Larger Small Prints, 2-up on 13x19 Inch Sheets

Most gallery sales here are made during "tourist season", which seems to be that short period between 4 July and Labor Day (the first Monday in September). This is a beautiful place; there's lots to do here, especially outdoor activities—hunting, fishing, boating, hiking, climbing, camping, and much more. People come from around the world to visit Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, spend time on Flathead Lake, and visit the many other points of interest in Montana and surrounding states. Many of those people fly in, rent a car, have their vacations, and then fly home. Traffic at our local shops and galleries is quite high during summer.

Logistics get in the way of selling large framed prints to these visitors. It's certainly possible to sell a large print and ship it to the buyer's home location, and it happens now and then. But people seem reluctant to do that, perhaps because of the cost of adequately packaging and then shipping the item. More often, people buy small things, things that fit in their luggage, or in the overhead bin on the airplane.

I love making large prints. I didn't buy the 7900 to make small ones. Likewise, I didn't buy previous printer, the 17-inch Canon iPF 5000, to make small prints. The Canon was my first large-format printer. I learned a great deal using it—I considered it an excellent "starter" printer.

With the Canon I made a lot of small prints, generally on 8.5x11 inch (US A) size sheets. I settled on a print size that resulted in a finished, framed and matted picture, with acrylic glazing, about 13x17 inches (33x43 cm). I could sell these at a price that seemed acceptable to buyers, and make a decent profit, despite the need for a custom frame and mat. My cost for these, with a white-core paper mat, was under $30.00. I've purchased dozens of these frames and mats.

Since getting the 7900 it's become less and less satisfying to make these small prints, but I need something to replace them, something to maintain that revenue stream. My experiment has been to increase the size, while (I hope!) keeping it easy for buyers to transport these pictures.

I now buy custom frames (Nielsen profile 11, graphite) that are about 15x19 inches (38x48 cm). The mat opening is 8x12 inches (20x30 cm). I continue to use acrylic glazing. These present very nicely. They are clearly larger than what one can make from the typical "kitchen table" inkjet printer, but small enough to fit in luggage or the overhead bin, and small enough to sell at a comfortable price for most buyers (although substantially higher than the smaller versions I made before). My cost is very close to that of the smaller prints.

I make the prints 2-up on 13x19 (Super B/A3) sheets. I made a template for Photoshop, a very simple document with guides set up to leave appropriate borders when the images are pasted in. I size and sharpen my individual files as usual, copy, paste into the template, and drag them so they snap to the guides. I then print as usual using the standard 13x19 sheet layout in the printer driver. If I uncheck the "center" box, I can adjust the top border by eye (thanks to the preview in Photoshop CS6) and get the image pair almost perfectly centered on the sheet.

13x19 sheet (on a gray countertop) with two images

After printing I cut the sheet down the center, sign the prints, and they're ready to frame.

  --Jay