Creating Fine Art Posters

Since my printer will be somewhere in space for the next few weeks I’ve needed to do something to occupy my time at the gallery.  Instead of preparing for print customers I’ve been working on new ways to display my own photography.

Fortunately, my old 13×19 Canon made it here in one piece and replacing the print head on it revived the printer.  Glad my family could bring it along!  With that printer on hand I can still do some new and interesting prints for my photo customers.  I spent yesterday exploring some new concepts for print, and I came across one fun idea!

I’ve mentioned too many times on this blog that I’m a fan of Scott Kelby’s books.  Mr. Kelby writes in an extremely clear manner, and his instructions are easy to follow.  Yesterday I took a page (literally) from his CS3 book for Digital Photographers.  Specifically, pages 432 to 435.  Ok, more than one page!

In my case I decided to do a few fine art poster layouts for a few photos.  The picture on the left is clickable and you can see the full sized print if you’d like.  🙂

The process is pretty simple.  Create a new document with a white background.  Copy your photo into the new document (on a new layer of course).  Create the cute little border, and pop your text in.  Make sure it’s all aligned.  If you want to know the exact process I’d suggest rounding up the book I mentioned above.  Hey, I even told you the page to turn to!  Pretty easy stuff.

So, why create these “Art Posters?”  Simple, demand.  What I’ve gotten to watch over this week with regard to my own photography tells me a lot.  My “minis”, the 5×7’s, are very popular.  The unframed minis seem to be especially popular, and I spent a good bit of time printing replacements for those I sold this week.

My thinking is pretty simple.  I know people coming through the gallery enjoy my photos.  They’ve told me so, and that sure is nice.  I also see them eye the prices near the large format prints, and then I see them look to the minis.  So, with my observations in hand I’ve decided to do some poster style prints, put a backing on them, and pop them in a clear photo bag.  Much cheaper than the framing, making more of my prints a little more accessible.

Oh, and why did I pick the Route 66 Burger joint to share with you?  My dad liked that one a lot, and I’ll be making a larger print of it to send along to him soon.  It won’t beat him back to Massachusetts, but it will get there sooner rather than later.  Just need my new clear bags and some backing boards, then I’ll get to shipping.