Watercolor reprints?

[idle0]

Hello,

This is my first post, so please be gentle

I have a bunch (~100) of different watercolor paintings in 8x10 format, with one or two new paingins added every week. I'd like to sell copies, printed on 90 or 110 cardstock, selling them for $10-15/copy. What are my options?

I used to go to OfficeMax and get a color copy on one of their DocuColor copiers. Color consistency was hit and miss and I didn't like the fact that I had to bring my originals to them every time. But it was cheap, like $2 per copy and quality was good when colors matched.

I don't want to drive there anymore.

So far I see two options:

1) get all my paintings scanned (either myself or send it out for scanning) and do print-on-demand, where print shop can print it and mail it to the customer.

2) get my own printer (Xerox?) and just print them myself

What do you guys think?

[gordo]

My wife does that.
We bought an Epson all-in-one scanner/printer for about $125.
I scan her watercolors, make adjustments in Photoshop and print them out onto watercolor paper. Scan and Pshop time is about one hour per painting. Printing time is about two minutes per image. Looking at the print, it's virtually impossible to tell which is the original and which is the reproduction.
I use the technique described here: Quality In Print: Fixing a common flatbed scanner problem to eliminate the paper texture the scanner picks up.
Here's a sample of her work:


best, gordon p

[idle0]

Wow, looks pretty good!

Is that an inkjet? What is the DPI that it can scan/print?

[gordo]

Wow, looks pretty good! Is that an inkjet? What is the DPI that it can scan/print?

Yes inkjet which you can buy everywhere that sells office equipment. Scans at 2400 dpi and prints at a maximum of 5740 x 1440 dpi. The prints are supposed to last for 100+ years.

Different machines will handle different paper types so get different weights of watercolor paper and see how they they go through the different printers. We have great success with 90lb Acquarello watercolour paper by Fabriano. Our printer uses 4 ink cartridges (c,m,t,k) so we only need to replace individual colors as they run out.

best, gordon p

[idle0]

I'm looking at Epson web site right now.

They have Epson Artisan series with 6 inks (Claria Ultra High-Def Ink) and 2400 DPI scanner and Epson Workforce series with 4 inks (DURABrite Ultra Ink) and 1200 DPI scanner.

I assume yours is Workforce, correct? It looks like Artisan is more optimized towards photo printing.

[oxburger]

Very nice artwork. Kudos to the Mrs. Does she do illustrations for nature guidebooks? If not, she should.

[gordo]

I'm looking at Epson web site right now.

They have Epson Artisan series with 6 inks (Claria Ultra High-Def Ink) and 2400 DPI scanner and Epson Workforce series with 4 inks (DURABrite Ultra Ink) and 1200 DPI scanner.

I assume yours is Workforce, correct? It looks like Artisan is more optimized towards photo printing.

My model is called the cx4600 4 inks (DURABrite Ultra Ink) which is likely discontinued. I think the Workforce is the newer version. Mine is a basic model with no wifi or fax since I don't need that.

best, gordon

[gordo]

Very nice artwork. Kudos to the Mrs. Does she do illustrations for nature guidebooks? If not, she should.

Thank you Oxburger. Way back when she used to do illustrations for magazines and some books. Now she's doing the art for herself and you show at neighborhood art events.

best, gordo

[Marlyn Terrence]

My model is called the cx4600 4 inks (DURABrite Ultra Ink) which is likely discontinued. I think the Workforce is the newer version. Mine is a basic model with no wifi or fax since I don't need that.

best, gordon

i suggest you should take anyother model in another company or i given solve the problem of your model.



desinging

[Winness]

We print for a fair few artists - we use Colortrac/Umax scanners - print to a HPZ3100. Using a variety of papers but the preference seems to be Somerset Velvet 250gsm. It responds well to both water colour paintings and ink drawings and the odd guache. As we sometimes have to print up to A0 for the photographers we have the bigger HP but the 12 colour set means the blacks are perfect and no faffing about changing blacks as in the Epson.

Photoshop CS3 seems to be better than CS4 at the tidying up stage (we have both) but we rarely use Dvine to smooth out the paper preferring to check that the white paper scanned is not printed. That ensures that the image stays as crisp as the original.

Don't forget - when scanning you are looking at a RGB monitor and the scanner is RGB NOT CMYK - so use the profile that gives the greatest range - Adobe RGB 1998 - there is another but the Adobe is universal. Most of the inkjets also convert ADobe RGB into their inksets well - unlike wet ink that only could use CMYK or Pantonne. Its all in the ICC/ICM's now! 40 years in print and we had to relearn everything.