Family photo canvas prints, from one photo to ten.

You design a Memory Canvas in your browser. Choose a size (the editor recommends The Heirloom) and an orientation, landscape or portrait, then pick a layout and fill each space with photos from your family's shared Library, or upload new ones as you go, which adds them to the Library for the whole family.

Preview shows the finished canvas in its true proportions, drawn from the same layout that becomes the print file. Designing is free on any plan, and you pay only when you order. The editor needs a screen at least 1,024 pixels wide, so use a laptop or desktop rather than a phone.

When you order, Ancestorii renders your design at 300 DPI (dots per inch) and sends the file to Prodigi, the print company it works with, which prints the canvas, stretches it over its frame and posts it. Production starts as soon as payment goes through, so an order cannot be cancelled after checkout.

Every Memory Canvas is 400gsm gallery-grade canvas (gsm means grams per square metre), stretched over a 38mm stretcher bar, with an image wrap finish.

Prodigi, which makes the canvases, describes its stretched canvas as heavyweight, artist-grade cotton with a fine texture, tensioned over a frame of European kiln-dried knotless pine and printed with latex or UVgel inks. It gives 300 dpi as the optimal resolution, which is what Ancestorii uses for every print file.

Image wrap means the picture carries on around the sides of the frame (Prodigi notes it is also called a gallery wrap), so a strip around the outer edge of your design ends up on the sides. Keep faces, names and dates away from the very edges. Every Memory Canvas is made this way; there is no white, black or mirrored edge option.

Ancestorii renders every canvas at 300 DPI, so the print file for The Moment is 10,800 × 4,800 pixels, The Heirloom 9,600 × 6,000 and The Heritage 21,600 × 7,200. Prodigi says images at 300 dpi are ideal, and that canvas prints may need a lower resolution than its fine art prints.

To see how a photo will do, compare its size in pixels with the print file. A 12-megapixel photo is about 4,000 × 3,000 pixels. To fill the 9,600-pixel width of The Heirloom in Solo, it has to be enlarged about 2.4 times, which works out at roughly 125 pixels per inch. In one of the six spaces of the Heirloom's landscape Grid, each 3,200 × 3,000 pixels in the file, the same photo needs no enlarging at all. The editor does not check resolution for you, so it is worth doing this sum before you order.

Shape matters too. In most layouts the photos sit edge to edge with no border; Cascade and Timeline stagger them, and Generations leaves room for its captions. Each photo is scaled to fill its space and trimmed evenly from the edges, keeping the middle. The Moment is 2.25 times as wide as it is tall, The Heirloom 1.6 times and The Heritage 3 times, so a landscape 4:3 photo in Solo loses about a sixth of its height on The Heirloom but about two fifths on The Moment.

The Moment and The Heirloom ship to 20 countries: the UK and Ireland, 14 more in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the full list is in the questions below). The Heritage ships to UK addresses only, and checkout will not accept an address anywhere else.

You choose the speed at checkout, and delivery is charged on every order:

• Standard: £4.99, $5.99 or €5.99, taking 10 to 14 working days.
• Express: £8.99, $10.99 or €9.99, taking 5 to 7 working days.

Both are estimates rather than guarantees. You get an email when the order is confirmed and a tracking link when it ships, and the Orders page shows whether it is printing, shipped or delivered.

Each checkout is for one canvas, so to send the same design to two homes, order twice and pay delivery on each. Because every canvas is printed to order, it cannot be refunded unless it arrives damaged, defective or materially different from what you ordered. If that happens, email support@ancestorii.com within 14 days of delivery with photos, and Ancestorii will arrange a replacement or refund at its discretion.

Measure first. The long side of The Moment is about 91 cm, The Heirloom about 81 cm and The Heritage about 183 cm, so check the wall with the orientation you have in mind. Centimetres on this page are converted at exactly 25.4 mm to the inch, as given by NIST, and rounded.

Then pick the spot with care. Prodigi's care advice for its canvas is to keep the print out of direct sunlight and away from light reflected off mirrors, glass and other shiny surfaces, to display it at room temperature somewhere stable and moisture-free, and to keep it a safe distance from fireplaces and radiators. A steamy bathroom or the wall above a radiator is a poor choice.

Light is the slow risk. Writing about the care of its collections, the Library of Congress explains that light damage is cumulative: dim light over a long period of time is just as damaging as bright light over a short period. It also notes that sunlight is generally avoided for displaying light-sensitive items because it is too intense, contains high levels of UV and is difficult to control.

Cleaning is simple. Prodigi says not to use any liquid or chemical product on a canvas, even a coated one, and that a soft brush can be used now and then to remove settled dust.