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DPChallenge Forums >> Business of Photography >> Advice on printing photos for resale
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03/05/2013 10:42:07 AM · #1
Shock horror! I have had some interest from a shop for a couple of panorama photos I have created of a local tourist destination. They are willing to purchase a small quantity of prints of the photos to sell in the shops.

Anyway apart from printing photos on my home printer and sending photos off to sites like Photobox or Jessops to print photos to send to relatives, I have no experience printing photos for selling to the public.

I would therefore appreciate any advice on how to proceed especially with regards the following:

Choosing what size to print the photos
Choosing a printer
Choosing paper and finish
Mounting photos or not?
Possibly framing but I think the shop may prefer to sell them rolled up (sorry if this is a swear word to professional photographers)

The photos were created using Photoshop to combine several stills taken with Canon 40D and my cropped panorama is 9038 x 1581 pixels (72 DPI).

The shop is fairly flexible with regards the size of the photos - he is fairly inexperienced when it comes to selling photos too. However I was thinking around 40cm in width would be a nice size. Not sure if there is a standard size close to this.

This is all very much a learning curve so please consider I know absolutely nothing:)

Thanks in advance

03/05/2013 12:00:42 PM · #2
jeff levyj413 recently went through a similar situation, as has brent_s. here are a few threads that may be of interest to you:
pricing a print for sale
pricing postcards for sale
volume discount for prints

that will get you started. poke through the business of photography section for more.

a lot depends on your locale. what do people usually buy and how much are they willing to spend. couple that with how much it costs to produce the goods and, most importantly, who is going to pay the upfront costs. there are plenty of good labs out there; it's just a matter of finding the intersection between costs, quality, and convenience.

another person to reach out to is hahn23 who has a substantial print business.

one thing you will find is that successful selling is as much a matter of marketing and presentation as anything else. you have to put the right product in the right place at the right price.

good luck!
03/05/2013 12:29:52 PM · #3
I have no experience selling prints, but would imagine 72dpi would be too low a resolution?
03/05/2013 01:03:56 PM · #4
Originally posted by gcoulson:

I have no experience selling prints, but would imagine 72dpi would be too low a resolution?


The PPI that the image is saved at doesn't matter. For printing, most printers' native resoution is about 250-360 pixels per inch, but depending on how far away the viewer is standing, you could go down to 130 and it would still look fine. So (in inches)....at 300 ppi, a 9038 x 1581 image could be printed at 30" wide without any fuss, 60" if you want to see how good your post processing is.
03/05/2013 01:22:51 PM · #5
Originally posted by paulsteven:


Mounting photos or not?
Possibly framing but I think the shop may prefer to sell them rolled up (sorry if this is a swear word to professional photographers)



In your situation, you'll have to go with what the shop wants to sell. But....

Framing is a nice profit center. It took me a couple of hours to learn how to do my own custom framing, and the tools were about $75. Once you know how to do it, framing takes about 20 minutes per print, faster if you buy more expensive tools. I make about half my profit from the print, and half from the framing.

This book is well worth the price.
03/06/2013 08:15:19 AM · #6
Thanks everyone for the excellent advice. I will read the threads suggested and take it from there.
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