Basics of How to Make Prints (Part 2)

If you've moved onto Part 2 of how to make prints (digitally), hopefully that means you've got an image capture of the artwork that you wish to reproduce!

Once you have your image as a digital file, you can have prints made by a local print shop, or an online company, or make them yourself. Making the prints yourself is probably cheaper in the long run, but will require more of an investment up front (equipment, ink, paper, calibrating software if you choose to do so).

I now make most of my own prints, but when I first started selling prints of my art, I had my prints done locally or ordered larger ones from various online shops. Here are some of the online shops I've used with outstanding results:

www.imagekind.com
This site is great because you can upload lots of your images, set up your own online gallery, and it's free to join (there are paid memberships, too, with other benefits). Once your work is uploaded, you can just sit back and let ImageKind do the work when someone orders! You can customize the prices of your art and how much money you'll make from your prints. People can even order your work already framed, and the frame prices are very, very reasonable. You can customize and pick out the frame and mat combo for each piece of your art, or customers can also pick their own if they choose to do so. And, of course, you can order prints of your work from here to sell at shows and galleries.
My ImageKind gallery is here: http://SamanthasArtStudio.imagekind.com/

www.iprintfromhome.com
This is a pretty popular site for fine art prints. I've ordered giclee prints on Somerset Velvet paper from this website and have always been impressed with the quality. The more prints you order at a time, the cheaper each print becomes (a lot of print companies work this way).

www.canvasondemand.com
This is where I get all of my canvas prints made. A couple years ago when I started ordering prints of my art on canvas, I ordered from a few different companies to compare prices and quality. Canvas on demand wasn't the cheapest, but was the best in quality by far. After comparing 3 or 4 different companies, I knew there was no way I could order prints on canvas from anyone else. If I'm going to sell prints of my art, I want the absolute best that I can find, and these are definitely worth paying the little extra. I've recommended this site to numerous other artists because I truly feel they offer a superior product that you can really feel confident about. At art shows I've had a lot of other artists compliment my canvas prints- when you combine a quality canvas print with a great image capture, you'll get amazing results.

A couple notes about prints on canvas:
They are kind of controversial.... Some people (like me) love, love, loooove them. On the other hand, some will say "It's trying to be a painting but it's not." Prints on canvas can look so much like a real painting that it's hard to tell the difference. As someone without a ton of money to throw around, I love prints on canvas because they look so much like a real painting at a fraction of the price. I guess some people are afraid that if they buy a print on canvas, it'll be hanging in their house and a guest might make a comment like, "Ohhh, this is such a beautiful painting!" Then they will have to clarify, "That's not a painting, technically it's a print" and the sky will fall and all hell will break loose.

But here's why I love them so :)
When I was shopping at a fantastic artist's gallery in Montreal, the artist had her original works on display, and prints on canvas (in many sizes), and prints on paper (also in many sizes). As much as I loved her work, I couldn't afford an original. The canvas prints weren't cheap, but they weren't necessarily expensive, either. And the paper prints were nice- buuuut when you stood there in her gallery with a paper print in one hand (for, say, $30), and a canvas giclee in the other hand (for, let's say, about $90).... there was just no comparison. The canvas print was stretched and wrapped (no need to add in the extra cost of a frame), and the colors were so vibrant and rich- and it had such depth. Since I wanted something that looked as close to the original as I could get, I chose to buy the canvas print.

If you choose to make your own prints, take a lot of time and do plenty of research on different printers. There are so many out there and all have their own set of pros and cons! For example, when I was researching printers, I remember reading a lot about photo-printers and that certain brands are generally much better for reproducing black and white images. I knew I wouldn't be doing anything in black and white, so none of that really affected my decision on a printer. You may also want to check the costs of ink, and you can even find websites that break down square-inch cost of printing.
(Here is one that I've used: http://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing.html)

My boss at work had some great advice about buying a camper (I think it was a camper? Maybe it was something else entirely??) but the advice applies to many things in life, including buying a printer to make fine art prints:
"When you're shopping for a printer, buy your 2nd printer first."

All that means is, when shopping for a printer you may think "I'll buy a cheap printer for my first one and then just buy a better one later." Naahhh. Buy the best that you can afford first- this will end up saving you money. There's no reason to have two printers, one that works pretty good and your super-awesome-high-quality-fancy-pants printer. You'll easily drop $150-$200 on a printer that works decent, but why not put that $150-$200 toward a really, really good printer?- Some of which start at just $350-$400? (And go up- way up- from there.) Plus if you figure out exactly which printer you want, you can take your time and hunt around for a good sale. (And don't forget, you can also look for one used!)

Basics of How to Make Prints (Part 1)

Online or at various art shows, I'm surprised by the number of artists who ask me, "How do you make your prints?" Coming from a Graphic Design background in college, I've done it for so long now that I take it for granted!
Since it's such a common question, I thought I'd make a blog post (or, two) about it. Hopefully other artists out in the Wide World of Internets will somehow stumble upon this post and find it useful.

(This post is about making digital prints from a computer, as I'm definitely not educated in the other traditional methods of printmaking. I'm also assuming if you're going to a pro to have it done, they'll know what file type to save it as- and if you're doing it yourself, you're computer savvy enough to know about different file formats.)

*** If you've got questions after reading this, feel free to ask them in the comments section after this post or email me. ***

There are 2 main steps in creating a print from your original artwork:
#1. Obtaining the image capture as a digital file.
#2. Printing said file.

The methods of doing these two things and all of the in-between is where you really get into the nitty-gritty.

Since this will be a little long, I'll make it a two-parter. This, part one, will focus on the
IMAGE CAPTURE.
There are a number of ways to get an image of your art onto the computer.

If you're not computer savvy...
The easiest way for those who are not computer-savvy is to take your artwork to a business who specializes in this very thing. You'll have to check your local (or in some cases, not so local) listings to find a place. For example, the best place I've found is about an hour and a half away: "American Art Associates" in Annapolis, MD. Most printmakers will do an image capture for you: You bring in your art and they essentially put it on an easel and take a very high resolution photo of your image. Their lenses and equipment eliminate glares and shadows. They put the picture onto their computer, adjust the color if necessary, do whatever other magic they do (I've never been part of this process) and save it. From there you can have them make prints for you, or you can ask them to save it on a disk for you for later use.

Pros of taking your art to a printmaking business for capturing the image and making prints:
1. These guys (and gals) do this for a living. This is what they get paid to do. If you're going to a reputable place, you can tell them what you want, sit back and relax, and they'll handle it AND make sure it looks great!
2. It's a lot easier than doing it yourself, aaannnnnd....
3. Much less time consuming than doing it yourself.

Cons of having a printmaker capture the image for you:
1. It can be expensive (depending on what your idea of expensive is...). An image capture of a large (over 11"x14") artwork, from my experience, can run $50 to $100 - maybe more. But since doing it yourself can be quite time consuming, having a professional capture an image of a large/difficult to photograph artwork is often well worth every penny.

Or try a little DIY.
If you are computer savvy and have some graphics software (Paint-Shop-Pro, PhotoShop, a myriad of others), you can try doing it yourself.
You can buy a scanner (they're pretty affordable, $100 and up) and scanning software (which should come with the scanner), lay your art on the scanner, scan it & import the image into the computer, and then save the file.

Pros of scanning it yourself:
1. After purchasing a scanner, it's basically free.
2. No driving around or making appointments- do it at your leisure.
3. If the artwork is 8"x10" or smaller and not glossy, it's a fairly simple and straightforward process. Lay it on the scanner. Open your scanning software. Scan it in. Piece of cake. (You can even eat a piece of cake as your scanner imports the image.)

Cons of scanning it yourself:
1. It can take up a lot of time. So even though the process is free, is it worth your time to sit and fool around with it?
2. If you've used glossy paint.... forget it. If your paint has any gloss to it at all, the light from the scanner is going to reflect off that and make white highlights. No good. And no simple way (that I know of) to fix it.
3. Large pieces can be a huge pain in the ass and take a very long time. When I have finished a 16"x20" painting (which is not that big), it takes me at least 4 scans to scan it in. Most scanner beds are about 9"x 11". Even an 11"x14" artwork will take about 4 scans to piece everything together all nice and neat.
Oh, and that whole "piecing together" process? That can take HOURS. And you need good graphics software to do it, too. Sometimes the colors in each scan might vary slightly. Sometimes you get shadows along a gutter (where your painting overlaps the edge of the scanner bed). Sometimes you've laid your artwork down slightly off from a 90-degree angle, so you might have to do a little rotating to get it to fit. The larger your artwork, the more scans you have to do, the more opportunities for unwanted shadows, rotations, overlaps, etc. It ends up being almost like putting together a puzzle.

(I scan most of mine myself because I'm cheap like that, and since my favorite place is an hour and a half away, I have to do a bit of planning to allow myself time to drive over there. Plus gas money of course, blech. Again, I'm cheap.... When I can afford to be. Meaning that if I've got an painting that is huge, I'll gladly pay to have it done. I'll emphasize again that it is worth every penny.)

UPDATE: I've now created a post about how I scan in my paintings! It's here:
http://samanthasartstudio.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-scan-in-painting.html

Some artists have mentioned using a digital camera and taking a very high-resolution photo of their artwork themselves. You can try this if you've got a nice digital camera and, again, a little bit of graphics software. Be sure to *not* put your artwork in direct sun- it will be too bright and have much to much glare. Ideally, you want a bright but overcast day- or, if it's sunny, you want the art to be out of direct sunlight but in a bright place. No shadows.

Pros of using your own digital camera:
1. None of that scanning/piecing together business if you've got a particularly large painting or drawing. Woo hoo!
2. If you're out of the sun, no worries about glossy paint or shadows.
3. Affordable... obviously. (Unless you go buy a very expensive new camera!)

Cons of using a digital camera:
1. If you've got a very large painting, you're going to need to take a photo at very VERY high resolution to make large prints from the painting.
2. Wobble? You might need to use a tripod to take the best photo possible.

I've tried the digital camera method- admittedly my camera is almost 10 years old. I took photos of some paintings but the largest I seemed to be able to print them and make them look good was only about 8"x10". I'm by no means an expert on this method and I'm sure digital cameras have come a long way in the last decade!! If you've already got a camera and some software, you might as well give this method a shot and play around with it, decide for yourself- it couldn't hurt.


Okay, so by this point you have your image saved as a file. Now what?... See Part 2 :)
Coming soon!

Guess who got into the local paper? :)

I was pretty excited when a photographer from The Patriot News stopped by on Sunday to ask me about the fire hydrant I was painting and snapped a few photos!

Well, "a few photos" might be an understatement- as any photographer knows, you have to get like 500 photos to ensure you have at least one or two presentable ones!

(Click on the newspaper to enlarge and focus it...)

It's too bad I didn't think to give him a dose of "Blue Steel"
while he was shooting me. Ha!

With all the photos being taken, I felt like I was a part-time model (but probably still had to keep my normal job).

What's funny about "Blue Steel" is that all the young kids do it in photos now... but they're not doing it to be funny. I'm not on MySpace, but I bet you wouldn't have to browse around on there very long before you'd find a healthy overdose of Blue Steel.

Sugar Cane Paper - EcoFriendly Fine Art Paper review

I got my Hahnemuhle Sugar Cane paper in the mail a few weeks ago! The company from which I bought it sent it in this GIANT box with about a million inflated plastic protection bubbles, and my husband commented that just in the packaging alone, I probably undid all the energy and resources I was trying to save by investing in an eco-friendly paper.
Sadly he's probably right :(


The official website is here:
http://www.green-rooster.com/
And a quick overview of the product can be found here:
http://www.green-rooster.com/site/us/46/products.html

This is a new inkjet fine art paper. It's made from a by-product of sugar cane processing (bagasse). 75% of the content consists of bagasse fibers, 25% consists of recycled content made from the company's paper trimmings. To produce the paper, Hahnemuhle is using renewable energy.

Hahnemuhle is also donating 5% of the sales from the paper to environmental protection projects!

Although sugar cane farming itself isn't very good for the environment in most cases (the usual: hacking down more and more natural habitats to grow the stuff, then dumping the fertilizer and pesticide chemicals into water sources, yuck), using a by-product to make a paper is still better than having to create a brand new source for it, which is why I chose this paper over a bamboo paper.

I was very impressed with the quality of the paper upon opening the box.

-It's quite thick! I've never used a fine art paper made specifically for inkjets, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's 300 gsm: Metric for grams per square meter. I learned something new as I never really paid attention to paper weight before, I just bought what was recommended or what looked and felt nice or seemed appropriate for what I was doing with it!

-It has a texture to it, too, and again since I hadn't used that kind of paper in an inkjet before, I couldn't imagine the image would come out looking very nice- even though the paper IS specifically designed for use in inkjets. Boy was I wrong! Obviously the paper is meant to be used with inkjet printers but until you see for yourself how it looks, at least for me, it was hard to imagine a perfect image reproduced on paper with that much texture.

-It has a warm tone to it. If you tend to leave white space around your print, inserting it into a bright white mat may make the warm tone of the paper stand out- something to consider. I do not usually leave white space around my images, but I do think sometimes that looks nice, so I will have to keep that in mind.

One concern I have is that I'm using an Epson printer and I always hear that Epson printers work best with Epson papers (go figure). I just hope that if I start using the bagasse paper on a regular basis as I plan to do right now, it won't have any weird long term effects on my printer.

Aside-
I also have to admit that a couple of years ago when I first started researching making my own prints, I saw the Hahnemuhle name (which at the time I had never even heard of) being dropped all over the web by the snootiest-sounding of artists. I remember reading paper reviews and forum discussions about different papers, and some artists would jump in and make snide comments about any other papers being discussed, saying they would ONLY use Hahnemuhle and everything else is just worthless garbage, etc. To be honest, talk like that sort of turned me off to it because a lot of artists recommending it sounded pretentious. I looked up this company-with-the-impossible-to-pronounce-name anyway, and I was in for a surprise! Their papers cost WAY more than anything I was considering using.

Fast forward to last month, when I researched eco-friendly archival quality art paper options. There they were... That fine art paper company from Germany with the long name that started with an 'H.' I was intrigued. I remembered all the things I had read before, but I decided to order some and see exactly what all the fuss is about. And now I know. Turns out there's a reason people speak so highly of it. I'm not going to say HP or Epson or any other papers are crap though, because that's not me, but I will say that now that I've tried this paper and know it has a good name and great reputation, and will last a long time, I see it as a great investment for my prints and it would be hard to go back to anything else for my art prints!