Reproductions
Written by John Warr
Thursday, 21 January 2010 16:16
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| Today artist have more choices than ever for making reproductions, or prints, of their original artwork. For years offset lithographs were the industry standard, but with the release of affordable Giclee printers artist seem to be gravitating toward that technology. By talking to a large number of artist over the past year, I have discovered that the majority of them are not familiar with all of the aspects of Giclee printing. I hope to share my knowledge of printers, inks, papers, software, and cost with you and get feedback on your printing needs as well as any questions.
I would like to start the conversation by giving the reasons why one printing method would be an advantage over another according to your needs and budget. If your objective is to have hundreds to thousands of prints, either for marketing or, for example, to supply an organization for them to market, there is really no better way to go than offset lithographs by a commercial printer. The biggest decision is if you want to invest up front, a couple thousand dollars for a large volume of prints which would bring your price per print to less than $2.00 apiece in most cases. If you are confident in your ability to market these prints, this is by far the best profit margin in each sale. If you are just wanting to test the waters to see what kind of response that you might receive on a new piece of art, Giclee printing is the way to go, and we will discuss this in my next blog.
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 21 January 2010 16:18 |
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Giclee Printing
Written by John Warr
Thursday, 21 January 2010 15:08
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| Now lets discuss the feasibility of Giclee printing. If you do not want to invest a large amount of money up front on printing a particular piece of art, and want a few prints to test the market, Gilclee printing is the way to go. The first step in Giclee printing is to have a high resolution scan made of the artwork. If my artwork is smaller than 8 1/2” x 11”, I can scan it myself, but anything larger, I send to a company in Nashville, Tenn. to an imaging company, 'Chromatics'. Scans range from $38 to $165 according to size, and they can scan up to a 4' x 6' image. You can pay them a little extra to “color correct” the image to their standards, or you can do as I do, my own color corrections on Photoshop. Now that you have a high resolution scan in hand, the next step is to decide what size that you want the prints to be, what type of paper that you want, borders, title, etc. I lay out all of that on Photoshop. Typically I use a 110 lb., coated, smooth, fine art paper. My particular printer is an 'Epson 7600' Pro printer that can print 24” wide and unlimited length (from a roll). Epson makes a 48” and a 60” printer, but for my needs, a 24” format is sufficient. Now for the main information that you are wanting to know, the cost. These are approximate prices that you would pay for Giclee printing on a 100% rag, fine art paper. A 16” x 20” print ( 13” x 17” image with 1 1/2” white border) would cost $65.00 for the first print. This includes entering all of the information on Photoshop and setting the colors, getting the printer profile correct . After getting the information entered, the file can be saved, so you are only paying an initial set up fee on that first print. After that, the cost depends on how many that you have printed. The cost for two to ten prints would be $28.00 each where ten to twenty five prints would be $25.00 each, of course the more that you have printed the less cost per print. In the next blog we will discuss Giclee printing on canvas.
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 09:21 |
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