When it comes to making prints of your artwork the bottom line is, the better the photo the better the print.

The other bottom line is, The bigger the digital file size the larger and better the print!

A member of our staff recently ordered a print from a pastel artist, she was amazed it actually looked like a pastel! Unfortunately, we see a lot of images being submitted for Prints-on-Demand, that could be have been drastically improved with some further attention to detail.

Make sure your photo is in FOCUS, this may seem super obvious, but it's a common problem.

Make sure your artwork image has nothing 'extra' in it. We have seen actual gold frames, rectangular shadows caused by frames, thumbtacks and tape all included in digital image files submitted for Prints-on-Demand. If your artwork has a watermark remove the watermark before submitting.

Minimize distortion by photographing your artwork square and level, sometimes putting the artwork on the floor is easiest, sometimes shooting it on an easel or pinned to a wall is.

Avoid glares, reflections, and weird lighting on your artwork. Don't use a flash, don't shoot with a window shining in on your art. Overcast days and indirect balanced light are best. Try to shoot before you varnish or put any reflective coat on your artwork.

Shoot at the largest possible size, and save your artwork with no compression…remember your artwork is not going to be seen on a phone, it's going to be reproduced at a high resolution on paper/canvas to be hung on somebody's wall. Also shoot as close as you can to your artwork, that way you get it as high resolution as possible. (NOTE: If you are too close to the artwork, the image edges can distort a little bit, so you want to be close but not too close.). Best is to shoot with a real camera and telephoto lense at a distance where there is no distortion.

If you are a more advanced photographer or would like to be, learning about 'white balance' can be a VERY effective way to correct your colors. Most point and shoot camaras come with a “white balance” option in the shooting menu. If your work is done on white paper, it should not have a brown or grey hue to it when photographed.

If you are digitally editing your own photos, there are a few easy tweaks that can improve your image:

• Cautiously adjust your “levels” of contrast/brightness. Usually digital photos need a touch more contrast, either by adding more brightness, increasing the darkness and/or adjusting the middle tones a bit.
• A lot of the work submitted to Prints-on-Demand looks washed out or greyish, that's not to say that work has to be high contrast, but the smallest changes here can make a big difference.
• In terms of color quality, make sure the colors reflect those of the original piece, the quick fix is to gently adjust “hue” and “saturation.”

If a photo is requiring too much retouching, it's probably best to reshoot it.

In a nutshell, No reflections, no glares, no light bouncing off any part of the art.

Nothing but art in the photo, no frames, no shadows, no tape, no thumbtacks, no watermarks. Big images! Shoot at highest resolution possible, most camaras have an option where you can select the default photo size..CHOOSE BIG!

Tiny tweaks, - pay attn to your colors, to your lights/darks and that you are shooting your artwork level.

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