Choosing the Perfect Prints: A Guide to Elevating Your Space

lmtdrysdale
May 6, 2024
2 min read

Prints vary in quality and the right printing company needs to be found that will make your work shine. This article dives into my findings and what to look out for.

At the point of writing this post, I am still building my site and looking to increase my inventory and get more things to sell. One of the main ways artists make a living on top of their original pieces, is to sell prints. I ordered several different sizes, paper types and ink application techniques for 3 paintings that look very different to each other. I won't mention the names of the names of the companies I used in this experiment but I am based in the UK.

Let's go through some of the main things that I noticed.

Colour Depth The main thing I noticed was about the colour depths, they did vary, especially with the middle picture above (Frozen Chicago Lake). The depth of the blue lake ice in the foreground was lost a bit in some of the prints compared with the original.
Gloss Shiny-ness I chose a gloss paper for a couple of them and I found it very shiny for my liking so I will stick with a medium gloss as my max if I went this with company.
Colour & Texture Some of the paper types looked like they had a noticeable difference in texture (e.g. 200gsm vs 350gsm) and colour online but when looking at the physical product, the difference in colour and texture wasn't that much different.
Online Order Experience For the online orders chosen, the online order experience was very different. In some of them, you had to specify everything from page sizes, borders, paper type, paper colour, etc) and others had a quicker more standardised approaches. For me, the ideal situation would be standardised approaches offering lots of variety with good quality prints.

Overall, I was very surprised with the quality of the prints I had received. None of the prints were of a poor quality however I still feel like I need to try a couple more companies before making a decision.

Out of everything I have seen and experienced, I would say that the best tip I can give you before wanting to print ANYTHING is to try different print companies before committing to one.

If you enjoyed the article, please do take a look at my online store a see if any of the prints catch your eye.

Online Store - https://www.leodrysdale.com/store

I have also added a link to some print stores below (some of these I may, or may not, have chosen. I have gone with 1-2 links from several different countries.

Please Note that these companies are companies which I have found online. I cannot vouch for all of them at this moment in time.

UK The Print Space - https://www.theprintspace.co.uk/

Beyond Print - https://beyondprint.co.uk/artists/

USA

Finerworks - https://finerworks.com/

Printkeg - https://www.printkeg.com/

Sweden

Wall Of Art - https://wallofart.se/

Germany

Prodigi - https://www.prodigi.com/germany-print-on-demand/

Australia

PrinTribe - https://www.printribe.com/