Print Setup
Jun. 23rd, 2008 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikA few friends who I've sent prints to have been posting about them, which has prompted a number of fun little discussions about the tech involved. After Peggy's thread this morning, I thought it'd be a good idea to set up a discussion here to catch the info and give an area to respond to comments about it.
If you have any questions about the printing process please ask! I'll build them into a FAQ post of sorts over time. As always, you can email me instead if you'd rather not comment here.
There will be more... but this is a good start, hopefully. Please comment with other bits you want me to add, or for those of you who are good with printing and photoshop wrangling, please correct me anywhere you see I'm wrong!
While my primary market will be for the local Bay Area photographers, my goal with putting all this up for the various anthro/sci-fi/etc fandoms is to get affordable fine-art and large-scale printing in the hands of artists who previously couldn't afford to have such work done. My hope is to increase the amount of high-quality printwork out there for sale, which will benefit everybody who comes to these fandoms for the art. Education on how to make those prints the best possible can only help this. :)
If you have any questions about the printing process please ask! I'll build them into a FAQ post of sorts over time. As always, you can email me instead if you'd rather not comment here.
- What DPI (resolution) is best to print at?
- This depends on how you plan to view the piece. A good giclée-level printer runs at anywhere from 720 to 2880dpi (the 'output resolution'), but that's not the number you should be worried about. The printer is using that resolution to lay down the independent dots of color in patterns to make the actual colors you see in the print. Instead, it's the size of the artwork (the 'source resolution') that matters.
For fine art printing that will get close inspection the accepted standard is 300dpi. This is suitable for 'pixel peeping', where you expect the viewer to get up close and critical with the printed material. For sharp, solid-color works that have extremely fine detail without as much smooth color shading, you can see improvement in the edges by going up to 720dpi, but for photorealistic or smooth color shaded work, going above 300 really won't buy you anything.
For fine art printing that will be viewed at normal art-gallery distances, 150dpi will do. This is also a good standard resolution for everyday, high-quality print work.
For prints that are designed to be viewed from a few feet away (up on a wall or in a display case that's a few feet away, etc) 72dpi is sufficient. 72dpi is also a great resolution for poster-scale prints and above, where the final artwork is large enough that you don't expect viewers to pixel-peep it from right up close.
- This depends on how you plan to view the piece. A good giclée-level printer runs at anywhere from 720 to 2880dpi (the 'output resolution'), but that's not the number you should be worried about. The printer is using that resolution to lay down the independent dots of color in patterns to make the actual colors you see in the print. Instead, it's the size of the artwork (the 'source resolution') that matters.
- How do I figure out what DPI my artwork is?
- Since most people I know use Photoshop, I'll use it as an example. The "image size" dialog is the tool to use.
First, turn off the "Resample Image" checkbox. This keeps you from actually resizing the pixels of the image. The "pixel dimensions" part should grey out when you do this. Now the "Document Size" fields become your calculator. Type in the width and/or height you want the final print to be and tell the "resolution" window to display in "Pixels/Inch". The number that appears in that field is your image's DPI. If you want to know how big your art will print at the proper resolutions, just type the DPI in directly (300, 150, 72, etc) and the Width/Height fields will display how big the final print will be.
Similarly, if you're creating a new image from scratch that you know you'll want printed at a certain size, you can create a canvas in the right resolution using the "File/New" dialog. Set the Width and Height guides to "inches" and then type in the size you want the final print to be. Set the Resolution guide to "pixels/inch" and type in the final DPI you want. Now your new canvas will be created with the right number of pixels. Paint (or photo-edit) away!
Other applications should have similar tools built in. The closer you target your images to the actual main prints you want, the better they will look - what you see will be what you get. Having your print provider do scaling after the fact will always affect the final output. Scaling up can cause artifacts and be 'fuzzy'. Scaling down can crunch details you were hoping would show up.
- Since most people I know use Photoshop, I'll use it as an example. The "image size" dialog is the tool to use.
- Can prints be done full-bleed? (edge-to-edge)
- Yes! Though there are limitations. First of all, the paper has to be capable of being printed over the edge without damage. This restricts full-bleed images to the photo-surface papers (full gloss, partial gloss, 'perl' and some fiber paper surfaces). The matte and fine art papers will tend to soak up ink into the edge of the paper, causing blistering or streaks. To do full bleed work requires printing oversized and manually trimming the paper once the inks are completely dry. This brings the labor cost of a print up notably.
Secondly, you will lose some pixels on the border of your image. No matter if the printer engine itself is doing the edge cutting or if it's being cut by hand afterwards, at least some small strips of the edge will be lost to the cutting blade. The prints are scaled up anywhere from 1 to 3mm as a result, to make sure that the printed edge is clean. Be sure any detailed items, signatures or other important features aren't snugged right up to the pixel-edge of your image, or they may get cut off.
- Yes! Though there are limitations. First of all, the paper has to be capable of being printed over the edge without damage. This restricts full-bleed images to the photo-surface papers (full gloss, partial gloss, 'perl' and some fiber paper surfaces). The matte and fine art papers will tend to soak up ink into the edge of the paper, causing blistering or streaks. To do full bleed work requires printing oversized and manually trimming the paper once the inks are completely dry. This brings the labor cost of a print up notably.
- What sizes of print should I plan for? Can you print any size or are there benefits to stick to certain sizes?
- This varies per print house. Most just charge a flat rate per square foot so you can ask for any size you need. However, if you stick to the primary roll-sizes the work can be done more efficiently, both in terms of cost and speed - most likely saving you money. These are usually 17", 22", 24", 36", 42" and 44" on a printer such as the one I'm using.
The three most common sizes are 24", 36" and 42". I stock rolls of most of my media in those three sizes. Keeping one side of your image to one of those dimensions will allow your print provider to waste little to no paper. It will also allow them to do auto-trimmed full bleed prints, keeping the labor cost down.
If you are comfortable with cutting your own prints, often times you can ask for a group of prints to be 'nested' on a larger roll. A software package your print provider uses called a "RIP" can do this automatically, taking a large group of randomly sized prints and putting them in the most efficient positions to stack them onto a big roll-print. This is the lowest labor cost of all as well as the most efficient to ship while letting you pick any size you need. For example, stacking 200 8 x 10 images onto a wide roll of paper, canvas or other material is no problem at all, and the result can be tube-shipped at low cost.
- This varies per print house. Most just charge a flat rate per square foot so you can ask for any size you need. However, if you stick to the primary roll-sizes the work can be done more efficiently, both in terms of cost and speed - most likely saving you money. These are usually 17", 22", 24", 36", 42" and 44" on a printer such as the one I'm using.
- What can I do to make sure my prints are color accurate?
- This is a big one, and will most likely get expanded to an entire FAQ section later. The rule of thumb, however, is to both specify the color space you are working in and to use what's known as a 'soft proof' to view the printing limitations.
The idea here is that you and your print provider need to agree on a registered 'color space', so that both your application and the printer know what each color you're using actually is. Secondly, your print provider needs to give you a color profile that will let you know just what colors their printing equipment can handle. Again, I'll use Adobe Photoshop here to give you a basic example.
When creating your image, specify what color space you want to work in. The two most common are sRGB and AdobeRGB. There are a lot of options here, which is what the expanded FAQ will be for later on. If you need to work in a different color space you probably already know a lot about this process, but if you've got no idea, just select either of those two to start with. (As for which one to use, that's a commonly argued point. Read This for some more in-depth explanations). No matter which one you pick, the end result is that you're working in a registered space that can now be decoded when it comes time to print.
If you know exactly how you want your final work to be printed (as far as type of paper and glossy or matte surface) ask your print provider to provide you an ".ICC profile" of that media. For example, if you know you want your output printed on Matte Surface Watercolor Paper, ask for that profile. Once you get it mailed to you, save it in the same place that all your other .ICC profiles are (this differs per operating system and program, and your print provider may be able to help you figure it out). Now that you have the output profile, you can 'soft proof' to see what will change when your image is printed.
With your image open, go to "View/Proof Setup/ Custom..." in Photoshop. In the "Device to Simulate" pick the profile you were given by your print provider. Turn on the 'simulate paper color' and 'simulate black ink' checkboxes. Now when you toggle the Preview checkbox on and off you will see the image change between your source profile (what the image was created as) and the printer's output profile (the .icc provided to you).
Keep in mind: unless you spend the time and effort to calibrate your monitor (something you can do for as cheap as $80 with a Pantone Huey calibration tool), this 'soft proof' will not be color accurate! So why do it? Simple: notice how the colors shift when you toggle the preview box on and off. Colors that the printer can handle won't change much at all. Colors that it simply can't reproduce accurately will change - sometimes dramatically. This will let you spot areas of your image that could be a problem when printed on that media.
Now look at the dropdown box labelled "Rendering Intent". This is how you tell the printer what to do when it can't handle the colors in your image. 90% of the time you're going to want "Perceptual". The reasons to pick the various options are again best dealt with in a much bigger color FAQ to come later. For now you can cycle through the options (perceptual, relative, absolute and saturation) to see the various effects. If you have multiple profiles from your print provider, swap between them to find the media type that can best print all the colors of your image. If you must stick on one type of media (say, you have to have everything on cotton canvas) and there are colors that shift quite a bit when soft proofing, you know you either have to live with the color shift, or you need to go back and edit your original image to a color set that more accurately matches what the printer is capable of handling.
To sum up: Work in a registered color space so you can communicate what your colors mean. Soft proof with your print provider's .ICC profiles to see if you're using any colors that the printer simply can't handle. Calibrate your monitor for best results.
- This is a big one, and will most likely get expanded to an entire FAQ section later. The rule of thumb, however, is to both specify the color space you are working in and to use what's known as a 'soft proof' to view the printing limitations.
- How are prints mailed to keep them from being damaged?
- They are primarily tube-shipped. To keep the edges from being damaged I use the 'tube-in-a-tube' method.
Two tubes are used. One is at least the size of the print or slightly longer. The other is 2" to 4" longer than that. The first, smaller tube is rolled in glassine paper, with a foot or so overlap left to tuck in the start of the print. The print is then rolled around the tube, using the leading edge of the glassine to keep the edge from causing any surface damage. Once completely rolled up, an outside layer of glassine paper is added and then masking-taped tight. If there are multiple prints they are rolled one after the other (spiral-wound), with layers of glassine in-between. Multiple small prints might be placed side by side on a longer roll, if applicable.
Once the final image is coated and taped off, the wrapped tube is put inside the larger one. Both ends are padded with wadded packing paper to 'float' the inner tube inside the outer one, and the outer tube is capped off and taped or stapled shut. Due to the way the print is held tight to the inner tube and the tube being 'floated' inside the other, the edges don't take damage when the shipping company invariably plays naked co-ed lacrosse with the tube during shipment.
When you receive the roll, work on a surface at least as large as the prints you're unpacking. Simply uncap and slide the inner roll out, then roll it out across the surface to free the print. Check it for any shipping damage or print defects before handling it too much. Be careful with handling it, depending on the surface type you've selected. While things like poster papers can be handled rather roughly without consequence, some fine art fiber papers can be easily scratched or cracked if you're not careful. Use cotton gloves if you're not sure. But if it's just a poster, outdoor vinyl or other tough stuff? No worries!
- They are primarily tube-shipped. To keep the edges from being damaged I use the 'tube-in-a-tube' method.
There will be more... but this is a good start, hopefully. Please comment with other bits you want me to add, or for those of you who are good with printing and photoshop wrangling, please correct me anywhere you see I'm wrong!
While my primary market will be for the local Bay Area photographers, my goal with putting all this up for the various anthro/sci-fi/etc fandoms is to get affordable fine-art and large-scale printing in the hands of artists who previously couldn't afford to have such work done. My hope is to increase the amount of high-quality printwork out there for sale, which will benefit everybody who comes to these fandoms for the art. Education on how to make those prints the best possible can only help this. :)
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 08:40 pm (UTC)How do prefer to receive the files? (FTP, burned dvds [snail mail], email)
For the love of me I can't figure out any more questions, since you helped so much in peggys journal. I believe simply having easy answers to the DPI question will help tons - it's like secret info that no one was willing to put in laymen terms.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 08:50 pm (UTC)The best work tends to be in application format: psd (photoshop), ai (illustrator)
I can work with generic vector formats: pdf, eps
Others are possible, just ask first so I can test.
Depending on size, you can either email them (up to 10mb), SFTP/SCP them (any size), put them up on your own site and point a password-protected link to me, or snail mail on DVD. For most folks sending big-sized print work, I create them an account on one of the servers here and have them SFTP or SCP it over. If you don't have an SCP/SFTP client I can hook you up, no problem. doing it via non-secure FTP isn't a good idea. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 09:24 pm (UTC)also, thanks for that color-correction question; it cleared up some stuff I've always been fuzzy on!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 09:32 pm (UTC)The problem with most color how-to's that I've seen out on the net is that it takes them about a half-page before they're spinning off into 3D colorspaces, profile particulars and alien looking graphs to get their ideas apart. Someone who simply wants a bit of basic color matching know-how (in the 'so what should I do to stand the best chance without putting too much effort in' category) starts to read those and loses interest almost immediately. Too much data to go over, too many options.
The challenge will be to distill it down to some general guidelines while still remaining useful...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 09:46 pm (UTC)Talking to a local fine-art printer, he tends to start with a generic cost of $10/sq-foot for fine art prints. It can go up a little bit for the really really spendy medias (some of the top-end canvasses for instance) and down a bit for entry level papers. Since he's doing one-off work of pieces for show and not "I need 20 prints of this at so-and-so size", that cost includes all the work he needs to do to get the print right: image import, color setup, proofs, final output, approval, etc. Some discount is applied for printing multiples, but not as much as you'd think.
I'm sticking to his model for the photographic industry, though slightly less (more around $8.50/sq-foot) since I'm just now building a client base. While this seems rather high, it's actually quite good compared to other local photo businesses.
My thought here was: "As long as I'm all set up to do this work, why not offer it to folks I know in fandom too?" As long as my costs and at least a small part of my labor is covered, I'm good. I know that most of my art-creating friends don't do fine-art prints or large-scale prints because of that high cost per square foot. I figured I'd knock down my rates by half or more to see if it got fandom artists interested.
As a result I'm looking at the $4-6.50 range per square foot, depending on which media is being used. I'm refining that number based on feedback from artists I know and more research into the industry. While I'm doing test and setup like this I'm working pretty much at my cost, and I'm sure I'll still squeak out a few at-cost jobs for personal friends when asked.
Posters on the low-cost poster-stock material are a different story. Once I have actual, official prices ready to go I'll post them.