Prints Prints Prints Prints Prints--- How do you get the near perfect digital print?

[hekatoncheir]

Not sure if this is the right section to post in, but would like to know a little more about printing and CMYK/RGB regarding digital prints. Or is it just play with the saturation + contrast until you get it "right"? I know that monitor screens display whatever is printed a little differently, but to have the colour balance completely off? (For instance, a blue-green piece with no reds come up as purple?)

Or is this an issue with the printer itself? Really, any insight on printing would help, especially the technicality/science of it. Thanks... :|

[OmenSpirits]

Have you contacted a printer to inquire about it?

[Kolbenito]

Not sure if this is the right section to post in, but would like to know a little more about printing and CMYK/RGB regarding digital prints. Or is it just play with the saturation + contrast until you get it "right"? I know that monitor screens display whatever is printed a little differently, but to have the colour balance completely off? (For instance, a blue-green piece with no reds come up as purple?)

Or is this an issue with the printer itself? Really, any insight on printing would help, especially the technicality/science of it. Thanks... :|

Are you printing at home or sending these off to a shop to print? Either way a couple of things that help are calibrating your monitor (with a device like the Spyder 4 for example) and using the correct ICC profile for the printer.

If you are doing this on your own at home it will take a little trial and error but you can get really good results. From a professional print shop I'd let them tell you what you need to do and follow the instructions exactly.

[Dusty]

Type "giclee" in google and your local city.
Call them up and ask questions.

Order prints from them.

You'll be happy (but they do require a financial investment in yourself).

[arenhaus]

You do test prints and tweak the source file until you get a good result. Brightness and contrast are not enough; most of the time you end up doing color balance adjustments, and sometimes even spot color tweaks.

[Doug Hoppes]

I make lots of prints of my paintings (do them at home). It's really a trial and error to get it right. Even then, you won't. My process is, once a painting is done, I take a photograph of it and put it into photoshop. Then I adjust the saturation levels, color balance, and lots of other settings to get it as close as I can. Once done, I print out a 3 x 4 image of it and keep printing out small prints until I get the settings right to match my painting.

Several things to remember. Paintings look different under different types of light. I typically match my print to my painting and compare them in my living room during the daytime (which, for the most part, people hang my prints in their living room or the office).

I also keep a print file for each printer/paper pair. When I get a new printer, I have to go and re-do all of my prints to match them up again (it's a serious pain, so I don't do it that often).

For me, it's a lot of trial and error. However, I have to get it right, because at a lot of art fairs, people will take the print and compare it to the painting. If it doesn't come really realy close, they don't buy the print.

[sone_one]

dont even think about buying a decent printer yourself!

considering the amount youll actually print where that quality is needed, the cost of paper and inks (pigmented are the ones to go for if you want to have them lightfast and in museum quality), the cost of the machine itself, and the amount of time invested in keeping them operating properly (nozzels are tiny compared to literal rocks of pigment). theres not much room for a worse choice than that. i made it myself and its just 1 of 2 investments i really regret yet.

have it done by a professional company. go there and recheck it yourself on a calibrated screen of theirs. this should provide you with a good representation of what is to be expected. you can aswell have test prints and recheck them in comparisson to what you see on your screen under a given lighting, yet the visit at their office is most likely the cheaper and more reliable alternative on the long run.