Question for all my friends who make and sell prints of their art

[hideincarnate]

If you have ever printed out your art for sale or just for display, did you print them at home or did you take them to a printers?I tried printing an art project out here at my house. And it came out looking...not as good as it does on the computer. Like...it looks pixelated and I can see every dot of color. So it doesn't look very smooth or

Comments

[karadin]

make sure that before you start to draw in the computer than your image size is large, at least 8 1/2 x 11, if you create a small image, it is almost impossible to make it look better larger.

I make my own prints at home, but I purchased a good ink-jet printer, these make better prints for artists. When you take your prints to a Kinko's or Fed Ex, they aren't always willing or knowlegable in how to tweak color scales to make the image look the way you want, at home you know your own settings. Printing at home can be more expensive because the inks will cost you more, but you can also print on a wider range of paper, including acid-free and even handmade papers, with some printers.

[hideincarnate]

Well, I actually tend to draw by hand, and I draw on paper that big, if not bigger.

Yeah, I wanted to print at home so I could experiment with paper types.

I changed the image resolution - which of course defaulted to 72 - to the professional standard. I plan to reprint the image now to see if it helped or if it's really the type of printer I have.

Thanks for the advice! =D

[karadin]

I draw large size, but always scan at 300dpi. Which is actually the professional standard for production art.

72 is a good web resolution, it shows up pretty clear and does not take up a lot of space to store.

[hideincarnate]

...How do I know if my scanner SCANS at 300dpi? My mom has this all-in-one printer/scanner/fax combo...I'm not sure I can tweak the settings all that much. =S

Well, I changed it to 300 dpi in GIMP, and printed it out in GIMP, and it looks the same color wise. Like I can see all the individual dots of color - a grainy appearance except for on the color black. So I am wondering if it's the PAPER or the type of printer we have? =S

But could it be the file type as well? I've been printing GIF images - I wanted the background to be transparent so the paper could be the BG - but is that not a good file type to print? Should I try them as JPGs?

And even though I changed the DPI in GIMP, and save it, each time I reopen it, the DPI is back to 72. So...it isn't staying 300 DPI...so I am a bit frustrated.

[karadin]

Do you have Illustrator or Photoshop?

[hideincarnate]

I do not. =( The copy of Photoshop I used to have began to crash terribly and since then I haven't bothered trying to find another "inexpensive" copy. *sigh*

[karadin]

Look up the manufacter of your scanner online and see if you can find a tutorial on changing the scanner dpi.

It's all how you make your first scan, changing to another kind of file won't make the resolution higher.

I make prints from pdfs and jpgs, I don't use the gif format.

[hideincarnate]

Ok. I'll do that to see if it's possible. Looking at the scan I used to color off of, it's DPI is 150. So...not as high as 300 and that's with no fiddling.

Ok. I'm saving them as jpgs now and the DPI changes seem to be sticking. I'll try printing them again and see if it looks any better. (These images are seriously small - the size of a stamp. Which is what I want but I want them to look like NICE stamps, not grainy stamps.)

[karadin]

This might also help

[hideincarnate]

It seems I have to redo the whole thing. Since it scanned in as 150 DPI. I've printed out the 300 dpi jpg on two different types of paper. And it still looks grainy.

I'm rather discouraged now.