3 Reasons Why Photographers Love Acrylic Prints For Their Clients

Great photographs aren’t taken, they’re made, as Ansel Adams often reminded us. One current medium photographers are using these days to make their images is acrylic. Here, photographers weigh in on why this medium is bolstering the power of print.

It’s Modern and High Touch
“Face-mounting photographic prints on acrylic gives them a modern look,” says Nebraska wedding and portrait photographer Sam Swartz, who prints through AcrylicPress. While it carries a certain contemporary cachet, prints under acrylic don’t look so trendy that they run the risk of appearing dated in the future. “Frame styles will change, but you could put a wedding photo on acrylic and it will look timeless and sharp even 40 or 50 years down the road,” Swartz explains. “When I’m selling this to clients, I sell it as a piece of fine art—it’s a museum-quality piece.”

New York (by way of Germany) photographer and artist Karsten Staiger also prizes Kodak metallic paper prints under acrylic for its ultra-modern, clean aesthetic. His series of dazzling—and dizzying—rooftop images of Manhattan’s iconic skyline (top) were recently printed and mounted on acrylic by WhiteWall for an exhibition in the German consulate in New York this summer. “When you move around the print, the color really pops,” Staiger says. He cautions that while they look modern, they may not fit every environment. Acrylic is more at home in a cold city loft than a rustic Victorian homestead.

Adds Kimberly Wylie, owner of Kimberly Wylie Fine Art Portraiture in Dallas, Texas, “Because we have a client base that has discerning tastes, it is extremely important to us that our product offerings are beautiful and timeless while simultaneously providing quality and longevity.”

It’s Easy
“I offer acrylic because it’s ready to go,” Seattle, Washington’s Sean Hoyt tells us. “Framing and matting a print is a whole other workflow…but with acrylic, it’s finished. You just throw it up on a wall.”

Hoyt offers his wedding and family portrait customers an album and a 16 x 24-inch acrylic luster print from AcrylicPress.com as part of his standard package. It arrives in a reassuringly reinforced package and thus far, his clients have been receptive. “They love the polished, finished look.”

Because they’re relatively durable and can be made in a variety of sizes, acrylic prints have proven to be an effective way to install very large images in high traffic areas. Swartz produced a series of 8-foot-wide prints for a local church. “You can make huge prints and save on the cost of having them matted and framed, and then have the simplicity of sending your client a finished piece,” he says.

It’s Not at Wal-Mart
For photographers looking to sell work at a premium, having output options that a client can’t easily find at a big box retailer (or even produce themselves at home) helps reinforce the perception of artistic value, Hoyt says. Mounting prints in acrylic is still a fairly complicated process that requires skill to execute. (Swartz’s advice: to test the professionalism of the process, check the edges of your acrylic print. They should be smooth, with no signs of cutting.)

Wylie, who produces her work at AcrylicPress, agrees. “Because it is such a beautiful fine-art piece, it commands a higher price, allowing for it to also be a very profitable product.”

“If my client sees a canvas at Wal-Mart, it inhibits me from charging more for my product,” Swartz adds. Acrylic prints are still rarer and hence, more valuable to both the photographer and the client. “My hard costs on an acrylic is almost the same as a canvas, and the presentation and the overall quality of the print and presentation far exceed that of canvas,” he says. Indeed, Swartz tells us he enjoys a 40 percent greater margin on acrylic prints than on canvas. For Hoyt, he only offers acrylic. “It’s a bit more expensive,” he admits, “but at the end of the day, it’s a great promo for me and my work.” –