Print and Sell Your Artwork For Under $100

 I see so many talented artists on Facebook who could be actively selling their own artwork.  With a minimal investment and just a little technical knowledge they'd be on their way.

Whether you're just creating greeting cards or prints that buyers can frame, it's possible to produce show worthy finished art - all from your home computer and printer.

Almost everyone has a computer, so most of your investment will be the printer, but you don't need a really expensive one to get started!  In fact, if you create line drawings you could use a standard printer.  You'll just need good quality paper - and I'll touch on that later on in this post.

For beautiful, full color or professional black and white fine art photography you'll want a photo printer.  I highly recommend Epson, because that's all I've ever used in over 15 years.  Other photographers recommend Canon.
I just saw two really nice refurbished photo printers on the Epson website for around $80 each.  That's a reasonable investment for first timers.

You'll need a photo program in your computer, which come standard in most models.  If you had Windows 7 and upgraded to 10 you probably still have a program called Photo Gallery.  You can purchase photo programs, but there are a lot of free ones out there.  You need these programs to edit and print photos of your work.

But let's backtrack a minute to getting your photos into the computer and how you'll shoot your artwork to begin with. 
Most folks have Smart phones these days, they actually do a pretty good job of replicating an image, but you'll want to make sure your lighting is natural and in focus.  You can shoot a lot of phone photos to get it exactly right before transferring to your computer, but you'll probably be editing them in your photo program anyway.

To get your photos from your cell phone onto your computer, you'll need your USB cord which plugs into the USB connection on your computer.  You'll need to know how to "find" your photos from your computer's Windows program.  You can look this up online if you need step by step instructions. 
If you're using a camera, you might even have a program on your computer for uploading photos already, via the USB connection method or inserting the SD card into the computer's SD card slot.

 You can also use Google Photos for your phone which automatically backs up all your photos from your phone to it's online cloud storage.  You can then download them in your computer.

 I'm a photographer, so I have a digital camera I shoot my fine art with and also my product photos with studio lighting for my jewelry creations.  I use my SD card for transferring photos into the computer and Paint Shop Pro for my editing, but I also have a few little cheap programs I still use for either quick editing or special effects.

A few simple editing tweaks of your images for cropping and color correction are all you need.  You will select "print" from your photo program and it will show what sizes are available.  You can print up to an 8.5x11 on a regular printer, 8x10 is a standard photo size, which is quite large when you imagine that it will be matted as an 11x14 and framed.  5x7, 4x6 and other sizes are all available.

The paper you'll use should be photo quality - glossy or matte finish.  I highly recommend Epson and Red River Paper, although I also use Moab.  There are metallic and pearl finishes as well as luster.  These are acid free papers and last for many, many years. 

Greeting cards are possible as well.  Red River has detailed instructions on how to simply set this up in your computer.

So for around $100 you can get started printing your own finished art!  

Selling is another topic I'll be covering in a future post, but you can start by visiting your local gift shops or if you'd rather sell online start with an Etsy shop, it's free to set up and only 20 cents per listing!  Their selling fees are very reasonable as well.  

I hope this inspires you to get started selling your artwork!