DUFUS ......IN NEED OF HELP AND ADVICE

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Permalink Reply by Fred on January 30, 2012 at 12:39pm

Alison

As you live in the UK I can give a little bit of advice.

Before you start any in house or outhouse printing it is essential that you have you computer monitor calibrated to display the correct colours. That way you should be sure that what you see on your screen is what will be printed.

You can print your own photographs if your own printer is good for that.

I use Photobox, have done for years. You will need to set up an account with them and then they will print out and post to whoever. Before you start sending out photographs to all your friends, have one or two sent to you to see if the quality is fine, look at what is printed to what you see on screen.

It will take a period to sort it all out but it is worth it in the end

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Permalink Reply by Alison May on January 30, 2012 at 1:25pm

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply Fred, I really appreciate that so much, I will get an account with Photobox and see what its all about :-) 

I will be needing more help in the future no doubt, I hope you don't mind me asking you again?

Thank you for the help and advice so far, I will take all that on board and sort out the monitor too. Its good to know that some people are willing to help .....

Thank you again

Alison :-)

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Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on January 30, 2012 at 1:19pm

The first, and most obvious step, would be have something that another person would be willing to pay for.

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Permalink Reply by Alison May on January 30, 2012 at 1:31pm

Thank you Nathan, yes Ive had some offers aready, My coastal shots go down well ... Ive had a fair amount of people ask for prints

thank you for the reply :)

Alison

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Roth on January 30, 2012 at 2:19pm

I agree with what fred has to say also, not sure if you already are but you are taking and printing from RAW images not JPG?

I had many issues calibrating the color on my monitor to display correctly I now use a 50" flat panel to view & edit all my photos. After printing from that I also printed from what im viewing on my monitor and indeed the flat panel was true.

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Permalink Reply by Alison May on January 30, 2012 at 2:42pm

Thank you Stephen for the great help and advice also. I've not even started up yet, thought Id get the help and advice I needed first before I take the plunge ...... I will take all of this advice on board as I dont much at all about how I go about things .... Thank you all so very much for your help, much appreciated

Alison

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Roth on January 30, 2012 at 2:54pm

Not a problem, Spent a lot of Money and headache getting it right, I'm sure you already are/have but reserch till no end out of printers, not all are the same as we know. I personally use Epson, but that just my personal preferance. I also do large format printting so found they make the best printers for that. Hope you are sucessful at it, I know nothing feels better than getting paid for a photo you took.

 

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Permalink Reply by Alison May on January 30, 2012 at 3:25pm

Thanks so much for that, I'm all ears, I know nothing, that's why im very grateful for ANY advice you can give me, thanks for the printer advice too, I wouldnt know which one to choose .....

Im starting of with smallish prints, see how it goes, then think about bigger if Im selling ok

Thanks again Stephen :-)

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Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on January 30, 2012 at 3:29pm

Hi Alison,

as several people have mentioned a very big part of the workflow is calibration, we have just taken delivery of the latest Eizo 27 self calibrating monitor which has made producing true reference colours simplicity itself.

If you work with an industry standard colour management workflow through Photoshop setting up and proofing with correct printer and paper media profiles you won't go wrong.

We also use Epson large format and print on various canvas and exotic media - its as Stephen says, a learning curve with a few headaches to start.

We actually print 16bit .tiff files exported from raw in the adobe colour space usually - so there is quite a bit to learn initially - depends if you want to print in house or source it out.

As Nathan says you need an outstanding product and a strategy to market and sell whether its the fine art market or other.

The other thing to remember is that people get lazy with just thinking the only place to advertise is Facebook and the like if you are looking to sell large canvas output try the outlets such as galleries and fine art markets and exhibitions in the local cities around you where people can physically appreciate as opposed to only virtually see your art.

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