How can I have quality prints made of a oil painting?

The tecnology you are looking for is called Giclees. Gicless are fine art prints ususally on canvass that have the look and feel of the original oil painting. Water colors are often reproduced on Arches water color paper or a cold press, and are impossible to tell from the original.


The first step is to have the artwork either photgraphed by a professional camera where you can get a 8x10 transparency made. You could use an 6-8mg digital camera and the correct lighting. The transparencey will then have to be scanned into a digital file anyway. What most professional artists like myself do is have the artwork scanned on a flatbed ';Cruise'; scanner. This allows for the best detail. The artwork is now a high resolution file disk where it can be put into photoshop. Here the image is color balanced to the original art work. After that it is sent to what is called a large format digital printer which uses pigmented archival inks. Specially coated canvas is used to allow adhesion and the artwork is printed. The advantage of this over a lithograph is that the artwork more resembles the original as large format printes have a 6-8 color ink process, and can do 1400 dpi which is amazing. Gicless are worth a lot more money in resale.


Two companies in the US (and there are more) that I know of that do this are Que Imaging in Houston Texas and Harvest Productions in LA. Harvest has a neat video on U-tube that you can see how this works. You are looking at $100 and up for the scan or to make a $50 tansparency to then be scaned, and $15-20 a square foot for the printing and probably a one time set up fee.


The advantage to this is the quality is leading edge, and you can ( unlike a lithograph which demands you buy a minimum number of prints of 500 to 1000) you can make just one, and if you sell it buy another one. Unlike a transparency, you can easily make more cds of the image and keep the master in your vault. These images are what can be sent out printer ready to potential publishers.How can I have quality prints made of a oil painting?
litho is best but depending on your resources you may just want to take digital slides of the work and have them printed digitally.How can I have quality prints made of a oil painting?
The best way is to have lithographs made. I suggest printing on Cotton Rag paper. This is a very expensive process: however, you will be pleased with the results.