More On Magnets For Hanging Your Prints: A Sectioned Wall Mural

Wall Magnets #1, Barcelona, 2018 (iPhone 6 image)

The Magic of Magnets

With magnets, you can easily swap out photographs whenever you tire of your current “exhibit”, as I pointed out in a previous blog post on the subject. (See that link for details.)

And yesterday was a swap out day. The new theme: Barcelona and the sea.

But I also did something else–I created a large, sectioned, wall mural from one of my wife’s abstract seascapes.

The Sectioned Wall Mural

I don’t have the capacity to print a huge one meter by two meter print at home, so I used the Slice Tool in Photoshop to divide the chosen image into six equal parts, each printable on 17×22 paper with my Epson 3880. Total outside dimensions of the finished product: 34 inches tall by 66 inches wide–not quite one by two meters, but in the ballpark.

What I learned:

–It takes a bit of effort to figure out the Photoshop Slice Tool–consult Ms. Google and YouTube videos for help.

–Choose an image that is abstract enough that it doesn’t matter–in terms of definition–if you blow it up to some giant size. The blue mural we made (two rows of three prints in each row) measures a total of 66′ x 34′, outside dimensions. Depending on your available wall space, you could cut your image up into even more panels and make the finished mural even larger.

(NOTE: If shooting with a monster MP camera, say 36 MP and up, you could actually pre-plan to shoot a number of images of a scene as if doing a panorama. Then you could do a huge sectioned wall mural with potentially tremendous definition and detail using a fairly small home printer. Of course, you could also stitch the images together and have a lab make you a single mural on one huge sheet.)

–I left one-inch borders on the prints (images below) as I typically do for signing and titling my single prints. Next time, though, and for this particular purpose, I will attempt to print borderless or, at least, reduce this to 1/2″ borders. This will help the panels line up better  as well as reduce the thickness of the white “gridlines”.

–There is a piece of cardboard that comes with your print paper that is the exact same size as the paper. Save it! Use this, along with a level and tape measure, as your templet for placing the screws in the wall to which your magnets will cling–simply poke a hole in each of the four corners where the magnet will eventually be placed on the print border, then mark this spot on the wall with a pencil stuck through the hole.

–Use screws in the wall with a fairly large head and choose magnets strong enough to hold the weight of the prints. As a test, take a sample sheet of photo paper to the hardware store and see if you can hang it from one corner using one screw and one magnet, If so, you are good to go-go.

Here are some pictures of how the living room corner now looks with our new exhibit now in place:

A close-up of the sectioned mural…I need to tighten up the prints a bit. A heavier paper will also lie flatter against the wall (this was Epson Premium Luster, a fairly light and flexible photo paper). I have slightly thicker magnets at the top of each print to help hold the weight:

Wall Magnets #2, Barcelona, 2018 (iPhone 6 image)

A close-up of the B&W wall in our living room with images from my Barcelona portfolio. With the magnets, it took me about three minutes to take down the previous “exhibit” and no more than ten minutes to put up this new one:

Wall Magnets #3, Barcelona, 2018 (iPhone 6 image)

On another wall, we have some of María Rosa’s images traditionally matted and framed. (Yep, that’s a daughter’s head in the top one and my head in the second one.) For complete details on how these were matted and framed, see my two blog posts: On Matting and Mounting and A Framing Idea:

Wall Magnets #4. Barcelona, 2018 (iPhone 6 image)