Yesterday was the first time I ever attempted to make art prints from one of my original artworks. I chose to go to Kinkos.
"Be a simple kind of man" by Sarah SLAM (Sarah Kee)
I walked into Kinkos and right away an employee asked if he could help. I told him I needed to make copies of my original black ink art work on matte paper. He said, "Let me show you what I have" (regarding paper) and he handed me a shiny, untextured, card-stock which I totally didn't imagine my art being printed on.
I would've liked the paper selection if I was printing a photo but not so much for a "fine art" print.
But, being the shy and easy-going(*ahem* push-over) person that I am, I accepted the paper he picked out and asked for 5 copies. He made the copies for me, although I'm sure most people make their own copies considering it has a huge banner saying "Self Service Printing" hanging above the printers. As I said, it was my first time to go to Kinkos (or any print shop for that matter) and I had no idea how it worked. I don't even know if you can select your own paper and print it yourself??? If so, I'd love to pick out the paper I'd like to have my artwork printed on.
The guy was a bit awkward but he was nice.
The first copy looked bad. At first I thought the printer smudged the ink on the copy but then the Kinkos employee showed me my original and behold...WATER DAMAGE! I didn't notice before, but there was slight water damage at the end of my artwork. (The picture I posted was taken before the damage and taken by camera phone). How the hell did that happen?
Later, when I went home, I looked at an image of the artwork I scanned with my home scanner and realized there was water damage before I brought it to Kinkos... So I can't blame anyone but myself, but I still can't think of how it was possible... I kept it in what I thought to be a "safe, dry place". Pfffttt... fml.
Aside from the water damage being my fault, there were two other blots on the copies that were NOT present on my art work. They weren't severe and I just accepted them because at this point I'm already in shock from my art being damaged.
He finished printing out the other four copies and rang up the cost. It was only $1.10 to print black and white copies on card-stock so I wasn't too displeased... at that point.
After looking at the copies some more I noticed a small fraction of the art was cut off at the bottom (but still not enough to hide the damage). As you can see above, there is a lot of room on the top of the art, and the card-stock was the same size as my original artwork. So, I guess he didn't take the time to make sure it was centered and I was so occupied with trying to figure the smudges that I totally missed it.
I'm so displeased with the prints that I won't even give them away for free.... So, I decided to come home and edit my artwork on photoshop. I fixed the smudges and shrunk the image so it would fit an 8x10 paper with at least .5in margin on each side.
"Be a simple kind of man" by Sarah SLAM (Sarah Kee) Edited version
Tonight I will try to print this new edited version out on textured matte paper and see if my impression of Kinkos can be redeemed...I'm not totally blaming Kinkos for everything. They're a chain print shop and I honestly don't expect more or less...
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