 800 photos and even old documents like birth certificates, and bring it back to any London Drugs Photolab location. The service is pre-paid for when the box is dropped off: $179.99 per box, which is approximately 22 cents per photo or document. Once our LD Experts are done scanning your photos at high resolution, you can pick up your hard copies as well the USB flash drive with all your digitized photos on it.

  1. Back up your digital photos

With your print photographs now digitized, the next step is to save those digital photos on to your computer as well as an external hard drive or USB flash drive. That way, if your computer crashes for any reason, or a flood destroys it, you’ll still have another digital copy that’s safe and sound. Ideally, store your digital photos on multiple external hard drives. Or consider uploading them to an online drive such as iCloud or Google Drive.

  1. Separate your hard drives

Even if you shoot digital and already keep your photos on a hard drive, our LD Experts recommend backing up your digital files on an extra hard drive and keeping it in a separate location. This will help to avoid losing your digital photos in a fire, flood or other disaster. Consider keeping one in the house and one at a family member’s home.

Once your photos are safe and digitized, the possibilities are endless! Make print copies using a photo printer at home, or easily order prints and enlargements through our Photolab. You can send them to family and friends so they can enjoy those cherished photos too. If you order from our Photolab, you can even have those prints sent directly to their home anywhere in Canada, or to their nearest London Drugs Photolab for pick-up. You can also get creative with all the different ways you can share your images: photo books, calendars, or wall décor just to name a few. Bring new life to old photographs that had previously remained unseen. After all, photo memories are meant to be shared.

To get started, visit the London Drugs Photolab online or in store.