Lessons

Lesson Info

Making Prints with Q&A

which printing method works best I cannot answer that for you I can only break it down into terms that we can all understand then you can make that decision so I do inkjet prints the fancy where does you clay so my prince sergey clay with gigli printing you have more paper selections and they're more often used by fine artists is just something that is a common denominator but that does not mean that all fine artists used geek like prince there also see type prints or laser prints is just the difference in the printer so with c type prince there fewer paper selections but ah higher color range so that's why some people might prefer to use a c type print so they're just two very very simple differences between images that you can print on making prints so what paper works best there are so many things that you have to consider and these are the things that if you're not thinking about these things before you go see a gallery then you might seem a little bit inexperienced because if you'...

ve never created a print before yet you're going to a gallery to be able to make prints for them to sell they're going to want to know that you understand exactly what you have to do to create those prints it's so maybe you go into a gallery you don't bring your portfolio and they say do you print glossy or matte and you haven't thought about that you need to know you need to know exactly why you're doing it too so what kind of paper works best thinking about the finish of it and the thickness of that paper lossy matte satin watercolor textured buster velvet smooth thes air all words that you kind of have to look into to understand what kind of paper you want to print on so I personally print on a very thick mat paper it's a very heavy weight matte paper it's a velvet paper making prince thinking about the color of the paper something that people very often overlook is it white off white blue white bright white or soft white so many different things it's like why do I have to think about all these things but it's really important how big should I print how many additions should I print should I print all at once and how do I ensure color quality so these air all of the big questions that I had when I started these are questions that I get all the time so I want to address each of these things individually so I start with a test print a very small test print that is not a test print don't ask me why I put that print there it's not a test print is just a print so where are my desperate it's let me show you very quickly here what I have to work with so I have some prince with me and they're just some small prints all comm pass these out to you so let me hold one up very quickly here so this is my ten inch size and this is what I will typically use when I am printing for a gallery or to make a test print just to show them what I have to offer so I used this size print because it's the smallest edition size that I offer so this is what I'm using and if I'm talking a lot about additions and stuff like that it's not making sense that's because I did go over it in my first class so I don't want to repeat myself too much but I'll explain little bits now do you print like critical in house or do you have ah printmaking factory or whatnot yes I print with a local printer so I always make sure that I find somebody who I can actually go to to make test prints and things like that if you just don't have that option than I do recommend at least working with an online lab that will send you a test print and we'll do that proofing for you um but I try to find somebody local or at least semi local so starting with a test print let me pass these around to you guys real quick we'll just run them over feel free to manhandle them it's okay they're just my sample prints and they're all protected in there so starting with a test print I create a physical portfolio of about ten to twenty print it's so I'm making the small print's putting them all in my portfolio order them so that they make sense this is another really important thing you have to understand that people are going to be looking at them and assuming that you have them ordered in a certain way so if you don't then that could be a little bit confusing to the person viewing so of whatever whatever order you think is best there is no formula that I can give you a tow ordering your prince but maybe you have a certain lighting scheme that goes throughout that you want to order it from warmest two coolest in terms of color or light that's coming in the image maybe it is that there's a story that you're telling like a linear story that you're telling with your images and you order them that way maybe you order them so then you have a bright color and then more neutral images and then you end on a bright color I try to always put as the first image the image that I am personally most proud of and then I move on from there file preparation so how do you actually create that print so first thing color profile s rgb or what's the other one I don't know these things adobe yes or dobie rgb yeah so those the two different color profiles I don't think a lot about that because I don't know what color profile are workin I'm terrible but that's how it is I send it to my printer he says it's good so I can help you with that but going to your printer and saying what color profile should I be in that's a really good thing to dio formatting so I will literally go in I have canvas size up here in photo shop I will go in I will type in the width and height in inches because my printer prints in inches based on what he tells me I mean I I need a twenty inch print he tells me ok go in then and change your inches to twenty inches that way the canvas size is the same they're correct size for what you're trying to dio so you're going sorry image size I keep saying canvas eyes don't die I don't mean to I mean image size going into image size so I'm changing my image size to make sure that it is the correct size for what I need to print and then I save it as a tiff so next light saving it as a tiff I go in change the file format the tiff and then I save my images as my last name underscore the title so that's how every single one of my images has saved their all backed up that way I can easily find them in a search because of that choosing sizes for your prince so understanding how many different sizes you will offer it is not okay to offer unlimited sizes if you're doing limited edition prints so I choose an amount of sizes that I want to use so I use four main sizes I also have a fifth size which I do very infrequently four main sizes ten by ten inches twenty by twenty thirty by thirty and forty by forty everything is square because everything is square they're all square dimensions so ten twenty thirty and forty inches that's what I personally use as my sizes so here I'm breaking it down for you I want to be really transparent about this my size my addition and the price so I'm letting you know exactly what my prints cell four I've got ten inch prints there additions out of fifteen meaning that I will never make more than fifteen of that print at that size edition out of fifteen four hundred fifty dollars that's how I'm pricing my ten inch print which is the size that you guys have that I held up before so I've got those ten inch prints they are addition doubt of fifteen there sold for four hundred and fifty dollars let's be very very transparent here let's talk about how much it cost to print a ten inch print cost me ten dollars to create but that's just the print and I am paying myself not at all for that print sure I'll factor that cost in especially if it gets very very costly I'm paying myself from my time for my imagination I'm paying myself for how long it takes to print and run around and make those proofs and things like that there's so many things that go into that pricing structure twenty by twenty inches edition out of ten I price that at thirteen fifty not thirteen dollars and fifty cents a very common mistake because I need to remember to say a thousand one thousand three hundred fifty dollars I price it at that at that point because I am splitting this with a gallery fifty fifty so I'm splitting with the gallery fifty fifty meaning that I'm only making half of that and I have to pay for the print and I have to pay for shipping so it actually doesn't come out to that much when you consider thats how I pay myself as an artist it's enough though I'm not saying I don't make enough money those air high prices I get it so don't be like ah you charge a lot for your prince and that's terrible but you know I want to be transparent with my prices and let you know exactly what's going on over here so thirty inches additions out of seven twenty eight hundred dollars forty by forty inches edition out of five thirty four hundred dollars so you can see that the bigger the print the lower the addition size the higher the price you don't have to print all at once so a lot of people say oh my gosh for every single image that you produced you just print all of your additions then store them in your house and I say no because I would be absolutely broken living on the streets if I did that I there's no way I could afford to print everything all at once it's because even though my ten inch prints cost ten dollars my forty inch prints cost a lot more than that it's ten cents a square inch so at least for my printer personally so no I do not print all at once and you don't have tio that's the good thing about modern technology is that if you're using the same printer they keep that file on hand they print from that same file to the same printer and it's always consistent now let's say that you switch printers you're not really sure if it's going to look the same that's why we do proofs so you create a small test image you see if it looks the same as you have in your mind and then if it does you can continue printing that edition I print is the orders come in so if a gallery wants to do a show I print that show if somebody orders a print I print that print I ship it out and that's how I deal with my print orders so the printer will save the files for print continuity proofing is the process where an artist looks at a test print and so you're just basically looking to see does it look how I mean it toe walk is it faded or the black skewing grey are the highlights bright enough are they too bright is it to contrast you are the colors right all those little things you khun test papers by doing little proofs with printers sometimes printers will offer teo you know if you give them your business they'll do your proust for free things like that always proof your images though it is so incredibly important all right find a local printer on and if you have to use an online lab which is okay find one that does actual finer printing where they have finer papers available so don't settle for like a high gloss commercial paper if that's not what you want for your prints make sure that you understand what you want another great thing that you could do is you can actually buy your own paper from a website for example I use breathing color dot com that's my website of choice to go find my paper they create a selection of fine art paper the paper that I use is elegance velvet fine art paper so that's what you guys air well you're not touching it but you can if you want to pop one open and feel it that's totally fine that's that paper it's a very thick very heavy textured paper I love it for my images because that represents who I am I'm creating textured images that have a lot of rich color and depth to them so questions ask your printer do they have a fine art paper that's archival certified for one hundred plus years where are they willing to order it what is their printing methods you clay or c type what is their turnaround time very important because if you don't ask that question it could be a month before your print is ready and you could have very very annoyed clients on your hands how large can they print some people are just simply limited by the size of their printer so like I said before I have a fifty inch size that I print at but my printer can't print that large so he actually has to go to another person's printer to abuse that printer to make my print on the special paper and then he gives it to me so printing a fifty inch print is a hugely expensive process it's not something that I want to do a lot of unless I'm having a big show or something is specifically ordered do they offer proofing sessions so are you able to go in sit next to your printer's see what they're seeing proof with them that's a really amazing thing to be able to dio and they can answer a lot of your questions about how to print how to be in galleries things like that that's where I learned eighty percent of what I know about galleries was from my printer I found an amazing fine art printer in los angeles I went to him we sat down together reproved he said okay this is how it is this is how auditioning works this is how you get to exhibit it in a gallery baba block whole thing and I learned so much from him so preparing for a gallery meeting you have to have confidence that is the number one thing you have to go in there understanding what you d'oh why you do it and believing in it above all else focus on what you love about your art be able to speak about your process talk about your passions and inspirations be knowledgeable about your prince so like I said with the additions the sizes all of that stuff be able to speak about that in a way that's confident I understand the risk that the gallery is taking so we tend to go in there as artists and be like well we've created all this art it took us so long it was so hard to do now somebody has to show it but those galleries are taking a huge risk on you they can only have a limited number of artists that they represent which means that you have to sell for them or they have to really believe that you're going to sell for them in the future so they're spending a lot of money to advertise for you and a lot of money taking you two different shows and having a show with you you're taking up real estate and they have to spend a lot of money paying for that rent so you have to be able to make that money back for them preparing for a gallery meeting organized your prince make sure they're in the order that you want them to be in make sure you khun speak about those prints so start with something bold that's my suggestion and there's no clear cut way though of doing this I start with something bold I show a lot of variety and with a siri's that's how I present my portfolio present them beautifully so let me hold there and talk a little bit about my portfolio's I'll pass these around in just a second this is not a portfolio that I would use to show to a gallery as being representative of my prince because this is a book made by picked oh okay well open to this page okay so I've got this book here these are ten inch prints I believe we can check the size maybe eight but I think they're ten on dh so I have a book of my prints but this is not what I would sell in a gallery I bring this along with me whenever I'm meeting with the gallery just so they can see lots of examples of my work and then I give them the actual prince so when I'm talking about making prints for your portfolio I mean you have the paper chosen you have the sizes chosen that you want to show you understand you're printing method and you're sending them actual prince that you could sell so that's what you're ordering but this is something that's really good to have a book of your work just to show them this is all the stuff that I am able to dio so if you want to see anything else is a print I can print any of these for you so I have a book like that and then I have my portfolio book which I really love but it's broken which is why I don't have my prints in there right now because it kind of cracked I took it on a trip and it didn't make it so this is my portfolio and I have it wouldn I actually saw I had somebody interning for me once and she had a portfolio like this for her she's graduating I was like her final show kind of thing on I was obsessed and I said where did you get that book it turned out that her friend had made it an art school so I asked if you would make me one as well and that's how I ended up with this book so I approach somebody in art school I paid them probably a quarter of what a professional would have been paid but he had never made any money doing something like this so it's good to help local students and stuff like that they make really amazing things so I have it just burned like engraved in here I have my name brooke shade in in the same text that I used to have on my website and then fine art photographer and so that's very very simple all inputting now if I had a website that I knew I wasn't going to change like right now I d'oh at this time I didn't I would also put www dot brooke shade in dot com on there that way the gallery conceive ary simply that I've got everything organized so the way that this one works is you open it up you can put your prints in there and sleeves and you can flip through it like a book so let me pass this around to you guys real quick other portfolio alternatives I usedto have a metal case and in that middle case there you go in that metal case I would put my prints loose so I don't necessarily recommend that because if you have your prints loose they can get scratched and beat up s o I do recommend a book of some sort there are all sorts of books so you could get a be creative about it and make sure that your portfolio matches what your photography looks like so it wouldn't book made sense because I love shooting in the forest in nature it all works together for me okay so um be sure to have a book that matches present them simply so don't think they have to be super fancy don't bring along like a a golden frame or something like that with your picture giant inside they're not looking for that they're looking to see the quality of your work okay so you have a show save your money because this is a very expensive thing to dio having a show means that you have to print everything yourself this means that you are the one responsible for all of these different things that perhaps you might not have the funds to do like I didn't when I started so the average show has ten to twenty prints hanging and it's the artist responsibility to pay for that so I use simple white frames that's what I choose to dio sometimes black frames just depends white matting if I have a print that is twenty inches or smaller I do a one inch border around them if I have a print that is thirty inches or larger I do a two inch border I learned that the hard way by doing a half inch border around all of them and then we couldn't frame them or at least it was extremely difficult to frame them so I make sure that I have the right amount of border I know what my matting is like I know what I want my frames toe look like I don't care about frame's very much because more often than not anybody who's buying a print will give the frame back anyways because they have a certain decor that they already have going in their house this next thing that I want to talk about it's so important so right here we have print sales and availability you need to keep track of everything that you are putting out this can cause legal trouble if you don't yeah ok so if I wanted to buy my favorite picture doctor I can't anymore because you've sold no you can't then how does that work exactly because you said one out of fifteen so and then you said you don't felt anymore after well then I have to out of fifteen and then I have three out of fifteen until I finished the addition yeah yep hopefully so prince sails and availability what you need to keep track of this is just a simple spreadsheet that I keep on my google drive so I can access it anywhere updated no matter where I am yes I will what I do is I do the title the addition the size that you're printing at the paper that you're printing on the invoice number if you are personally selling and invoicing somebody the sale is it solder is it not sold the date that you printed it or that it went somewhere the price that you sold it for and if a gallery has it or not so I always know every little detail from what the print is what addition it was what paper it was on who has it who's keeping it when it's sold if it sold all those different things so artist signing the prince you should either sign the print itself not the matting but the print itself on the white border usually or a certificate of austin authenticity or both so a certificate of authenticity is just a piece of legal paper saying that yes I certify that this print was proof by me that it I understand that you know everything is good to go with that signing in pencil I sign in pencil on all my prince that seems to be very standard for fine artist so I signed in pencil on photographic paper and I uh number it on the bottom left and sign on the bottom right so that's how I'm actually logistically signing my prince all right now this light is a little bit weird you can kind of ignore it but I'm going to show you exactly what it is right here this is a color guide for your gallery so let's say that you have a gallery show and you want to be able to sell prince let's say that a client comes into that gallery there looking at the ten images hang on the walls and you're kind of like you know uh I don't really know if I want thes but I'm kind of interested in the artist this is a great thing to print out for a gallery it's a color coded guide toe all of your most popular works so I print this out for my gallery so I start with red so just warm images I start there I have all these different images with that same color scheme because very often it's color that links one image to another so I have all of my red images if I skip through here we've got the neutral section so I've got my sort of cp atoned images or mixed together and then I also have my blue images somewhere in there that I can't find right now but there they are they're in there somewhere so they're just all organized together really really simply now if I were selling prince personally if I was not here also give this to you guys so you could hang on to that and take a look um if I were selling my prince personally not through a gallery I would have the same exact thing that I would send out two people but I would also send out a little cover sheet that says my prints are all proof by me they're printed on blubber ball paper thes air my size aziz my prices these air my edition and that way there's a little cover page saying exactly what I do how I do it and then the options of what they can purchase I'm creating a cv what you want to put on their exhibition award events publications your education so for galleries I'll just go over this one this is what my cvi looks like I have december two thousand thirteen storen christians and gallery photo nolan meaning that this was part of a bigger organization the show wass and it was a group show now my show was a solo show but it was part of a big group exhibition all around the city and then we have january two thousand fourteen joe an art gallery to person show so letting them know what the gallery is when it happened and how many people were showing june two thousand thirteen maurin galleries solo show so just going through all of the exhibitions that you might have had letting people know in an organized way what you d'oh same with magazines things like that any publications that you might have given the date and the publication that it was in and if it was a feature or not okay now one last thing that I want to end on here is the fact that we all start with the same thing and that is nothing we all have nothing so you and I right now let's pretend that we both I've never had a show you've never had a show I've started there I didn't come into this was somebody saying hey brooke you're awesome I'm going to give you a show and give you thousands of dollars and then you can start your own business it doesn't happen like that and so if you're feeling like oh my gosh I'm so far away from this you might not be that far away you just have to reconsider what is your business how were you selling your prints become knowledgeable about that and become confident and what you d'oh equipment money and status these are the things that people have put so much impact on they think wow these are things that are going to make me but these things mean nothing it is all about the ideas the passion and the confidence and if you don't have those things then you have nothing I don't care how much money you have you're not going to be able to go to a gallery and say I'll pay five thousand dollars if you exhibit my work well maybe you will but that doesn't really mean that much does it so I go in with ideas I go in with passion and I let you know how confident I am I don't care if you like what I d'oh I love what I do and it's not about me being the best photographer it's about me being the happiest photographer I could possibly be perfect yes um todd aaron from tyler texas asked when you frame prince for a gallery do you leave the print open or protected behind glass that's a good question if I am printing a show that's local then I frame and I deliver the prints and they're behind plexiglass not regular glass regular lass is really heavy regular glass khun scratched the print if it breaks it glares a lot so I don't use out of use plexi if I have a show anywhere else if I am printing and I have to send something to tyler texas then I'm going to ship them unframed not even matted flat usually if it's twenty inches or smaller rolled if it's thirty inches or bigger and when they get there that's when I say to the gallery will you frame these soon they're protected and so we don't have a ton of extra cost with shipping a frame to print and then I say I will pay you for that I'll still pay for it because I know that's my responsibility but will you do it for me so then I don't have to deal with that bogey one two three and a couple other people are still confused a little bit about numbering in about limited edition prints talk about that a little bit more so if you have you number ten by ten as one of fifteen then you could do to a fifteen three fifteen you know fifteen fifteen and that's it you'll never sell a ten by ten of that again is exactly that is exactly right you can still sell a twenty inch print authority and print whatever your sizes are you khun still that so it's still sell that print at those sizes but never again at that size so if in addition sells out it's regarding that size not all the size is necessarily and will you ever then let's see von studio and a few others does brooke then delete the original art after she sells out the limited edition of your work do you have to delete the proofs now you just you keep that for archival purposes you keep it and I mean of course because you know what maybe a magazine once that image in their magazine that has nothing to do with the fine art print so I don't want to destroy that file and then not be able to ever use that again as part of my portfolio so I do keep them especially because they're my personal babies you know I love those things so I'm going to keep my files however you will be in legal trouble if you go on to print that as a fine art print again some francesca asked is it best to have a dis to give to a gallery or print portfolio I do large pieces with it edition of mixed media which are almost always impossible to rian you have any suggestions and what wouldn't make a mark on a gallery the most or I guess you means makes the biggest impression yeah I personally I would do a couple of things I would have ah photo book I suppose pictures of what the artwork is especially if it's mixed media you can't transport it I would also have images though not just of the work but of the work hanging that way they can see the scale of it how big it is what it actually looks like in a space I would get detail shots to show the texture of it so they understand what the processes that goes into that and then I would also bring in if it's applicable the paper that it's on or the canvas that it's on or some of the raw materials that are used to put that together right I got one from let's see deal evans that I really liked there are a lot of people who when they get first gets started shoot with a friend or someone and they shoot with same person on a regular basis do you see that as a problem I says that I have a friend who I shoot often different looks but the same model does this imply limitations well I hope not because I do that so I guess I've got a big problem that e I mean I used the same person in about one hundred of my images out of the five hundred in my portfolio so I don't think it's a problem I've never met a gallery that's thought that's a problem if anything they think it's kind of neat to be able to say this is the same model in every image look how different they turn out so no I wouldn't worry about that I mean if you've got a friend who's willing to model go for it and I think josh has a question that's what I was going to can you speak to the value of submitting to contests and magazines which are considered more and more they're not compensating you for that work oh yeah I mean giving you credit I've hardly ever been compensated for something like that I think that it could be really good for exposure I mean it's good to put on your cv because the gallery does look at that so it's good for that purpose and that's why I would do shows that I didn't make any money at that I had to pay to be in but at the same time I was adding to my resume so that I could send that to better galleries and say hey look I've already done some shows so it's good in that regard I'm a little bit wary about contests a lot so even if I join a contest I probably won't tell anybody that I did if I wanted I probably won't tell anybody that I want it because it just makes me feel embarrassed a little bit sometimes but yeah but yeah it's still worth it to other people you know to the professionals who might be taking you into a gallery so in that way it's worth it s o someone asked to what extent do you spend money on a website how valuable do you think that it is to present yourself well online I think it's very important I spent no money on a website because my husband does it so I don't have to worry about that I don't actually have any sense of what websites costs I'm very terrible in that regard because I've never had to think about it but I mean I think it's the same as I mean I think that you can get a really beautiful website it's not that expensive that's my sense that there are a lot of good templates out there you don't just spend a ton of money on it but I think that it should match your style of photography I think that it should present your work clean so I think that it's really important to have a website where it's not confusing to get around where it's not too distracting music on a website is one of those things where I'll probably just close it before anything even loads because I don't want to listen to music on somebody's website but that's just personal so there are all sorts of different things that might be turnoffs for people so I think keeping it simple and easy to navigate is the biggest thing and then one more quick question from the free minder from l a you do need a model release if a person is recognizable in fine art prints that you sell is that correct what about if they're not recognizable like if their faces obscured there not someone who is yeah identifiable still best tohave one I don't know the legal answer to that about if you actually have to have one in that case but at the same time I mean that's still a person who spent their time modeling and so I would just personally feel a lot better if I could have a model release just having them say you know what it's okay you can use this image so I said just they always have a model release and just out of curiosity do do digital model release yes or no because I don't understand digital things I like I don't know howto work my phone like so I print my now and I have a little you know file of them and what not but yeah I'm terrible about digital everything fantastic ok and we do have time for great you don't want a mark you don't need toe watermark obviously we I mean we can look at the picture and tell us yours but to other people like posting a flicker for instance well she's she's slicker um do you think it's a good idea to have a water mark and I see a lot of people leaning towards instead of like an official one using their website do you think that's a good idea to get your thoughts on that I don't water mark my images I don't have ah great reason why it's just something that I thought was distracting when I started and then it got to the point where I just had never done it and I I kind of had this moment one day where I was like you know what I could spend all of my time trying to find my images on the internet and make sure nobody stealing them or I could just stop carrying so much and realized that I gotta just relax a little bit and not let it bother me and so now I just don't care I don't look at it I don't care about it andi I have faith that if something of mine is being used in a very inappropriate way somebody will tell me so that I rely on the kindness of strangers but I think that if you're going to honor mark which is not all about idea I would just use the website and make it very indiscreet not to prevent people from stealing it but just so that if people accidentally share it without giving credit you still have something on there to let them know that this is where it came like a loa pat opacity yeah and not across the whole thing probably just a little