I have a suspended ceiling with white accoustic tile and white metal grid in place in my dedicated theater. I want the ceiling black, so I'm planning to a use a power sprayer to paint the tile and metal grid in place with a flat black latex paint. From your experience, is priming the metal grid and/or the tiles necessary before applying the flat black latex paint, or is it fine just to apply the flat black latex paint without primer? Thanks!

I have a suspended ceiling with white accoustic tile and white metal grid in place in my dedicated theater. I want the ceiling black, so I'm planning to a use a power sprayer to paint the tile and metal grid in place with a flat black latex paint. From your experience, is priming the metal grid and/or the tiles necessary before applying the flat black latex paint, or is it fine just to apply the flat black latex paint without primer? Thanks!

If anyone has ever smoked in there (or cooked in there), there will be a film on the grid. That may mess up your paint adhesion. At the very least, manually scrub all the metal grids with something that can cut dirt and grease. Maybe 409 or Simple Green. Not sprayed on, but wiped on. Good luck with your project. :)

Well, I recently went to an amateur art festival. This one exhibit had huge panoramic canvas pictures of landscape photos. Up close the pictures looked like oil paintings, but they were actually digital photos printed on this canvas as art. The pieces were expensive (around $800). I was wondering if anyone knew any more on this subject. Is there a special name for this process of digital photography onto canvas art? What kind of printer is used? Where do you get the pictures developed?

The formal artist community name is Giclee printing. Basically it is an inkjet printer that prints on special canvas or paper. In the art world Giclee prints are valued much less than an original work. Some artists actually will add some real paint and textured paint strokes to increase the commercial appeal of their work.

If you want to do this you can google search Digital canvas printing or geclee printing. Or, go to the book store and in the magazine section look at the magazines catering to artists and there will be numerous ads on giclee printing services.

Keep in mind that the print is only as good as the original digital file and resolution is King. There are actually special software solutions for enlarging digital prints and maintaining the sharpness of the image. The enlargement processes available in tools like Photoshop are not as good.

Epson makes a line of printers that prints large format photo and giclee prints. I actually have one that does 13 inch wide work but I work on paper not canvas. The canvas has a special coating formulated to work with the ink jet inks.

How do you put two different pictures together on photoshop? Can someone give me the steps like a walkthrough. I'm trying to put my picture, and my friends picture and just join it together. I have photoshop but I haven't really used it. I heard someone say layers, but I can't figure it out. Walk-through please.