Reproducing your work

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Permalink Reply by Larry Berman on October 21, 2009 at 11:02am

If you're referring to paintings and you want to reproduce them actual size, you have three options. You can work with a printer that specializes in printing art reproductions and they will probably want to scan the paintings. The other options are to shoot the artwork with a 4x5 view camera and scan the transparencies or to shoot them digitally. From what I've read, scanning gives the highest quality, the scanned 4x5 transparency second best and shooting digitally adequate but not as good as the other two options unless you limit the size you want to print. If you are only wanting to sell 8x10's, any of the options will work. Printing options range from photo prints at Costco up to 12x18 to archival Epson (or similar manufacturer's) that you can print at home or pay for the printing. If you go the high end route, it's always best to have the same place that scans the paintings do the printing because that makes them responsible for color accuracy. If you want to have the paintings scanned and print the files yourself, make sure that they scan into the RGB color space and not CMYK and convert to RGB, which a lot of printers do because they use CMYK RIP's for their printers.

Larry Berman
Digital Jury Services
http://BermanGraphics.com
Test Your Jury Images and Presentation
http://JuryImages.com
412-767-8644

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Permalink Reply by Laurie E. Tietjen on October 21, 2009 at 11:10am

Wonderful guidelines, Larry! I very much appreciate your time!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Heihn on October 23, 2009 at 3:31pm

Hi Laurie
Your best bet IS to have your paintings scanned. If you do that, have a proof made that you OK once you have them correct it to your satisfaction. Now you have that scan in a digital format and you can send it out to be printed or print it yourself. It's my firm belief that you should OK every print done with that scan by comparing it to the original or your Ok'd proof. It's also my belief, that the number of prints should be limited and numbered and all produced when you have that original or the OK'd proof, to compare them to. And that the digital image, any offset plates, "make ready"prints be destroyed when the run is complete. I believe that way too much "manufacturing" of 2-d art has been done and is ruining the good reputation of both photographers and painters who adhere to a code of quality ethical standards when reproducing their work.

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Permalink Reply by Laurie E. Tietjen on October 24, 2009 at 10:38pm

Thank you, Greg, for your input!

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Permalink Reply by Pauline Ross on October 24, 2009 at 8:07pm

I photograph my art with digital camera making large Tiffs. I can color correct, convert to whatever in the computor to match original or close to it. I actually don't make prints exact because I feel if they want the best they aught to by the original. Anyway, for giclees, I have an outside resource make them up. I only make up large giclees. Otherwise I create standard sizes and cut double mats for them. My new camera makes "raw" images, which I am still learning about. I use a large HP printer but have found they are not as good as they use to be.

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Permalink Reply by Laurie E. Tietjen on October 24, 2009 at 10:38pm

Thank you, Pauline. I appreciate the advice!

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Permalink Reply by Carol Komassa on October 25, 2009 at 4:50pm

Hi Laurie,

Not sure what kind of art work you want to reproduce. I have found a local store in Arizona that can produce an excellent giclee print of my watercolors at a reasonable cost. Good scan is the key. They produce a copy for me to look at and color or saturation can be adjusted at that time. I talked to artists and found out where they have theirs done and I've seen the results.

Hope this helps, if not let me know.

Carol

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Permalink Reply by Laurie E. Tietjen on October 25, 2009 at 4:53pm

Thanks, Carol! I appreciate your help!

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Permalink Reply by Laurie E. Tietjen on October 26, 2009 at 8:58pm

William, thank you for the distinction. I am also a CPA, so I do understand ethics, and try to adhere to them to the best of my ability. I will make sure to distinguish them as reproductions and not as "prints".

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Permalink Reply by David Lorenz on November 5, 2009 at 9:58am

Hi Laurie,
Fine Art Reproduction is what we do.
Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

davidlorenz@usa.com
parkbenchstudio.com

Kindest Regards,
Ronnie
(and David)

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Permalink Reply by Peter Leafman on January 12, 2010 at 9:07am

Laurie...my company, Digital Arts Studio (http://www.digitalartsstudio.net) specializes in fine art Giclee printing for artists nationally. A must for achieving the highest quality print is a high resolution scan...even with the best digital camera one cannot achieve the same results as a good scan. As an example a very good digital camera may have a maximum of 20 mega-pixels - our equivalent scanning equipment equals 150 mega-pixels....a huge difference. Hope this helps.

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