Photo on Wood: Print, DIY Transfer or a Skateboard Deck

There are three ways to get a photo on wood: have it printed on a wood panel, transfer it onto wood yourself, or have it printed on a skateboard deck. Which one suits you depends on what you're after:

• A printed wood panel is the easy route: upload the photo to a print service, choose a size, and the picture arrives in the post.
• A DIY photo transfer takes an afternoon, plus at least a day of drying, and looks handmade: paler than the original, with the grain showing through.
• A skateboard deck is the unusual one: seven plies of maple in a long, narrow shape that suits portrait photos, fits a wall where a frame won't, and can be ridden one day with the right parts.

Photo printed on wood: what to check before you order

This is the classic wood photo print, ordered online. The formats are the usual photo ones — portrait, landscape or square — and some services cut any size you type in, so the photo barely needs cropping.

What happens to the white areas

Some services print straight onto the wood with no white ink at all, so wherever your photo is white or very pale, you get bare wood: a white shirt or a pale sky comes out wood-coloured, and the grain shows most through skies and skin. Black-and-white and high-contrast photos suit it best. If the whites must stay white, ask before you order whether the service can print a white layer underneath first; if it can't, pick a photo without large pale areas.

The board: plywood, pine or planks

Depending on the service, the board is plywood with a pale birch face, solid pine, or planks joined side by side like a small pallet; some are slim, others chunky. Where the wood shows through, the board is half the picture, so look at photos of it bare before you choose.

Finish and hanging

A sanded, matt surface is part of the look: it reads as wood, not as a glossy print. Check how it hangs, too: some boards come with slots milled into the back, a hanger set into the wood or a mount that holds them off the wall; others suggest adhesive strips. For a shelf, there are also small freestanding wooden panels and photo blocks.

Two other things are sold under similar names: a wood-mounted print, which is a photo on paper mounted on a board, so the wood only shows at the edges; and a laser-engraved photo, burnt into the surface in shades of brown.

How to transfer a photo to wood yourself, step by step

In the classic method, the toner of a laser print sets into a layer of medium that glues the print to the wood; once it's dry, you rub the paper away and the image stays behind. Craft shops sell photo transfer medium and acrylic gel medium for it: the steps are much the same, but drying times vary by product, so follow the label. Some tutorials use acetone instead (it's flammable: open a window, wear gloves and keep flames well away), or baking paper for inkjet prints; the steps below use a medium.

What you need

• Your photo, mirrored, as a laser print or a photocopy on plain paper
• A piece of pale, smooth wood: a pine board, a plywood offcut or a wood slice
• Fine sandpaper and a dry cloth
• Photo transfer medium or gel medium, and a flat brush
• An old plastic card or a small roller
• A sponge, a bowl of water and clear varnish

The steps

1. Print the photo mirrored. It goes face down, so otherwise any text would read backwards. Use a laser print or a photocopy on plain paper, as the makers of transfer media ask: inkjet ink tends to smear, and photo paper is much harder to rub away.
2. Sand the wood and dust it off. Pale wood gives the clearest result, because a gel transfer is see-through: wherever the photo is light, the wood shows. Some photo transfer media dry to an opaque white background instead, which copes better with darker wood; the label will say.
3. Brush on the medium and lay the print face down. Coat the printed side with a thick, even layer, enough to hide the image, then lay it face down and smooth it from the centre outwards with the card or roller to push out the air bubbles. Press the edges down.
4. Leave it to dry completely. At least twenty-four hours, or longer if the maker says so. Rub too soon and the image comes away with the paper.
5. Dampen the paper and rub it off. Wet it with the sponge, wait a couple of minutes, then rub gently in small circles with your fingertips. It usually takes more than one round: if a white haze of paper fibres shows once it's dry, wet it and rub again. Scrub too hard, though, and the image comes off too.
6. Seal it. Once it's completely dry, a coat of clear varnish or medium protects the image.

The result looks handmade, because it is: paler than the original, often with small gaps at the edges and, if the medium dries clear, the grain showing everywhere. That's its charm, but don't expect a sharp image in strong colours: pick a photo with good contrast and try an offcut first.

The unusual one: your photo on a skateboard deck

A skateboard deck is a piece of real wood: seven plies of maple, glued together and pressed into shape. Your photo goes on the underside, the side that faces the room when the deck hangs on the wall. It's printed in full colour with UV inks on a transfer film, which is then applied cold to the deck. Our guide to printed, hand-painted and vinyl decks compares the three.

It also has a second life in reserve: with griptape, trucks, wheels, bearings and bolts, it can be ridden. You can add them as extras when you order the deck. The griptape arrives already applied; the trucks, wheels, bearings and bolts arrive loose, and you fit them yourself. To see how your own photo would look, try it on a deck.

What changes on a deck compared with a panel

The format: almost four times as long as it is wide

Portrait photos work best and lose the least, though they still get cropped; a landscape photo is reduced to a vertical strip. A person standing, a dog sitting, a tree or a building works well; a group photo rarely does. There's more in our guide to which photos look good printed on a skateboard deck.

Resolution: the editor warns you below 150 ppi

When you select or resize a photo, the editor shows its resolution at that size and warns you below 150 ppi (pixels per inch, labelled dpi on screen), because below that it prints soft. A phone photo is plenty as part of a design; to cover the whole deck, you need a sharp, high-resolution image.

The curve: concave, nose and tail

A deck isn't flat: it's slightly dished across its width (the concave), and the nose and tail curve upwards. The photo follows that shape, so it looks foreshortened at the ends, and on the wall the deck doesn't sit flat. Faces and anything meant to be read belong in the middle.

Eight truck holes

A deck has eight holes for the trucks, in two groups of four, and they go through the photo. The editor shows them in place, flat and in 3D, so you can see straight away if an eye or an initial lands on one.

Several photos: the collage

Got three favourite photos rather than one? The photo collage generator lays them out on the deck in four layouts at once; the one you pick opens in the editor, where you can still move the photos or change the text.

Panel, transfer or deck: side by side

Hanging the deck on the wall

The deck comes without a wall mount. It fits where a frame would be too wide: beside a door, down a hallway, between two windows. There are three ways to hang it:

• A skateboard wall mount. They're easy to find online: some hold the deck by its edges, others screw through the truck holes. It's the easiest to take down again.
• Two screws through the truck holes. One at the top and one at the bottom, each with a spacer: the nose and tail touch the wall first and the middle stands off it, so the spacer stops you bending the wood.
• An adhesive mount. If you'd rather not drill, some mounts stick to the wall. Check the weight its maker says it can hold.

Our guide on how to hang a skateboard on the wall covers height, fixings and mistakes to avoid; for where to put it, see our skateboard wall art ideas.

A photo on wood as a gift

A photo on wood is a classic present for a birthday, Mother's or Father's Day, a housewarming or Christmas; a skateboard deck with a favourite photo on it is the one nobody sees coming. Ask casually for a photo that means something to them, or open the editor together: it runs in the browser on a phone or a computer, it's free, it needs no account, and it shows you the deck in 3D before you order. At checkout, their address can be the delivery address. For more, see our custom skateboard gift ideas.

The deck leaves the workshop within 72 hours. Shipping is free within Spain, 20 € per order to Ireland, and from 15 € to the rest of the EU, depending on the country. Outside Spain we don't give a delivery time yet, so if it has to arrive by a particular date, order early. Our shipping guide lists exactly where we deliver.

Frequently asked questions