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February 9
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So, I'm going to have my first "real" art show at a local place in a few months, and need to figure out how to get prints and frames and mat and everything without taking a horrible kick in the wallet.

I've been consistently disappointed with CafePress and Zazzle prints, since they always seem to turn out a lot darker than they should and don't offer a lot of variety in paper type/quality.

Can anyone recommend a good place to have professional-quality prints made without having to spend a ton?

Does anyone have experience with DeviantArt prints? Do you recommend them?

Any advice would be appreciated.
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:iconjoeyv7:
I've had good luck with dA prints; just be sure to take the time to examine all the options, especially photo prints. It seems that most prints are to some degree darker than the original image, but 'lustre' will be noticeably darker. The sizes may include some cropping of the image as well, so use the 'edit print' option if that's the case, and you can re - size it to fit the available sizes :) Framed prints may be cheaper here than getting it done elsewhere, but I haven't tried that option here yet.
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:iconewilloughby:
Thank you for the info! I've tried a couple prints from DA's print company now and have been happy with the quality, but I was a bit confused on how to do more irregular sizes, so the advice is very appreciated. :)
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:iconjoeyv7:
I just got one back that I had to use their resize tools on, and it was flawless, so, :nod:
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:iconxanares:
Oh wow, congrats on the show, Emily!

My brother and some friends work in the print media industry and your probably do that for a bargain.
Too bad they live in Germany. Not sure, but the shipping might negate all the savings. :/
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:iconewilloughby:
Thank you! And yeah, international shipping is ridiculous these days, but I appreciate the offer.
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:iconredfeather-hawk:
~RedFeather-Hawk Feb 10, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
Congrats on the show. I don't have anything like that coming up, though I was wondering these same things, since I might want to donate a couple of my pictures to the raptor center for RaptorFest this year.
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:iconchocolatestarfire:
Mood: Excited ~ChocolateStarfire Feb 10, 2013  Hobbyist Traditional Artist
Oooo congrats on the art show! :D Fancy livin', here we come!

Anyway, do you have a Michael's art store or similar place near you? I think Aaron Brothers has good deals on framing prints, too. Maybe those places offer printing capabilities that CafePress and Zazzle lack...otherwise, I can't really help, never printed professionally before D:

Good luck and hugs! :D
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:iconnambroth:
~Nambroth Feb 10, 2013  Professional General Artist
Unless you have some $$$ expensive screen calibration software, and use the color profiles that the printers use, prints almost always come out darker no matter where you source them, even with high end printers. Unless you have someone personally go over each file to fix it up for your print (such as expensive giclee print houses), it's best to take your print files into photoshop and lighten them up. I am not a technical person and so I do not know the terms for it, but I think of it in F stops for photography, and I lighten what would be the equivalent of an F stop or two, while taking care not to blow the highlights.
Also bear in mind that different papers will print colors and values totally differently. The more matte and absorbent the paper, the more muddy your darks will be. When on a budget (like I am haha), darker images seem to look better in terms of values on less absorbent papers such as photo stock.

I hope this helps! A lot of it is, sadly, trial and error unless you can find someone with a printer that is really good at knowing how it will translate print files and can help you make adjustments.
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:iconewilloughby:
Thanks again for your advice. The really annoying thing about it this time is that I just had a couple fairly inexpensive and small prints made via Zazzle, and even though I lightened them up in Photoshop considerably, they still turned out way too dark! I guess I need to lighten them a lot more than I anticipated, though I worry that lightening them that much would cause some loss in quality.
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:iconnambroth:
~Nambroth Feb 11, 2013  Professional General Artist
I've found that getting good looking prints out of my digital art (which does not have many bright colors or light scenes) has been really frustrating. I'm sorry you are going through this, too.
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