Print photos on wood

Framed photos are boring, do not think about it and try printing them on wood, they will look much better! With a laser printer, wood and a special glue you can also do it at home.

The work consists of transferring a photograph to a piece of wood, achieving a different and attractive result. You have not seen many wood prints, have you not?

What do you need to get it

As you can see in the video, you will need the following:

• A piece of wood with the dimensions of the image you want to print. It is preferable that it is a noble wood. If there is no other choice, you can also use plywood, although the result is not as beautiful as in wood.
• A filler canister. If the piece of wood is perfectly polished it will not be necessary. But, if not, it will be very useful to achieve a smoother look. You can also buy it at a craft store.
• A medium gel bottle. It is the element that will be in charge of the transfer. You can buy it at the hardware store or a craft store.
• A paintbrush. You will need it to apply the filler and medium gel. Again, you can buy it at any neighborhood hardware store.
• A paper sandpaper for wood. Like the filler, it is optional, you should only use it if the wood is not polished enough, or if, as in my case, you have no choice but to use a piece of plywood. You can also buy the sandpaper at a craft store.
• A white-tailed boat. I already know that it does not appear in the image above, I came up with its use just after taking the photograph 🙂 The glue will come to us or even painted to fix the result.
• A photograph printed in black and white, with toner and on paper. The toner printed in the photograph will be the one that will be transferred to the wooden board.

How to

We will describe step by step how to do it:

Let’s go for the wood

It is important the wood where you are going to print it with the correct size of the photo you have chosen to put it on.

You can buy this type of wood in hardware stores, it is recommended that we sand the surface and the edges, and that we remove the sawdust with a rag and apply the filler liquid.

We apply the Medium Gel

It is a liquid that allows the transfer of the photo to the wood, that is, it will allow us to transfer the toner from the print to the wooden board that we have chosen.

We will spread the gel well, applying the abundant amount so that the entire surface of the wood has a layer of gel.

Overlap the paper

Immediately after applying the medium gel it is time to superimpose the paper, facing the printed face with the surface of the wood on which we have put the medium gel.

Mirror transformation

The transfer of the toner will make the image show on the wood like a mirror, so if you want it to be displayed the same, you will have to apply a transformation of this type before printing.

By the way, the paper must be stretched well so that no bubbles are created. So this step is one of the most important.

Remove the paper

We remove the paper with the help of a cloth and water. It has already dried, so the paper we superimposed on the previous step looks like one more layer of wood. Now we prepare a container with water and a cloth, with which we will be rubbing to get to remove the paper and see how the toner has been wonderfully impregnated in the wood. Try not to scratch too hard as you could tear off the photo.

Apply the glue

We move the glue well (since it may be too liquid or lumpy), we apply it uniformly over the entire surface and, most importantly, do not be scared to see that the image is completely white, since when expanding it and over time it becomes will become transparent.

The result, a photo printed on wood

Anyone who does not know the process could be told that it is a woodblock print that was made many years ago and that we have restored.