Almond Branches in Bloom, painting by Vincent van Gogh - Framed art poster	Almond Branches in Bloom, painting by Vincent van Gogh - Oil on Canvas

Many may ask, how is a hand painted reproduction different from a print? Why should I commission a reproduction of an image when I can just buy a print at a poster store or order an enlargement of my picture through an online photo printing service?

The differences in how the two forms are made create products that portray the same image in very distinct ways. Almost all digitally reproduced art images are made using tinny dots of color called pixels. These pixels encompass the mixing of four main colors -- cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. Thus, all digitally printed images have a finite color gradation; every shade you see on the page results from blending only four different colors. Most home computer printers utilize these same four inks, so you may have noticed these variations when you’ve printed up a photo on your own -- the colors just don’t exactly match those you saw on your monitor. When you set your home printer to print on eco- or fast mode, you’ve likely noticed that the quality decreases. This is because your printer has lowered the dots per inch (DPI) it is putting onto the paper. Every image your inkjet printer -- and many industrial printers -- produces is really just a lot of dots. Not unlike a Lite-Brite caricature or a byzantine mosaic, modern printing creates images by placing tiny dots of color very close to one another. In all digitally printed images, these dots will be visible, under close examination with the human eye for low quality prints and under low magnification for higher quality images. The result of this production method is that the picture will be flat and often will be scaled down in complexity.

Conversely, an oil painting has texture and even dimension. A hand-painted reproduction of a photograph is the work of a dedicated artisan mixing paints and applying brush to canvas, utilizing skills and techniques that are time tested and acquired over a lifetime. You can see the brush strokes. Although it goes against our recommendations for proper care of your custom photograph oil painting, you could even feel them. A cared for oil painting on canvas can last for generations, unlike a photo print which tends to have the sturdiness of a poster at worst and a piece of cardboard at best. With proper care, a hand painted oil painting can last for generations. What condition is your favorite poster from your college dorm room in today? Probably not as sturdy as the day you first hung it up. Meanwhile, you can still see Jan van Eyck oil paintings from the 15th century in museums across Europe.

Most importantly, a photo print lacks the intangible aura presented by a work of handmade art. If you have ever had the pleasure of seeing a work by Vincent Van Gogh or Edward Hopper in a gallery, you have seen how artists layer paints and colors, giving their works a complexity and dimension that can border on being high relief. The texture and patterns of the artist’s brush strokes are almost never visible in a mass produced print, and scholars have theorized for years about how mechanically mass-produced art deteriorates the artist’s intention. To really realize the value of a custom oil painting over a computer-produced print, the next time you’re at a local art museum, buy a postcard print of your favorite painting and do a side-by-side comparison.

For all the technical reasons that a handmade work is preferable to a print, what will matter most when you display your custom oil painting is the emotional impact of an image created by a person – not a machine – who spent time and attention on reproducing an image that is important to you. You take pride in the image you want captured, and an artist can in turn apply pride of his or her talent into presenting that image in oils.