REVIEW/DISCOUNT: Breathing Color Art Peel - Inkjet Printable Wall Fabric with Repositionable Adhesive (A Canvas Alternative)

Breathing Color Art Peel (24 x 48" Panels x 3)

At this point you are probably wondering what the heck a "Inkjet Printable Wall Fabric with Repositionable Adhesive" is and why you should keep reading?!!! However, if you do your own printing you are going to love this stuff WAY better than canvas.

In a nutshell, as you can see from the crooked iPhone shot above, this stuff is a high quality fabric that you can print on and then hang like wallpaper. However, it has a big benefit - you can remove it and reapply it which is great if you are terrible at hanging wall paper like me!

Here's a short video that shows how the adhesive works on my dusty laundry room wall:

The funny thing is that I printed that print around July and have hung it around my house in several places before leaving it sitting in the hot laundry room for the last few months. I didn't clean or prep the walls - I just stuck it like you would a post it note just to see what would happen. In fact, my goal was to get it to wrinkle or peel off, but that didn't happen!

Once I was sure it would work great, I finally decided to go big and printed a 72 x 48" version of one of my favorite images - Treehouse (but an all new edit that is warmer and more saturated).

Perfect Resize from on1 - Tile Feature (learn more)

I used Perfect Resize to make it big and split it into three tiles (as shown above), but in retrospect I should have taken advantage of the overlap feature. I also had some issues with the AM1 file I used with my Canon printer, so I couldn't do borderless which was a bummer too. I don't have a steady enough hand to cut something that big perfectly, so I just hung it with the lame borders. That said, it still looks amazing when hung and I get asked all of the time "what is that", since this fabric is unlike anything I've ever seen (and most likely you too).

Print Quality

I printed out some letter size prints using the ICC profile that I got from Breathing Color for my Canon PRO-2000 printer, and using my Epson V850 pro scanner I scanned the swatches. Of course this means the grayscale ramp, gray squares and black squares lose some fidelity (you can see more in real life), but this gives you a ballpark idea of how good this stuff is as these images are scans of prints - which always suck - yet these look pretty good...

Full Resolution JPEG V850 Scan of a Art Peel Print from Canon PRO-2000
The printer evaluation image turned out great with the reds and skin tones being spot on

Full Resolution JPEG V850 Scan of a Art Peel Print from Canon PRO-2000
This turned out accurately, but you can see that the background is a little stronger green than black compared to the original file. With that said, this still looks good enough to hang on a wall.

Full Resolution JPEG V850 Scan of a Art Peel Print from Canon PRO-2000
Here's a smaller version of treehouse that has been resized via the printer from the original.
I felt the colors were very good with all things considered, so going big was no problem - and I'm glad I did it!

ICC Profile

ICC Profile Comparison of Art Peel
vs Canon Artistic Matte Canvas
vs Epson Exhibition Matte Canvas

I decided to compare the ICC Profile with a Canvas profile for my PRO-2000 and an Epson P800. While you can see there's definitely some gaps in the tonal range, it  is in the ball paper with those much higher fidelity substrates. Those doing color critical work might have to do a little tweaking to get the best results, but I think most users will be happy right out the gate with what you get using this substrate. Breathing Color has done a fantastic job of providing good ICC profiles for Art Peel!

Using Art Peel in Photoshop on Canon PRO-2000

Here's my workflow for printing onto Art Peel using my Canon PRO-2000 printer from Windows.

In my case I had a custom media type AM1 file that I got from Breathing Color. The advantage of it is that I knew I'd get the right amount of ink on the substrate, but the downside is that this AM1 file was made for a PRO-4000 so I couldn't edit it (due to a software limitation). The reason I wanted to edit it is because this AM1 media type file didn't allow borderless printing which I really wanted to do. If I were you I'd work with Breathing Color to get a new one that supports borderless:

I click Color Settings button and set matching to Off because I like to specify the ICC profile in Photoshop for Soft Proofing, even though AM1 files support embedded ICC's:

In this example, I'm just showing a letter size print but with the AM1 file I had even if I were to set borderless I'd still get a border. As a result, my advice is to experiment and start small with test prints before you start making your big prints.

In addition to using rotate page 90 degrees like I did above, I also like to use No Spaces at Top or Bottom to get a final product that wastes as little paper as possible. My AM1 also blocked cutting so I had to manually advance and cut with scissors on a crop line.

In Photoshop the key thing was to do was make sure I selected Photoshop Manages Colors, the correct ICC profile, and I found Relative Colormetric with Black Point Compensation gave me the most accurate color results:

I typically click Gamut Warning too just so I can see what colors are going to get impacted by the rendering intent selection and if I want to make image adjustments to bring colors back into gamut.

The workflow is effectively the same on the Mac or other printers, but the names and locations of things change. Check out my printing series to see how I print from other products like Breathing Color Lyve Canvas using Epson printers or Legacy Papers to see both Windows and Mac printing from Photoshop and Lightroom. 

Conclusion

This is by far the most exciting time I've had printing because I was able to make a favorite print of mine come to live in huge 72x48 wallpaper print that was easy to hang (and trust me I suck really bad at hanging wallpaper). Air bubbles and wrinkles were no problem as I just peeled it back and tried again. This stuff has some really great adhesive so it didn't damage any of the paints or sheetrock I applied it to, and despite not prepping the walls it stuck well and didn't show the wall texture through the paper (probably mostly due to my test images being very busy).

My wife is dying to do some wallpaper for the baby's room with this stuff and I've got some fun ideas for the garage and man cave! As far as papers go, it may not have the highest DMAX of papers I've tested this year, but I've seen worse from many canvas products. It also is good enough when viewed at a short arms length to be good enough that people never asked me about the things I saw wrong with the large print - they only asked me what this cool product was and how could they use it to make their own big prints with it.

I HIGHLY recommend this product which comes in two versions. The regular Art Peel and the Art Peel Blackout version which features a backing that prevents the wall color from showing through. This is important if you want to put a light colored print on a dark wall and not have the wall color ruin the print.

Discount & Where to Buy

Well the good news is that you can save 15% when you use my coupon code RMAP15 as shown below (contact me if there's any problems with the code):

CLICK HERE to learn more about or order Art Peel today.

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Breathing Color Lyve Canvas Review (must be ordered via a separate transaction to use the coupon code)
• Printing Series
• Canon PRO-2000 Review 
• Epson SureColor P800 Review
• Discount Coupon Codes 

Enjoy these and more on the Reviews tab as well as Ron's Recommendations.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

Breathing Color Lyve – The Best Canvas I’ve Ever Used (Discount Offer)

I despise printing on canvas because almost every product I’ve seen has a poor tonal range, mediocre DMax, and loses so much detail that I detest the final print. This is why when I was contacted by BreathingColor.com in January about testing Lyve Canvas, I was totally uninterested. However, they insisted that I’d like their canvas and that even Apple computer legend Bill Atkinson had been impressed with their Lyve Canvas.

While it took me a little while to get the results I desired, I did end up generating my favorite canvas print I’ve seen of my own work using this product. While I wouldn’t say I’m a huge canvas fan now, I do appreciate having a product that allows me to get exhibition quality results.

Frames are expensive so I also love the idea of a gallery wrap. As a result, I’ve used RediPix.com (dazzle review) when want to avoid the headache of doing a wrap myself. However, as good as they are (and I’d put them as the best third party solution), I’d really rather print my own images so I can have the control of the final output that I enjoy with all of my other print substrates. I’m able to do that with Lyve Canvas, and their EasyWrappe product allows me to get good results without a lot of hassle.

Printing to the Epson 4900 from Photoshop CS5

Printing on canvas is much more of a challenge than other substrates until you get a workflow you can trust for consistent results. I experimented with using the no ICC profile directions as well as using their ICC profile (Option #2 on the Color Management tab at http://www.breathingcolor.com/action/bc_shop/141/), and I can certainly say that using a color profile makes a positive improvement on the print results. That said, I disagree with their media type choice when using a Epson 4900. I preferred the results I obtained using the Exhibition Canvas Matte media type as shown below:

I highly recommend using the Exhibition Canvas Matte media type

I also deviated from their settings and went with quality level 5 (although 4 yielded good results too):

My preferred settings

The profile generated by Breathing Color was made for the 7900 & 9900 which shares the same print head technology and ink set as the 4900, but I’ve consistently found 4900’s to produce different print results than its bigger siblings. As a result, I experimented with generating a custom profile which did obtain better results. However, I found that if I used the Breathing Color profile with the color density set to -10 then I didn’t get any ink puddling or images that were too dark.

4900’s need a -10 Color Density with Breathing Color’s ICC Profile
Click Paper Config on the Epson Windows Driver to change this setting

Below are my Adobe Photoshop CS6 Print Settings. I mostly use the Relative Colormetric rendering intent with Epson printers, but for this image I preferred perceptual. For all of my other prints I preferred Relative Colormetric, so I’d say go for that unless you see a need to give Perceptual a try.

Photoshop CS6 Print Settings
I mostly use the Relative Colormetric rendering intent with Epson printers, but for this image I preferred perceptual. For all of my other prints I preferred Relative Colormetric.

In case you aren’t used to printing on canvas, be sure that you set the printer to NOT CUT the canvas as shown here for the PC driver (via the roll paper option button):

Always do Auto Cut OFF for Canvas

For more information on printing tips and suggestions, visit http://www.breathingcolor.com/blog/ or http://www.breathingcolor.com/page/bc-academy/.

Apple Mac OS X Dialogs

If you are on a Mac, the same rules from above apply, but here’s what your dialogs will look like:

I highly recommend using the Exhibition Canvas Matte media type

4900’s need a -10 Color Density with Breathing Color’s ICC Profile

Always do Auto Cut OFF for Canvas

Ordering Recommendations

See my special offer below when ordering, but in addition to getting the Lyve Canvas I think the following additional products are worth adding to your cart:

• A pint of Timeless print varnish in Matte, Satin or Gloss (I prefer gloss). This protects the ink on your canvas from scratching off easily and gives the print that extra oomph that it lacks with just ink alone.
• Timeless Roller Kit – While you may think that this is just a simple roller kit you can buy from your local hardware store, I appreciated the fact that this was sealed and was dust free. You’ll hate life if you use a roller with dust or loose fibers, so I highly recommend this kit. 
• EasyWrappe 1.25” or 1.75” PRO (Trial Kits available) to wrap your canvas without a bunch of tools or hassle.

I had a EasyWrappe Cutting Device which seemed like a good idea, but I find an X-Acto knife and a ruler to be a better bet for my needs.

Breathing Color makes other great products, so you might want to toss one of their Sample Packs in while you are paying for shipping anyway.

Conclusion

Overall, I like this product enough that I might give canvas a try more often than I had in the past. I still prefer non-canvas products, but there are lots of customers who request canvas so it’s nice to have a product I can offer with confidence.

I don’t recommend printing with their recommended settings on a Epson 4900. If you find the ICC profile that they use to be unsatisfactory, then you can ask Paul Morales in their support department to send you the ronmartblog.com Lyve Canvas ICC profile.

The support staff of BreathingColor.com is very helpful and friendly, so if you aren’t getting the results you expect then just contact them! You can also find lots of great self-help videos at http://www.breathingcolor.com/page/bc-academy/.

I do not recommend printing on canvas sheets, so if you want to do canvas then I strongly advise you to use rolls on roll capable printers like the Epson Stylus® Pro 4900 and Canon iPF6300. As a result, I would not advise this product for Epson 3880 users.

While my Canon iPF6300 is my most frequently used printer, I did not get a chance to try this product on my Canon due to time constraints.

Special 20% Off Offer - Effective December 2016

Click here to visit BreathingColor.com and enter the promo code RON20 when checking out to get a 20% off discount off (some exclusions apply). Codes and offers can change, so if this doesn’t work then check out our discount coupon code page for updated offer details and codes.

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Disclosure

I was solicited to review this product and was given test products for the purpose of doing this review. I was not required to write a review and I was not influenced beyond getting free products for testing and helpful support.

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