Mini Test

We compare six acrylic prints to find the most fantastic plastic option for your photographs

Old-fashioned picture frames are just so passé. By contrast, acrylic prints have a thoroughly modern look. We’re testing acrylic prints from six online labs, all of which offer regular photo printing as well as photo products.

Typically, making acrylic prints involves creating a print and then mounting it behind clear acrylic. The result is a durable, sleek image that you can hang directly on the wall. In some cases holes are drilled through the acrylic at each corner, into which posts are inserted to lift the artwork away from the wall and create a floating effect. We’ve chosen a different method for the contenders here, in that the wall fixings are attached to the back of the prints; this enables the print to be lifted away from the wall, but without any visible means of support.

We went for 24x16-inch floating acrylic prints. Different labs use different manufacturing processes, but all products on test are based on silver halide prints on photo paper. This differs from the inferior, but cheaper, method, where a six-colour process is applied onto the underside of an acrylic sheet.