It's been said many times before, your best education on fine tuning your images is by printing. I don't mean 4x6s at Costco, I mean printing at least 10x15 or larger. Everything is evident at these sizes - color, tonality, detail, shadow, highlights, sharpness...I mean everything. Prints don't lie. They are the moment of truth for your work. Plan on spending a lot of time, paper, and ink on getting the output the way you want it. Every variable imaginable comes into play...color management, paper, your mood...so get ready to be schooled!
I've just finished printing 9 - 11x16.5 prints for my Art Walk opening on Wednesday. Worked on it all weekend. I guess an artist's work is never done. I can keep iterating on these prints forever. Knowing that each trip trough the machine is costing me about $3, that's as bad as Starbucks. I need to find a way to sell these "artist proofs," more like "artist goofs" if you ask me. You hate to throw them away, maybe a gift for Uncle Stanley, he won't notice that there is a slight red cast on the bridge image...
Here is the little promo piece I made for the showing. Since I'm tucked back in the closet I need some signs so my friends can find me. Next item to tackle is the pricing. Need to factor in the cost of the goofs for sure, and the mats, frames, time for printing...oh and the trip expenses to get the image, all the workshops to learn how to do this stuff, my camera equipment...looks like $3,000 an image should cover that nicely. How's that for recession pricing?
How is your printmaking coming along? Don't settle for "good for the web". If you're making images as art, your art is your image...your PRINTED image. That printer in the corner of your studio is probably pretty lonely. Fire it up and make some prints, improve your images, and have something to show all your friends (and most importantly YOURSELF) that yes, you can produce a print.