Image Capture For artists Looking to make prints of their work

Image capture of original artworks can be one of the most difficult parts of getting your original artwork to the print ready stage. We have been producing prints for the photographic and art markets for close to two decades and while print and image capture technology has moved on in leaps and bounds over those years there is still a few challenges associated with getting a good quality image capture and this can often be constrained by budget and the technical awareness of the artist. This is a guide on how artists can get good enough image capture to get printing at archival quality quickly.

The first thing you need to consider when taking an image capture of your artwork is what do you intend to use the image for. This is important as your intentions will then determine which image capture process to use. The majority of our customers want to image capture original paintings so they can get archival quality prints in sizes ranging from 6" x 6" to 16" x 12" as well as 150 x 150mm greeting cards. Size is key here - the bigger you want to print, the better quality image you require and thus more likely going to cost you more. In the digital print world you will often hear the term DPI which is an acronym for Dots Per Square Inch. This simply refers to the quality of the image and the golden number here is to get over or around 300DPI. So if you want a high quality print with no fuzziness or pixels visible then the DPI should be as close to 300 as possible - where does this number come from?

 

 

How Do I calculate Image quality or pixels per square inch?

its easy - lets talk about the latest iphone 6 plus which has a camera that can take 8MP or 8 Megapixels shots - that means each shot at its highest quality setting is 3264 x 2448 pixels So if i want to print that image at 10" x 8" well then i divide 3264/10 = 326 PPI ( DPI) and 2448/8 = 306 PPI ( DPI) so with your iphone 6 plus you could take a photo of your original and you could print it at size 10 x 8 and have it at very good quality of over 300 DPI.

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Do i have to have over 300 DPI? The simple answer is no - we have printed good quality prints at 200 DPI. So taking those figures from using your iphone 8 and X, from the example above you could print that photo from your iphone at 16" x 12". The technoloy in smart phones is improving very rapidly so this number will continue to increase. We would not recommenced printing under 200DPI unless printing on canvas or if the piece will be viewed from a distance.