How do you get art printed on heavy stock?

A friend of mine wants to make prints of his hot rod drawings to sell but is not sure how to go about it.Can anyone give some pointers?

 

talk to a local printer.

 

Most decent printers (inkjet or color laser ) can handle 60# card stock, check the printer settings window.

 

If this is a serious art-type thing and your buddy really wants the best product, you will want to do what's called "giclee" printing. It's a made-up word that basically just means very fancy inkjet printing, but it IS very fancy, and as of right now is the standard for fine art reproduction. I've got some amazing giclees in my art collection (and some ****py ones, for sure) and artist friends of mine regularly sell their giclee prints anywhere from $40 a pop to a few thousand each, depending on how big the print is and how popular of an artist they are.

You won't be able to do this yourself and not all giclee print shops are the same, and it takes prep work on their end to make a really nice finished product. Your buddy will almost certainly have to send the original art somewhere for it to be photographed/scanned, and then used as a reference for all the pre-press work and press checking.

Probably the best giclee printer in the country, or at least one with a universally good rep, is iolabs out of Rhode Island: http://iolabsinc.com/. They're relatively close to you, so, that might be the best way to go. But there will be other printers near you for sure, check them out and make it a matter of price, convenience, and quality.

All this ***umes your buddy wants to get really serious. If he's looking for $5 a print at the swap meet, you can go buy a nice inkjet printer, a copy of Photoshop, and some fancy white paper from the art store for about $350 total and be up and running. But the final product will reflect what you put into it.

 

Oh, and, the other really high-cl*** fine art printer in the Northeast is Axelle Art Prints, in NYC. They can do some great giclees (at least, so I'm told) and the dude Luther is one of the most mind-warpingly-good screenprinters alive. He's doing stuff now with photorealism, really pushing the boundaries of what a screenprint is supposed to do...but anyway, that's not what you're asking about.

 

Thanks guys!He's gonna check out his options.

 

I put this phrase in Google (Giclee Printing Services) it would be a place to start.
http://www.zazzle.com/ Is also an alternative. If you take good digital photos these guys can put it on a vaqriety of items. Lots of poster choices as well.
Most of the online services work with digital images you upload right to them that eliminates the issue of finding someone close to you.

 

You can use a pro-photo lab like http://nctricolor.com/ as well. They'll do real nice prints from digital all the way to poster size.

 

Serigraphs............DIY or a screen printer.
Depending on the size, number of colors, number of prints, etc. it may be an option for you.

 

If 13" x 19" is big enough Print.

The R2400 Inkjet works nice and you can get them kind of cheap. About $100 on ebay working or one with a full Foam Purge thingy on the bottom for way less.
Reason is
The Foam purge catch on the bottom goes bad and they would like you to pay $500 bucks to change it. But you can get reset software a Tupperware bowl and some fish-tank air line and fix one real cheap.
Plus it is Pigmented ink... I use mine a lot. It can get a little messy
at times but I like mine.

Its not full poster size but not bad.

more info on this printer here.
http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Stylus-R2400-Photo-Printer/dp/B0009PD3KU
Jdee
PS: I forgot it can be picky on paper feed But the heavy art papers would probably be no problem. they go in one sheet at a time through the bottom feed I think..

 

If you're looking for a true low-cost option check out a local quick-print shop like Kinkos. Most of them can handle larger format and heavier paper stock.
We have an early Xerox DocuColor 12 here at work that handles 90# index stock and can put out 12" x 18" prints with pretty impressive detail. I've printed photos from all my cameras including a 2 MP Fuji up to the latest 10 MP Olympus DSLR. Even the little Fuji shots came out great in the 11 x 17 size. Art prints should be a piece of cake.

 

Thanks for all the help guys!