What to Look for in Fine Art Paper Prints
- Fine Art Paper Prints vs. Regular Prints
- Giclee for Fine Art Paper Prints
- Fine Art Paper Prints on Premium Stock
- Finishes for Fine Art Paper Prints
- Framed or Not Framed?
- Recommended Photography Gear
What are the things you should look for in fine art paper prints? Before that, what exactly are fine art paper prints? What makes them different or better than regular paper prints or other printing methods?
Read on; I’ll answer these questions and also show where you can go online for high-quality, reasonably priced fine art paper prints.
Table of Contents:
Fine Art Paper Prints vs Regular Prints
The differences between fine art paper prints and other types of paper prints are sometimes subtle and hard to see at first glance, especially if you’re already using a premium printing company for your photographic prints, like Lumaprints.
The biggest difference comes down to elegance and archival qualities. Now, if you compare fine art paper prints with run-of-the-mill paper prints, such as you might find at deeply discounted printers, there isn’t much subtlety. The disparity of overall quality will jump out at you.
Some of the variance comes from color depth, paper thickness, quality of the inks, sharpness, and purity of highlights and dark tones, including pure white and deep black. Looking at the Fine Art Paper Prints from Lumaprints will allow me to give more detail on the matter.
Giclee for Fine Art Paper Prints
More detail is one of the hallmarks of fine art paper prints. Better papers are used for fine art paper prints, which also means that better inks and a better process overall can be employed. Fine Art Paper Prints from Lumaprints use the Giclee printing method.
Giclee is a term you’ve probably seen talked about online in photo forums or listed on a premium print someone had for sale at an art gallery. This term refers to the inks and the printing method used.
Many photographic printers use a CMYK ink array for printing. This is a great method for photography prints since the image file contains all the information for the printing software to tell the printing hardware what percentage of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (K) to use.
As good as that is, Giclee is even better. Giclee printer nozzles are finer than general printers, and there are more colors used for Giclee printing, up to twelve colors. In addition to CMYK, there could be light gray and very light gray, cyan, magenta, orange, green, violet, red, and blue.
All these colors and finer-grade nozzles give a print a smoother gradient between colors, tones, and brightness levels, resulting in a finer and more pure final color spectrum. Besides color prints, this Giclee method also makes for beautiful black-and-white prints for the same reasons.
Fine Art Paper Prints on Premium Stock
Having a superior method for delivering inks to the papers means that whatever paper is used should also be superior. Fine Art Paper Prints use archival grade, acid-free, very thick papers for a luxurious fine art print.
Paper weights of these fine art paper prints are from 230 gsm all the way up to 340 gsm, meaning the papers are heavy duty and durable as well as being able to hold the inks from the giclee printing method.
Acid-free paper and eco-friendly inks provide a long-lasting archival rating of 100 years. Colors are exactly what you exposed and processed them to be, and the image sharpness is beautifully reproduced.
Finishes for Fine Art Paper Prints
Fine art paper prints can use papers that are optimized for the artwork being reproduced. Some photos have lower contrast, while others have higher levels of contrast. Some have a few well-defined colors, while others may have a large gamut of colors.
Fine Art Paper Prints from Lumaprints are available in customizable sizes all the way up to 43X113 '' and four finishes. Premium Archival Smooth Matte, Hot Press Smooth Matte, Cold Press Textured Matte, and Semi-Gloss Luster. There is an excellent page on the Lumaprints site describing these paper choices in detail.
Framed or Not Framed?
So, now you need to decide how to display these fine art paper prints. You can mount them on mat boards, add them into any style of frame you can access, or order them as Framed Fine Art Paper Prints.
There are two thicknesses of frame available in 3 colors. The fine art paper prints can be matted in any of 15 colors. Sizes for framed prints go up to 30X40 “, or you can print larger and add mats and frames yourself.
Any way you have it done, Lumaprints has the options, the quality, and the superior papers for making beautiful fine art paper prints.
