Wouldn’t it be nice if you could run a nice chunk of wood through your ink jet printer to lay down a color image onto your project? Of course it would, but most of us have enough problems with our home technology as it is without trying a stunt like that. Fortunately, there is a way to transfer pictures to wood by first printing them on your ink jet printer. This approach will allow you to transfer pictures to wood using a few simple steps, and the results can look very good on light-colored woods such as maple or poplar.
To transfer pics to wood, follow these steps:
Prepare your transfer medium. Using the simple approach shown in the video, prepare a sheet that will be used to capture and transfer pics to wood. While you are at it, you might want to prepare a few to have in case you run into a problem, or if you want to transfer more pics to wood.
Reverse and print. Use your photo editing software to reverse the image, then print it onto the transfer medium using an ink jet printer.
Carefully place the transfer medium onto your work piece. Be careful to get the image located perfectly before setting it into position so that you don’t smear the ink as you jockey it around.
Scrape the back of the transfer medium. Thoroughly and firmly scrape the back of the transfer medium to press the image onto the wood. The ink will adhere more readily to the wood than it will to the sheet, so once it is in place, it will be permanent after a drying period.
While you are browsing for ways to transfer pics to wood, check out another idea for getting an image onto darker wood species.
