Portrait Photographers: Why Metal Prints Should Be Your Go-To

It’s no surprise landscape and travel shots are the typical shots that get printed on metal prints. After all, with the enhanced rendering and vibrant colors, you basically can’t go wrong with placing nature on metal.

However, the popularity of landscape prints on metal has lead to the assumption that metal should be reserved exclusively for landscapes.

If you’re a portrait photographer (or just considering the bets option for printing portraits) know that metal prints can make the skin tones and colors in your portraits come alive with a luminance and radiance that’s hard to duplicate with traditional paper prints. Plus, they can also protect your print in several important ways.

Let’s dive into the top benefits of printing portraits on metal.

Portraits on Metal Prints: The Top 5 Benefits

1. Metal prints are more durable

We’ve all experienced handling a paper or canvas photo print that’s been dented or exposed to humidity. Even just sitting in a drawer, paper and canvas can degrade much quicker than metal. However, there are also several other ways metal stands the test of time (and shipping hazards) better than paper of canvas:

• Metal prints take a long, long time to start fading from exposure to sunlight (think roughly 100 years)
• Metal prints are much more scratch resistant, which is important if you ever decide to ship them, move with them, or showcase them in a gallery, which requires a lot of moving around and the potential for nicks and scrapes. Metal also won’t peel due to the dye transfer process of sublimation, which places the dyes beneath the aluminum rather than the surface.
• Metal prints hold up against heat, which is fantastic in a warm climate, or if they are frequently exposed to direct sunlight.

2. Higher impact and more versatile

Enhanced rendering and color profiling in metal prints makes skin tones and eye color pop, while multiple surface options like white matte or gloss can further create an eye-catching effect. The luminance of portraits on metal are unparalleled, giving a glow to skin tones and a brightness to eyes that is difficult to replicate on paper or canvas.

Various mounts can also create a floating effect, which gives the illusion of the image floating on your wall, or a framed effect, which is more traditional.

3. No framing required

Typically, when you order a paper or canvas print, it needs a frame. This can be costly and time-consuming, and more often than not, your print could end up in a drawer due to simply not wanting to deal with it.

However, when you order a metal print, it can be hung without a frame and still looks stunning, or can be ordered direct with framing options, which takes the work and guesswork out of framing it yourself. If you do like traditional framing, however, they can also be framed in standard frames.

4. More surface options

Metal prints allow you to choose the finished effect of your portraits. A white gloss option gives an extra modern, glossy “pop” to portraits, while white matte offers a more subtle and subdued option.

5. They make great gifts

The high-quality feel and look of metal prints (as opposed to sending a traditional paper print) makes them excellent gifts. Plus, these can be sent with your mounting and framing option, so family members have everything they need to get your print on the wall.

Another bonus: metal prints can also be printed in a smaller size as magnets for the fridge.

6. They’re lightweight

Aluminum is one of the lightest metals, meaning that your metal print won’t be a drag to lug around. If you choose the no-frame option, this will keep things even lighter: a huge bonus during shows and traveling.

As you can see, many of the same bonuses that make metal prints create for landscapes translate to portraits. The Ultra-HD color and radiance that accents shadows and lights in nature shots gives skin an illuminated glow, while floating options instead of framing can make your prints appear more “alive.”