If you are REALLY looking to recreate fine art, look at an IRIS print on canvas. More expensive but damn it looks nice.

I agree. There is a french name used now instead of IRIS in the art circles, I forgot the name. As the old saying goes--you get what you pay for.

Ah put a French artsy sounding name on it and your good for an extra 100 bucks a print...lol

Found the name--Giclee'

yep Giclee is the way to go if you want a professional painterly look on canvas. They aren't usually any more expensive than a regular high end digital inkjet print on rough canvas. You are paying for the substrate usually. Shop around though. Many of the small studios with an Iris charge small studio prices. But most do excellent work. Especially if associated with a gallery.

If you want to do less expensive prints, find a color lab with any of the high resolution inkjet printers. The problem is finding someone who is running art canvas thru their machines. Most don't like it for one reason or other. Do gang runs to keep your costs down and trim them out yourself.

If you want to go full continuous tone photograph on paper or polyester though, nothing beats a Lambda or a Lightjet print.

I can't tell from your post if you are doing art prints or just quickprints. Art prints usually use archival inks and substrates. Giclee is rated for 10 to 20 years with limited UV exposure. Some of the inkjets can be more or less than that depending on the inkset used (many on-lines use the lower cost dye-based inks instead of UV pigment inks. Ya get what you pay for). Contone on CrystalArchive is 60 years if mounted properly and with limited UV exposure.

That 400mb file...What are the physical dimensions of the image. There are size limits to Giclee and most printers will charge extra for files over 200dpi final size unless prearranged.

Thanks, I have heard of giclee (one of my customers is Flint Ink and we were just talking about this over lunch last week), but didn't know anyone in town that does that sort of thing. The company I am using (Source 4) is a full printing company, but running something on a press is out of the budgetary question right now. I'm mainly looking for 18x12 print that I can have in my house. I'd like to develop the business at some point to sell fine art, but it's tough to spend lots of money on the prints having nothing to do with them but enjoy them and give them out to friends and family. Will post a few pics to a portfolio site this weekend, hopefully.

The file is 400 MB at 18x12, 600 dpi. The prepress lady at Source 4 told me it needed to be 600 MB, but it does seem like an unnecessarily large file.

I don't know what type of "digital copier" they are using.

And I sorta mispoke on the 200dpi thing. That is 'normal production' size. For fine art 400 to 600dpi is considered normal.

Sounds like you are just doing one-offs. If you like the quality of what you are getting, stick with it cuz you won't get any cheaper than that going to any of the wide format processes. Just for yucks, wouldja ask Source 4 how long their prints are rated to last, if they even know. I'm just curious about the 'digital copier' is all.

Thanks PD, here is a link to the Source4 site with a picture of the actual machine they use, though it doesn't have the name of the machine...

http://cod.source4.com (select the PRINT ON DEMAND button, it will show the machine)

So I'll get a copy back on Monday I think and then take a look at the quality and check around on giclee prints as well. Have some of the files posted at this thread (http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11164), so we'll see how they look. I will also find out about how long the prints are supposed to hold up and advise...Thanks for the info!!