Thursday, February 5, 2009

Making Photo Cards


I got to thinking about making photo cards because I've been spending much of the last week making them, eventually producing about 400, half already designated for friends, familiy or businesses. I realized I haven't explained how mine are made.

There are many ways to produce and make them, but three basic ways. One way is simply sending your images to a Website along with the information and selection of what you want - don't forget to include a printer profile with the images so they can match the color or let them determine the optimum or use an automatic process. Another is a local commercial printer.

And the third is to produce them yourself, which is what I do, see above samples. My cards are made with 4x6 prints with an Epson R2400 printer on Moab Lasal photo gloss paper, mounted on Strathmore blank cards (using dry mount tissue and a heat press), put into clear envelopes and into 10 cards sets in clear boxes. Over the last year or so I'm been assembling a porfolio of images going back nearly 40 years.

Granted I'm not a professional nor a full-time photographer, so my portfolio isn't large (currently at 100+ images and working on another 100). And it's not that I'm out to sell cards or make any real money with them, it's just I enjoy the prints and the cards. And my goal is as always, simply have people use them. I want to see them shared and mailed to other friends and family around the world if possible. And if you don't like some, then give them to people who will use them.

I even donate card sets to business for their use or for kiosks. I realize this isn't what you're supposed to do with your work, but then I'm not doing this for the income. I know my photos and images aren't the high quality the professionals produce nor the quality highend printers produce, but they're simply mine as best I can make them.

So, that's how my photo cards are made. One of these days I'll produce a gallery for folks to choose from, but for now, you can pick any image(s) in any of my Website galleries for prints (up to 11x17) or photo cards. I'll work from there.

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