There are virtually hundreds if not thousands of artists and creatives that incorporate printing in their daily routines of making their crafts. For example, artists that focus on t-shirts can print and press several shirts a day! Designers can print out multiple patterns to check styles before cutting fabric. Photographers can print small proofs on-site before a shoot is done to make sure the client is happy.

Starting your own journey as an artist or creative can be an exciting endeavor into transforming your work into high-quality prints. Like any task, starting a print project requires the printmaker to consider several things such as a clear understanding of the materials involved, color profiles such as RGB or CMYK, what inks will be used, and the quality of the end product to name just a few!

How can one accomplish this? Start with a basic understanding of a print project! This guide should help you join the many talented people finding fulfillment in sharing their creative visions and seeing them come to life every day.

At Breathing Color, we understand your art is more than just a product - it's a reflection of your passion, creativity, and hard work. I hope you'll use this guide as a starting point that will help ensure your final product meets your highest expectations.

In this two-part blog series, I've broken up this guide into four major categories : I) Pre-Print, II) Printing, III) Post-Printing, and IV) Promotion that will help us cover this information in a clear and concise walkthrough. The intent will be to empower you to print your own creative ideas after reading these guides.

Here's the outline topic preview for Part 1:

1. Pre-Print (Preparing to Print)
   1. Define your print project goals
   2. Know your substrate and what it can do
   3. Know your printer and limitations
   4. Know your monitor and limitations
2. Printing
   1. What is 'color management'?
   2. Preparing Files
   3. Soft proofing & Test Prints
   4. A Successful Print Run

These fundamentals should help you minimize mistakes and make the printmaking journey an enjoyable one.

Let's get to it!

I. Section One: Preparing For Printing

I can't tell you how many times I've ruined a print because I didn't check settings carefully enough or thought my last print settings were saved. I can't tell you how many times I've had a print run of several hundred prints only to see it printing far too red halfway through the stack of papers. Print long enough and you'll have plenty of stories about printmaking similar to these!

While printmaking isn't necessarily hard or demanding, it requires attention to detail and a careful examination of the processes used when printing across a variety of mediums. Topics such as color management and knowing icc profiles should become part of your vocabulary when dealing with printing even when just as a hobby at home. It helps by knowing your intended results: are you printing volume business cards? Are you printing fine art? Are you printing stickers?

Let's start by defining your print project goals.

A. Define Your Print Project Goals

Before we get too deep into the technical details, it's important that you know what you're trying to accomplish with this print project. For example, printing business cards will require a different workflow than printing fine art collector's editions.

• Target Audience: Who is your intended audience? Are you printing fine art for a museum or greeting cards to be handed out at a local bookstore? Knowing your customer will guide choices in terms of print size, durability, and presentation.
• Purpose of the Prints: Are you handing out flyers for a local art installation? Are you posting high-visibility prints in public spaces announcing a concert or band? The quality of your paper, the quantity of your prints, and even the ink used can play a part in defining the project.
• Know Your Budget: Like your intended audience and display location of the prints, the cost of print materials and supplies can further define what success you'll have with your project. For example, printing on expensive gold-leaf paper can drastically increase the price of each print and should be factored into the costs of the project.

B. Know your substrate and what it can do

What exactly is a 'substrate' and why does it matter? The choice of substrate can lead to significantly different results. Choosing the right one that compliments your creative work will lead to successful prints that last for a long time. For example, choosing a photo paper and expecting it to be waterproof will lead to frustration and failure so it's important to note the differences in the various options available. Let's take a look at the most common types of substrates available.

• Canvas: This is one of the most common substrates for large fine art prints. Typically offered in a matte finish, canvas prints offer subtle tones and luxurious depth in colors for a truly impressive result. It is also relatively durable and has a pronounced weave and texture making it ideal for prints that reproduce traditional paintings such as a Monet or Picasso. Canvas is thicker than fine art or photo papers and is a woven product which means it is made out of cotton and other fibrous materials giving it the weight and classic feel of the old masters.
• Fine Art Paper: This is the second most common substrate for fine art prints such that it's in the name of the substrate! Fine Art Papers are excellent for covering a variety of subjects from portraiture to acrylic art reproductions. The selection of textures, finishes, and weights of different papers allows you to find a perfect match for your artwork. For example, a graffiti artist may find a smooth, bright white paper to be ideal for showcasing the pronounced colors and brilliant lines of their work.
• Photo Paper: The key difference between the above two substrates and photo paper is archivalness. Where canvas and fine art papers are designed for archival prints that will last hundreds of years, photo papers are designed to offer bright reprints of your favorite memories or people for specific purposes such as weddings or graduations where the cost of the material matters more than the permanence of the print. Generally thinner than either canvas or fine art paper, photo papers will need to be reinforced with some sort of backing material or frame in order to be displayed properly which makes them an ideal solution for things such as postcards, signage, and point of sale marketing.
• Vinyl/PVC Banner Material: This hero of outdoor signage is a popular solution for even the at-home printmaker with a compatible printer. With water and tear-proof properties, these banner materials provide every business with options for their marketing needs that are designed for durability and longevity in tough environments. For example, if a restaurant has an outdoor eating space; they can use vinyl banners to display weekly drink specials or rules. Traditionally made from PVC or other plastic derivatives, banners, signs, and other "point of sale (POS)" marketing materials are made not for their archival detail but rather their ability to withstand the environmental tests of time.
• Rigid substrates like metal or acrylic panels: While not as common as the above-mentioned substrates, flat panels like rigid metal and acrylic blocks are quickly becoming a favorite for any printmaker seeking a unique product for their customers. Unlike traditional canvas or fine art paper, metals and acrylics offer printmakers a few display options that don't require as much preparation as traditional materials. For example, thin aluminum metal panels are so light that they can be hung with minimal hanging hardware even in larger 60" sizes. Acrylic blocks are typically printed with the image on the back of a thick clear acrylic layer more than 1" thick making them ideal for desktop display or shelf display without any mounting hardware at all.

C. Know your printer(s) and their limitations

Many a printmaker have had high hopes about a project they wanted to take on, only to realize too late that their printer wouldn't handle the specifications of the substrate their customer wanted to use. I can't stress enough that you need to make sure you're aware of what your printer can handle before you agree to take on a print project. This applies mostly to canvas as a thicker substrate that can cause your printer to jam but it's important to note for fine art and photo papers as well since specific printer applications will require special considerations. For example, sublimation on t-shirts, mugs, and other clothing requires special sublimation transfer paper and printer inks. Let's take a look!

• Printer Type: Inkjet, Laser, Solvent or Specialty Type like 3D; your printer will determine what kind of print project you'll be able to take on. Inkjet printers are the preferred choice for fine art printing thanks to their high-resolution print capability and wide range of colors they can reproduce. Laser printers are typically used with C,M,Y,K powders that are meant for speed and volume which make them ideal for flyers, brochures, or other marketing signage that doesn't require fine detail or exact colors. Solvent printers are the ideal choice for large-format printing where longevity and durability are key factors, providing wear and tear resistance with minimal prep. Lastly, specialty printers and machines are included in this list to point out that not every printer will be able to accomplish every print project. I mention the following types of printers for those truly unique projects that would otherwise be impossible.
• 3D Printers - These require plastic filaments that come in rope, bead, or liquid to 'print' vertically from the base of the model up. This is achieved through a molded lattice work frame around a 3D model. This plastic 3D model is then further refined by hand after printing, removing the lattice work, excess plastic, buffering, painting, and protecting the print. At this point, it would be less considered a 'print' and a scale model of whatever you made such as a cup, bicycle, whistle, or other object. This amazing technology has exploded in popularity in recent years, especially in the world of tabletop games such as Dungeons And Dragons where player characters can be miniaturized to use as a player token.
• UV Coating Machine - This is most common on commercial printers for direct mailers, catalogs, and marketing where a protective UV coating is applied via a custom screen plate that allows the entire print to have ultimate wear and tear protection. Printmakers using UV Coating can offer their customers a wide range of print display options with this added level of protection and environmental resistance to wear.
• Aqueous Coating Machine - Similar to a UV Coating machine, these are printers that offer in-line coating options for water-based varnishes in your desired finish. Unlike UV Coating, these printers cannot be 'spot printed' meaning the entire product is equally protected with a coating. This is an excellent solution for large print studios that churn out hundreds of prints a day, allowing them to skip the hand-applied varnish process altogether.
• All-In-One's (AIOs) - These printers function as a home office support center and are simply meant for low-quality, high-volume text and graphics needs. While these small format printers can technically print digital photos on photographic paper, their size and ink limitations prevent this from being a high-quality photographic printer suitable for fine art.
• Mobile Printers - Championed by brands such as Kodak and Polaroid, these extremely small-format printers are perfect for scrapbooking and instant keepsakes due to their size and portability. These printers are very popular at events such as weddings, graduations, and birthdays where near-instant printing can be accomplished capturing memories right where they happen.
• Sublimation Heatpress - Just like sublimation inks, there are specialty sublimation molds designed for things like cups, t-shirts, bags, and hats. These heat presses are complementary machines to printmaking and are single-purpose machines that are specifically made for one function: applying sublimation images with heat and transfer film. For example, cup or mug heat presses are cylindrical to press sublimation imagery onto the outside of the container accurately each time.
• Printer Ink Type: For ink-based printers it's most common to use either pigment-based or dye-based inks, both offering distinct advantages for their type. Either ink type is affordable and easy to find making both printer types (Pigment, or Dye-Based) accessible to even the novice printmaker.
• Pigment: These are known for their longevity and fade resistance making them ideal for fine art prints where archivalness will matter such as display in a museum or gallery. Pigment-based printers are best used with fine art paper or canvas due to their archival properties.
• Dye: These are capable of more vibrant colors than pigment, at the cost of longevity. While less durable, dye-based inks are more affordable than pigments and are excellent for prints that don't require archivalness such as point-of-sale signage or large indoor banners.
• Calibration & Alignment: Printers, like all hardware, require maintenance, cleaning, and care in usage and storage. With each use and over time, the printhead can drift slightly causing blurry prints or images that are missing colors. It's important to calibrate your printer every time you use it and keep the printhead(s) aligned to ensure accurate prints for every project.

D. Know your monitor(s) and their limitations

Did you know that today's high-resolution computer monitors, LED TVs, and projection screens are all primed for brightness and clarity and NOT FOR COLOR ACCURACY? The manufacturer wants you to see and enjoy all the HD movies, video games and shows you want, but you'll need to take additional steps if you want to use these same monitors for accurate color reproduction and expectations for printing. I shout this from every rooftop because it's one of the most frustrating overlooked aspects of printing that can add unknown amounts of time and delay to a print project (trust me, I've been there!)

• Calibration: Just like a printer will require calibration, monitors will require accurate calibration in order to display the colors that are within your printer's physical capabilities. For example, most monitors can display millions of colors on screen while printers have a much narrower color gamut they can achieve in a paper print. Calibrating the monitor can be done manually by following on-screen instructions but ideally, should be done with an automated color calibration tool such as the Spyder X2 Elite.
• Resolution: Modern monitors are capable of high-resolution definition and clarity, however, it's important to note that these values may look better on screen than your printer can reproduce. For example, a small mobile printer meant for pocket-sized photos will not have the color depth and resolution of a high-definition monitor. While this is an unlikely example, it's important to note that your monitor will often far exceed your printer in display quality and color gamut as well as resolution. This is why calibration is a key step in knowing just how accurate your on-screen images will be when printed.

II. Section 2: Printing

Now that you're familiar with pre-print, here's what you'll need to know during printing to ensure you'll get the best results. One might think that just hitting "print" is all it takes but there's more to it than that. Most importantly, color management and profiling of the media. This is by no means an exhaustive list but should serve to keep your printing process smooth and help you catch any issues that might come up such as images printing too dark or too light.

A. What is "Color Management"?

We've talked about monitor and printer calibration so you should be familiar with the need for minute adjustments required for printing. This, combined with the use of ICC profiles, is what is known as 'color management' when discussing printmaking. What are profiles? I'm glad you asked!

• ICC Profiles: This is the core principle behind managing the color capacity of your print project. An ICC profile is a calibrated color file built with specific media and print settings by special software like X-Rite i1Profiler. For example, if you want to print a collector's edition of a specific art piece on the same matte fine art paper and ensure the print will be the same each time, a calibrated ICC profile is the way to guarantee these results. This is accomplished by printing out a color target of 900+ small color squares on the chosen media that is then scanned by the software. This tells the software what color capacity is within the physical media, regardless of what is displayed on the digital screen. From how deep blacks can be reproduced to how saturated colors can be; scanning colors and creating custom ICC profiles on each media will calibrate the printer's capabilities to match the physical substrate best.
• Color Mode: Generally speaking, you will be working in the sRGB / RGB color mode during the design process but convert your file to the CMYK color mode before printing, as this is the most common format for printing hardware. This conversion process is usually done automatically by the print software.

B. Preparing Files

Resolution, file format, and color mode are important factors in preparing your files for printing as much as knowing the limitations and features of your physical printer. You'll want to spend enough time making sure your print settings are adequate for the file size and intended print size, for example, printing a large landscape 60" wide canvas frame from a low-resolution image will cause severe image degrading and blurriness.

• Resolution: You'll want to use high-resolution files, typically 300 dpi (dots per inch) or greater, to prevent pixelation and blurry prints at larger sizes. A good indicator of print resolution is file dimensions and file size. Information you can find in the file inspector of the graphics editing application like Photoshop or the Mac Finder's native Preview application seen below.

In the "General Info" window above, we can see the following information that gives us a few key indicators that this image will suffice up to a certain sizes:

• Document Type: JPEG Image - TIFF document type offers uncompressed image quality at the cost of size, so JPEGs have become an ideal option for smaller file size with minimal file loss.
• File Size: 26.4 MB - This is in megabytes which means the file has sufficient data information to support high-resolution print reproduction. This indicates that the source image was scanned at a high resolution.
• Image Size: 11025 X 8313 pixels - This is often confused with DPI as pixels on a screen can easily be mixed up with dots per inch, however, they are different and should be referred to separately. "Pixels x Pixels" translates to on-screen digital display sizes similar to how "HDTV" refers to high-definition television with sizes above 720p where "p" refers to the horizontal lines the monitor is capable of displaying. While TV resolution and image size are also different, the concept should be easier to understand with the fundamental understanding that higher pixel count translates to larger print sizes available to you before image degradation begins to set in.
• Image DPI: 360 pixels/inch - As mentioned, this is often confused with pixels x pixels since it is also loosely related to distance from viewer plus the size of the intended print. For example, billboard digital files today don't need to be above 150DPI or even 100DPI since their intended print sizes will be very far from the viewer driving along the highway for a fraction of a second. In this above example, this file is a photographic reproduction of a fine art original acrylic artwork that needs to be as finely detailed as possible in as small a print size as possible, thus the 360 DPI. For another frame of reference, print magazines with text at 12pt or smaller are printed at 300DPI to ensure the clarity of the fonts across the page layouts.
• Color Mode: RGB - This is the standard color mode for monitors, digital files, and the internet. There's not much that needs to be done here where calibration and ICC profiles are used, as they are incorporated automatically by print software such as Photoshop during the print process. Advanced users may find additional reasons to adjust or change this natively within the file, if so, comment below this blog post and let us know!
• ColorSync Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1 - see above, this is the standardized color mode on most Macs for display use and digital purposes.

C. Soft Proofing & Test Prints

Two methods for double and perhaps triple-checking your print quality and color accuracy are soft-proofing your images and running test prints, especially when the project may require hundreds of copies of the same image.

• Soft Proofs: Put simply, a 'soft proof' is a reasonable simulation of the physical print that your monitor can make using Photoshop's main "View" menu and then the "Proof Setup" sub-menu. A soft proof factors the combination of printer, paper, and ink used to give you an on-screen representation of what you should expect from the physical print. You can assign different preview proofs that combine different properties of all three. While these aren't perfectly accurate, soft proofs should give you a quick view of what you should see once your image is printed.
• Test Prints: Just like soft proofs, test prints are a great method for checking your print settings and confirming what the soft proof has shown. Test prints are typically printed on the intended substrate of the final product but can sometimes be supplemented with a simple matte paper when costs need to be considered. Test prints with an unmatched paper won't be as accurate but will save you money and still provide a reasonable printed example of the final results.

D. A Successful Print Run

You've gotten through all the calibration, print settings, and substrate tests; now what? With these helpful checks on your workflow, you should feel confident in your print results once done with your project.

• Evaluate Color and Detail: Check your test prints and target media for color accuracy and detail to ensure it matches your expected results. If not, it's time to re-check your color management and print settings such as choosing a different ICC profile.
• Printer Utility Check: During long print runs, it's important to keep an eye on your printer should any issues pop up during the printing process. As mentioned before, printheads can drift slightly over the course of the printer's life and need to be checked to ensure this alignment isn't skewed.
• Printhead alignment: If you start noticing progressive blurry lines and a loss of resolution in your prints, it's possible the printhead has shifted and will need to be re-aligned. This will require canceling the print job and running your printer software's alignment utility tool on a clean piece of paper.
• Nozzle Cleaning: If you start noticing gaps in colors, smears, excess droplets on the substrate or colors shifting too dark or too light; it's possible that the printhead nozzles have gotten clogged and will need to be cleaned. This will require canceling the print job and running your printer software's cleaning utility tool. Be careful in running too many cleaning cycles as this wastes a lot of ink. If your printer isn't clearing up after one or two cleaning cycles, then it's better to resort to a manual cleaning process rather than running continual cleaning cycles. Most printers have a very small swab pad inside that is only designed for minor cleaning rather than a major printhead clog and will quickly become oversaturated with excess inks from too many cleanings at one time.
• Ink Usage: Ask any printmaker what they consider to be one of the most expensive parts of their craft and they'll likely tell you that it's the cost of ink. OEM Inks are known for being more expensive than even the printer itself with packages of ink ranging from $50 to $300 for even the smallest at-home printers! Be prepared with enough inks for your project so you're not stuck in the middle of your project.
• Timeline: Are you up against a specific deadline such as a gallery opening or a special exhibition? If so, you'll want to account for unknown delays and start your project well in advance to avoid running into last-minute problems.

Conclusion of Part 1

You likely started reading this article with a specific artistic vision of your work and what you hoped to accomplish by printing that work. After reading this first blog, you should now have the technical knowledge to combine with your artistic expertise to produce those high-quality prints that your customers will appreciate and display with pride. In Part 2, we'll discuss protecting those prints and promoting them to reach a wider audience!

By taking a careful approach to each step, from defining the aspects of the project such as materials used and desired frame size, you can rest assured that your prints will reflect your true professionalism and creativity.

At Breathing Color, we truly care for our fellow artists and creatives whether you're a seasoned professional or starting your first print project. We hope you find this guide provides the foundation you need to succeed in your printmaking goals!

~ R. Carnie Littlefield