Hi there,
I'm relatively new to the whole selling of artwork, now that I've graduated (in a non-art-related degree!) I'm taking a bit of time to focus on my art and see if it takes me anywhere. I'm basically wondering what people's feelings are about getting prints made in a print shop (ie one that specialises in business printing etc, rather than specifically artwork). I know that for mass-producing the highest quality prints then you'd go with an actual art print-maker, but for one-off "reproductions" or copies of drawings, I'm wondering whether anyone has used a normal print shop before, and what the quality is like...?

I've got an exhibition/display on at the moment but would like to hold onto most of my originals for the time being as I'm potentially going to display some in a gallery once this has finished; however I've had some interest and am trying to explore the different ways of making just one or two good-quality copies of drawings, at a not-too-extortionate price!

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

Hello Becky Jo! Have a look around the Internet for Giclee printers; these printers use a print format with thousands of dots per square centimetre. For starters, try CreateOnline, based at Bletchley park, Milton Keynes, and speak with Kevin James.

Best wishes, and good luck with your exhibitions,

Steve Williams
RSC Wigan / Warrington area

Hi Becky,

I did a huge amount of research on what to do with prints, I very quickly worked out unless you were sure you would sell many of 1 print it was easier and cheaper to do it yourself, ok I'm the first to admit, they are not the same top quality as the fine art ones, but with matt archival paper and good quality inks that are lightfast, a bit of adjustment on printer settings for colour and brightness, you can get a decent A4 print to sell.

The biggest challenge I found with fine art printing companies is the set up cost of a print, you also need to colour match it, so a proof is required, most of the main online ones I looked at charged around £40 set up and about £12 proof. The 2nd challenge is having a high enough quality photo over 300DPI, this poses a few problems with your normal digital compact camera giving a decent image, so the alternative is posting your work to them for scanning.

If the costs don't make you run for the hills then I would say Abacus looked the best to me. Its the one I'd choose if 1 of my prints starts selling alot.

The other alternative would be to go to your local printing company, if they can scan your work and produce a digital print and colour match it, I do this for greetings cards and they don't charge me for a proof, but I do order over 500 cards at a time to keep costs down.

I do know other artists who have e mailed photos to local printing companies, and they have done a A3 print out for £2.50 each, no colour match or proof. The colours are not the same as the original, the quality of the image is not sharp, but they have sold them, it wouldn't be my choice, but as my artist friend said, its a print, it does not have to be perfect, its not the original, if someone likes it they will buy it.

Hope this helps....Lynn

Hi Becky Jo..I have been painting for ages but only ventured into getting prints in Dec 2011. I decided to go with Giclee printing and looked online for all the people who did it in my area. (North Yorkshire) after a couple of very encouraging phone calls I opted for the best priced, as this was a beginning point, and I got 4 copies of a panoramic landscape for £15 each (with a one off handling charge of £10), also a cd a small example to show to potential buyers and my work held on the pc for a year for further run offs. The paper quality is lovely and the prints very good. So shop around it's not as expensive as you think. Helene