Tips For Printing Digital Art

This article will discuss tips for printing digital art using the most effective printing techniques available.

This information is based on working with hundreds of artists and I hope that it will be of use to you as well. Print is a word that is thrown around a lot but rarely are the creative ideas expressed.

In this article, I will try to give you the essentials and give you a guiding light for how to print your work using your current printer.

Conversion to Adobe Illustrator

Before you even start thinking about printing your digital art, you need to convert the file into Adobe Illustrator. This is not a simple process, but it is essential for prints and vector files. The best method for converting is to use Photoshop.

This makes sense as many digital artists and agencies use Illustrator or InDesign as their primary design tools. You can convert the file with the tools provided or a third-party converter.

Photoshop does have tools to convert vector files to JPG as well as many other formats. You will want to save the file in JPG format for printable purposes, so you’ll need to check your file conversion options.

You can use the ‘Save As’ option and save your file into a file that Adobe Illustrator recognizes. This way, you have a vector file, which is what you will use for prints.

Printing set-up

Next, you’ll need to figure out how to print your art. The last thing you want is to send your art to a printer and have it arrive at the printer badly in need of post-processing.

If your art was created in Adobe Illustrator, then you are pretty good off as you can simply use the PS document to create the file. Some digital artists create the file in Illustrator and then copy and paste it into another file in Photoshop for printing.

This may not be the best method, as the file could still have remnants of Illustrator and will still be presented with many vector lines and gradients.

If your art was created in Photoshop, then you will need to go through the tedious process of converting the file. You’ll need to work through Photoshop, creating layers and applying settings, and fixing the text to white on the page.

When you are satisfied with the file, save it as a JPG file and then upload it to your printer. It is possible that you will need to manually adjust the settings for printing on different printers.

I have a printer that offers additional print settings that I will have to go through before printing my artwork. I recommend that you double-check that your settings are right before you print.

Selecting the right print settings

This is the most tedious step of all. When your file is finally ready, you will have to compare the settings from your printer to your work.

In a professional setting, printers will take the file, convert it to PDF format, and then print it as they like. If you are working on a personal level, your file may have the text added on top of your vector artwork.

If this is the case, then you’ll need to find a print shop that can work with both Adobe Illustrator files and Illustrator files with the text applied on top. If you know that your file will be scanned and edited by the print shop, then you can try to combine the file.

(Note: I’ve never had to deal with this on a personal level, but I have seen prints where the designer has added more text on top of the image.

These files will still be able to be printed and scanned, but the designer may have to cut and paste the image a different way to make it less obtrusive.)

plotter, large format printer, printer

Printing multiple colored elements

Working with the different colors of the art is what separates the artist from the student. Keep in mind, the students who take the advice and find the right techniques will be the ones who end up with great-looking prints.

Go to all the different sites like Deviantart, Postermania, and Deviantart.com, and you will find hundreds of pictures of different colors. Print the pictures, and then go through the process.

Pay close attention to what kind of paper you are using. If the picture is on cheap paper, you will get poor-looking prints.

White printing is the basic technique

All the color printing you will see online and print on your own is done with a white image. If you’re working with photos, you’re going to have to do some extra work.

The easiest way to tell that you’re working with a white image is if the lights in the photo are pink, purple, blue, red, etc. If the lights are green or blue, there’s a chance that you’re working with a colored image.

If you want to give your print to somebody else, find a white photograph that has some lights in it.

Other options

You could make it look like a painting that you can frame. If you want it to look really realistic, you could use professional paintbrushes and watercolors. You could even use poster ink or anything that gives the ink a texture.

Experiment with different tools until you find something that works for you. If you have a lot of leftover poster ink, you could actually try a black background instead.

How to choose the right print service:

Before you order anything, you need to know exactly what you want. You want to make sure that the quality is great, and you don’t want to go to a cheap print service.

If it is a reasonable price, the quality should be good, but if the quality is poor, the customer will complain. Don’t be the one to complain. You’re the one who spent the time printing the art, so you should be the one complaining.

You can always ask the print service what they use, and how much it costs. Some companies will charge you an extra amount if it is a long process. Another good thing about their service is that they usually include the cost of shipping.

There are also websites that are easy to navigate, so you can look at the different products before you order. One example is Tiger Prints. They also offer hard copy posters, as well as internet printed posters.