What to print on with digital art?

[Rist]

What do you guys think is the best support to print on with digital paintings? Canvas? Photopaper gloss/matte?

[steve kim]

i think your sig is too small

[HunterKiller_]

^ :D

Depends on your purpose.
Matte photo paper I would guess is a standard.

[Rist]

i think your sig is too small

I will see about increasing the size. Thanks for pointing it out, i have a distinct feeling it was slightly smaller than it should be.

[JustinBeckett]

i think your sig is too small

HAHAHA.


Exactly, depends what you want. Did you paint it using Painter with oil brushes? Maybe a canvas would look best. Did you paint it using watercolors in Painter, maybe water color paper would look best? Did you paint it to a realistic look using the round brush in Photoshop?? Maybe a gloss or matte paper would look best. How long do you want it to last, 10 years, 50 years, 200 + years?

Definitely make your signature smaller, i am not going to click your sketchbook just because the link is so damn big.

~JB

[Elwell]

Aaaahh, that's better.

[alice_]

I don't know much about printing but somerset enhanced super satin finish or something like that is what I have just started using and I much prefer it to photo paper of any kind.

[Jessica Hook]

What are you printing the images for?
If you're selling your prints, you'd want to invest in a printer (if you haven't already) that uses archival inks/pigments, for light-fastness and posterity. And get paper with a nice amount of weight, so the buyer doesn't feel like they got gipped with a cheap print. If I pay $30 for a 8.5"x11" print at comiccon that I know the artist printed themselves, I'd feel a little resentful if the paper was cheap looking/feeling. Like "couldn't they at least have paid the extra $5 to upgrade the paper so it at least feels like a professional print."

Also, it's best to buy paper made by the same brand that your printer & ink is. Use Epson paper with Epson printers, use HP paper with HP printers. Since there are so many printers on the market, companies have to keep selling their machines cheaper and cheaper. To offset this loss, they rape customers on ink and paper, and to keep customers loyal to buying their brand products each company engineers proprietary chemical formulas between their own brand ink & paper to "work the best together" and ensure that the guarantee on the ink is met (I've heard this from both Epson & HP reps). For example, If your ink claims "85 years color light fastness under normal conditions" ..."under normal conditions" means you keep it out of the sun, AND you use the same brand paper. Like having to buy xbox games for the xbox. Yeah maybe you can stick a PSP disk into your xbox, does that mean it will work correctly together? Microsoft doesn't want you to spend money on Sony products, and the same goes with Printer companies and their ink and paper.

Yes, generic brands and other brand papers can be used with other brand machines, but to varying degrees of compatibility. Sometimes the difference is not immediately discernible, and sometimes you have to find out the hard way that the paper chemistry isn't a good fit with the ink. I used to have an Epson printer, and I bought 2 big packs of Kodak premium glossy photos paper for it... the Kodak paper turned out to be unusable. The black and dark shades that were printed would "bead" up to the surface and never dry, 10 minutes after being printed, I'd run my finger across the top and it'd smear all the way down. Or I'd buy a generic brand paper "guarantee to work" with your printer, and the surface would stay tacky. :/

I prefer to use satin or matte finishes for artwork. When I had an HP photo printer, I used to-sided HP Premium Presentation Paper (http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2427345) to print my portfolio onto. The paper has a nice substantial weight/feel, the darks were rich, and the color remained crisp and bright. I wanted to-sided so it looked more like a book, than just "bound pages."

[Gumdrop]

While on the subject of printing digi' paintings, does anyone know of a good online service where you can maybe email your work and get it printed? I'm talking professional high quality services and not lame "print your own t-shirt/posters" kinda places.

[JustinBeckett]

I don't know of any other places online that print. But from what i have "heard" Deviant Art Print shop has nice quality, and they are framed. Check it out.

~JB