Room makeovers on a budget are tricky. The simplest way to go about changing your décor without breaking the bank is to start off with as bland a canvas as possible.
Paint your walls in a neutral colour palette, and have all your large furnishings like your sofas, dining tables, fireplaces, and side units in a neutral tone too. Off-white walls like beige and neutral shades for furnishings. The colour palette of your room can be changed with just the accessories, and that includes the art, whether it’s a framed oil painting or a canvas print.
The priciest accessories for the walls in your home will be the art. Originals are always expensive because they are one of a kind. The workaround to get the same quality of art on a budget is to buy a license to print them, or alternatively, buy art prints. There is a difference between the two.
Art Prints are Professional Replicas
Replicas of artwork are done professionally by skilled photographers. They need to take care to get the shot directly, avoiding taking the picture at an angle as that can cause glare to creep in, alter the shades, and affect how the art is viewed. When done by an experienced photographer, the replica is as close to the original work of art as it possibly can be.
Some will be standard print sizes; others will be oversized. In the case of oversized art prints, often will be the case that multiple photos will be taken, and then image editing software will be used to merge the photos together to create a larger digital file.
The image file can then be printed using a large format printer, or alternatively, they can be printed separately in smaller sizes to create a triptych display, which is three smaller sizes of art prints designed to be displayed together as a collection.
Buying the physical art print is the affordable way to get oversized art to use as a focal point in your room.
Downloadable Files are for DIY Prints
Independent artists tend to be more DIY and restricted by their marketing budgets. To boost their incomes, they digitise their artwork themselves, either by taking a photo with a digital camera or their phone, make some edits, and then sell the digital file on online marketplaces.
These are the most budget-friendly art prints because all you get is a downloadable link. Click the link, save the file, and then send it to print using your home printer. The additional cost is the ink and the paper. The downside is that you will most likely be limited to a maximum size of A4, and be restricted to using domestic printer ink.
The upside is that you can take your downloaded image, and send that to a printer to have printed and framed in the size of your choosing, using commercial grade ink that lasts much longer. The files will be able to be printed up to the maximum size available based on the quality of the digital copy.