Art Reproduction,...Prints & Giclees advice and help?

Question

I'm a new artist looking for a printing company to create reproductions of my artwork. I paint with acrylics on canvas and I have no idea what to expect, or what to look for, and what is best.

Is getting prints done by digital photography good?
Or is getting prints done by scanning the artworks good?

Which one would be the better choice? Any advice would a great help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would look for a local printer that has Giclee equipment and has been doing it for a long time- It takes experience to create quality Giclee prints. If it's possible , set up an appointment with the printer to see your work and together you will know if this is the process for you. I've tried all processes to reproduce my acrylic paintings and Giclee is the best, in my opinion. Good Luck and congratulations on taking the step in producing editions of your work-

Answer 2

Scanning gives you the best resolution and color which Giclee does. With this process you can enlarge dramatically as well as change colors and you can apply the image to just about anything like aluminum, canvas, wood, plastic, bone, glass. With both Giclee and Digital you won't have the expensive and cumbersome overhead of thousands of prints from an off-set press or printer/lithographer. They have to do this because the press(same as newspapers) itself needs time and repeated 'checks' to ensure color and resolution is correct. So to make it profitable they have to press/print hundreds to thousands.
With digital and giclee once done/scanned you have the CD and can print on demand with no overhead and storage costs. Plus you can offer varying sizes to the same painting. Scanning is about$25 - $80(done only once) depending on size and reproducing on canvas about $30 for a ie, 20x28 inches; $15 on paper 20x28. Costs vary on who does it but some artists are buying the equipment and doing it themselves. China, Thailand offer very good costs at higher production with personal inspection before shipping.
* if you have a good computer with a larger printer you can print your own; having a good camera is a must-have with 6-10 MegaPixels to print your own or getting a commercial printer to do the same.

Answer 3

Hi Stony,
I don't know enough about Giclees to do a "compare and contrast," but I have been informed by my professors that if we are to have prints made of our work, we should have them done by people well experienced in ART lithographs and serographs, not any other kind. Evidently there is a big difference in how it is done, influencing the end result, of course.

http://www.giclee.com Looks like a great site, both educational and commercial. They also have the right attitude towards an artists' work.

http://www.answers.com/topic/lithography has something on the lithography process, too,

Here's a book to check out as well: "Waterless Lithography: An Artist's Guide to Making Professional-Quality Prints Using Nik Semenoff's Method."

That ought to hold us for a while!