If you’re selling fine art prints, showing realistic previews of your prints on a room wall is a must. This week, we explore your options.

I’ll be back with 3 quick tips again next week. But for now, we jump straight into the main topic:

DEEP DIVE

Showing wall art previews to increase print sales

If you’re a photographer selling prints, the client is not really buying the print. They’re actually buying the feeling they get from seeing that print on their wall, they’re buying the pride they get from showing it to friends.

And this can be helped tremendously by allowing them to preview the print in a room – either a generic room from a few predefined examples, or, better yet, overlaid on a photo of their own room.

From the buyer’s perspective, shopping for wall art is like shopping for clothes: they need to “try them on” before taking a purchase decision.

In the photography website space, eCommerce platforms are usually completely lacking such a feature. You can often choose print sizes, finish options, framing, but you can’t get a preview of how the print would actually look like on a bedroom wall.

There’s a big gap in the market. WordPress, with its entire ecosystem of plugins, still doesn’t not have a strong solution for this.

With this being a common web-design request from photographers, I’ve done some research into what your options are:

1. Platform-agnostic solutions

Top choice: Artplacer

If you’re serious about selling prints, this is your best option. Period.

I’m not paid to say this, and I have absolutely no affiliate relationship with ArtPlacer. I just really like their website widgets after testing them out and integrating them on several client websites that I’ve built.

At the time of writing this, you’d need to get their $23/mo plan for website integration, but it has a bunch of features that might make it worth:

• users can pick from an arrow of existing room preview, or upload their own photo (with real artwork scale and the proper wall perspectives)

• dragging and dropping to change the position of the image on any wall of the room

• simulating frame materials and colors too!

• an augmented reality widget of superimposing art on surrounding walls, using the camera of your phone or tablet

• the ability to integrate all of this or any website platform with simple instructions

Examples:

• https://elenadragoi.com/collections/floral-fine-arts/products/scent-of-a-rose-flower-art-prints

• https://www.dickandrosanne.com/product/marvelous-magnolias/

Here are videos of their features: https://vimeo.com/artplacer

Hoverlay

A good solution with AR capabilities and a WooCommerce plugin.

Swift Galleries

Probably the best option for (traditional or virtual) in-person sales meetings.

2. WordPress-based solutions

There’s this WordPress plugin, but it’s $390 (yes, you read that correctly, it’s way too expensive).

Nothing else? Nope. I couldn’t find any other good solution for WordPress sites, despite its vast ecosystem of plugins. Know of one? Let me know.

So if you have a WordPress photography website, ArtPlacer (mentioned first above) is still my go-to recommendation.

 3. Other website platforms

ArtStoreFronts

A dedicated eCommerce platform for photographers with live preview & AR capabilities for prints.

4. Static “print on wall” image generators

Web apps

Pictorem Canvas Print Simulator
It comes with an excellent array of room, wall color, and framing options:

WallApp
Nice and easy to use online too:

PhotoFunia
Fun way to create all sorts of effects:

Smartphone apps

• iArtView iPhone/iPad app

• Shoot & Sell iPad app

• ARTSEE iPhone/iPad app

• Artrooms iPhone/iPad app

• InsiteArtRoom app

 Conclusion

If you’re selling fine art prints, showing realistic previews of your prints on a room wall is a must.

At a minimum, take the free approach and create static previews with the above generators.

But if you’re a serious fine art photographer, looking to command premium prices, you can’t go wrong with Artplacer, they’re an excellent tool for this job, regardless of what platform you’re using for your site.

And if you’re doing a lot of in-person sales meetings with your clients, Swift Galleries is the way to go.

Reply to this email if you have experience with these or any other tools for showcasing your prints.

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FOREGROUNDWEB

Performance optimization scores example

Here’s what can EASILY be achieved, as part of my performance optimization service, even on a plugin-heavy WordPress site.

My tools for this job: proper image optimization, the right plugins (configured to the max), a lot of testing. And the secret sauce: conditionally disabling some plugins on the page where they’re not being used.

Hire me to speed up your site: https://www.foregroundweb.com/web-design/website-performance/

TESTIMONIAL

IMAGE SECURITY TIP

Never upload high-res images to your site

I'm going to try to do a video exclusive, I'll try to act as an image thief, sort of a hacker if you want, just to prove the point.

Nothing fancy, I'll just be trying to find larger images in the source code of websites, just to see how quickly you can get access to original files on some popular platforms.

Check out the video to see me do this for WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix:

LINKS & RESOURCES

Oh, it’s going to be a fun year…

FEATURED WEBSITE

This is a headshot photography website I built 2 years ago. But the client (Hey Chris!) came with the text content after having worked with a professional copywriter, it’s what I want to highlight about this website.

Just browse through the pages and pay special attention to the CONFIDENCE in the text everywhere.

QUOTE