FYI selling prints

[Rob MacKillop]

Due to a MASSIVE amount of requests to purchase my prints (only two in 14 years!) I have created an online store through a company called FRONT. They allow 12 images, so I'll be changing them every three months or so. They make high-quality prints, and deal with all the postage and finance, taking 15%.

I mention this here not because I think I'll get any sales, but maybe generate a little discussion about selling your stuff. Let me know what you think of this site. Click on any image to get more information, and an impression of what it might look like in a frame. The price is for the 12x8 print, and does not include framing. I had no idea what price to set, but looking around other store fronts on that website, prices range from £5 to £500.

Here's the link:

https://rob-mackillop.front.photography

After clicking on an image, hover over the image on the next page to see the frame.

 

[Bill Brown]

Due to a MASSIVE amount of requests to purchase my prints (only two in 14 years!) I have created an online store

I checked it out and it appears there is no delivery to the states. It looks interesting. I too have to beat potential purchasers off with a stick. I have always dreamed that some of my work was sellable but like all dreams you have to wake up to the real world. I have enough trouble trying to give prints away.

I print for myself mostly and post the prints on our bedroom doors. My wife found these magnetic door displays that have a small bin hanging below for storing prints. It works beautifully. In 2020 when our daughter graduated from high school I produced prints spanning her life and put a new print on the door display each week of her senior year. This set of prints then became one of my gifts to her.

I have a large flat file and photo paper boxes full of prints. It's a compulsion I guess. I've been experimenting recently with hand tinting on matte paper with oil pastels. I'm pleased with the initial results. The tinting adds a little extra dimension to the image.

As I've said before you have beautiful work. Onward and upward.

I'm attaching a photo of the door display showing one of the prints that I created for the senior year project.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Cheers, Bill. You have some good ideas there, and I imagine your daughter loved her present.

The company blog says they are negotiating sales to the US, so it should add circa 300 million potential buyers! I'll be a billionaire by this time next year...or not.

It's a weird thing just contemplating selling prints. There's an element of ego involved, I'll admit, but just testing the waters is more interesting. Some people - undoubtedly not many - want more than continuous scrolling through thousands of photo images, and that is to be encouraged. To be frank, I'm not expecting a single sale, but would be happy to be proved wrong. It doesn't cost me anything to have my photos there, and the act of sifting through a few thousand images to present just twelve, was a really interesting experience.

 

[Ralph Turner]

All the very best for this venture, Rob. Lookin' good, very good.

Bill, I rather like your idea of the magnetic displays and swapping out prints on a regular basis. Something I may well give more thought to

 

[Gianluca Drago]

but just testing the waters is more interesting

That sounds good to me, Rob. I would already know which of your photos to buy, but can you give me the negative as well? No, just kidding. However, I think the success of the deal is less about the value of your photos than the popularity [and reputation] of the platform (isn't that how it works on the web?)

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Then if in a year's time you see that you have not sold enough you can always decide to donate your photos (in digital version) to some public repository that collects the cultural heritage of a community, more or less extended, as a legacy to future generations.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

 

[Gianluca Drago]

So, you are only in it for the money. OK

 

[Brian Moore]

I've been experimenting recently with hand tinting on matte paper with oil pastels. I'm pleased with the initial results. The tinting adds a little extra dimension to the image.

Bill are your tinting inkjet prints or darkroom prints? (Now that I think about it I believe you said in one of your previous posts that you no longer work in a darkroom.)

 

[Brian Moore]

Due to a MASSIVE amount of requests to purchase my prints (only two in 14 years!) I have created an online store through a company called FRONT. They allow 12 images, so I'll be changing them every three months or so. They make high-quality prints, and deal with all the postage and finance, taking 15%.

I mention this here not because I think I'll get any sales, but maybe generate a little discussion about selling your stuff. Let me know what you think of this site. Click on any image to get more information, and an impression of what it might look like in a frame. The price is for the 12x8 print, and does not include framing. I had no idea what price to set, but looking around other store fronts on that website, prices range from £5 to £500.

Here's the link:

https://rob-mackillop.front.photography

After clicking on an image, hover over the image on the next page to see the frame.

Good luck with this Rob. I took a look at your 12 pictures. Happy to see I already own one of them.

 

[Bill Brown]

Bill are your tinting inkjet prints or darkroom prints?

Brian, In this instance it is inkjet(pigment) prints. I used to do hand tinting on silver gelatin matte prints but it's been a long time since my last one, decades probably. The digital 'emulsion' responds totally different and so the methodology is different. I can't blend color into the digital paper, at least I haven't yet found the way. Like I stated I'm in the early stages so I have no definitive results other than using the oil pastels on a smooth surface matte paper and in distinct blocks of color such as fall leaves. This has given me acceptable results. These colors really pop and lend a nice dimensionality.

My next step is going to be with pastel pencils on the smooth matte paper. The pencils should give me more line control and the softer pastel may tend to blend better. I will probably try regular pastels (chalk) also but they may be a little to loose for my taste. I think hand tinting adds one more level of originality because each photo is a one off.

I've even been thinking about bringing my airbrush out of retirement and seeing what I'm able to do with that. I used to do airbrush originals on fine art paper. This one is from a 1985 quail hunt with my brothers-in-law. They shot guns and I shot photos. Using those photos as my reference I created this piece. It was about 20" x 20" and the dog's head was virtually life sized.


It might work better because I wouldn't have to touch the paper surface and subtlety and smooth gradients would be better. Maybe using colored inks? As I think about it maybe even pigment inks extracted from used cartridges?! That's my first time to think of that possibility. I have access to lot's of those.

Did you have something specific in mind as far as tinting a photo?

 

[Brian Moore]

Did you have something specific in mind as far as tinting a photo?

First, thanks for your response, Bill. Secondly, no. I have nothing specific in mind. However I do have a general interest in hand-tinting. Your observation about "one more level of originality" is one reason why. Also I just like the look of some hand-tinted photos. I tried a bit of digital colorizing in photoshop a while back but I found the process a little frustrating. I did end up with one or two colorized images that I wasn't too unhappy with (I think I posted one here on RPF), but pressing buttons and pushing a mouse around just doesn't seem the right way to do "hand" tinting.

A year or two ago I came across a photographer in Vancouver B.C. who does beautiful hand-tinted prints. Zak Sarwari is his name. His are all darkroom prints, though. (If interested here is his Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/zaksarwari/. However I met him at his store in Vancouver and I can tell you that the display of prints on-site are much more impressive than what you see on his Instagram.)

My interest level in this form of art has prompted me to acquire a very basic set of pastel pencils as well as an "Introductory Set" of photo oils (Arista,...purchased from Freestyle Photo in Los Angeles.) That is as far as I have gone with it, though.

 

[Beth Carter]

good luck rob! your new site looks great. i never had any luck with online sales, so don't feel bad if this isn't everything you hoped and dreamed it could be.

see if there's a shop nearby that you can sell some of your work in. i have business cards in my booth at the shop that have lead to a few online orders each year, but i fulfill all of those orders through the shop rather than shipping.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Thanks, Beth. Believe me, I really don’t have hopes and dreams for selling my wares, more a curiosity. Do people buy prints? It’s not something I’ve ever done. I guess one has to be very active as a ‘real’ photographer on social media, making videos for YouTube promoting your work and doing product reviews, etc, etc, none of which I have the slightest interest in.

 

[Bill Brown]

All the very best for this venture, Rob. Lookin' good, very good.

Bill, I rather like your idea of the magnetic displays and swapping out prints on a regular basis. Something I may well give more thought to

Thanks Ralph, We have become quite attached to these as a current event or remembering spot. Our beloved miniature poodle ,Ginger Rose, passed on recently at the age of 14 1/2. We miss her so much. I have been placing favorite photos of her on both doors. Not the same as her being here but it makes for pleasant memories.

Other times it will just be an image I came across as I look through my archive. If you start making prints you will find others interested in what has been posted next. Real life and not on a screen, it makes a bigger impact.

Our daughter will be home for a short Christmas visit so I am thinking of printing photos from her childhood Christmases. The possibilities are endless. It just depends on how deep you want to dive with it.

 

[Bill Brown]

I tried a bit of digital colorizing in photoshop a while back but I found the process a little frustrating

There are so many ways to tint in PS that it can be a little overwhelming. My first suggestion would be for you to try a digital tablet with pen. This at least feels a little more natural as opposed to the mouse. The pen enables more delicacy and intricacy too and at the same time more gestural movements. I wear a nylon 2 finger glove on my drawing hand which facilitates smoother movements across the pad surface. A regular cotton art glove works too.

One of the issues with tinting in PS is how the color impacts different areas of density. To address this you may want to create a luminosity mask. This mask can help keep tints isolated to specific tonal ranges. A color fill layer combined with this mask can be a starting point and adding a layer mask then allows for specific tweaking. I can give some input on my methodology if you like. I'm not doing it here because it would add too much to the length of this reply.

Another method is to create color fill layers with a solid black layer mask and the layer blend mode set to color. The main image color profile must be in color even if it's a b&w photo. Sorry for any oversimplification. By then painting on each color's layer mask you can tint as desired. You can then apply other adjustment layers to this tint layer by creating clipping masks (Hue/Sat for instance) I recommend doing all this on a Background Copy layer. This allows you to turn layer visibility on and off so you can see what you've done. There's much trial and error to finding your own desired 'look' for an image. Best thing is to just dive in.

 

[Beth Carter]

Thanks, Beth. Believe me, I really don’t have hopes and dreams for selling my wares, more a curiosity. Do people buy prints? It’s not something I’ve ever done. I guess one has to be very active as a ‘real’ photographer on social media, making videos for YouTube promoting your work and doing product reviews, etc, etc, none of which I have the slightest interest in.

to book sessions & weddings, yes, you have to be very active in social media and marketing yourself.

for selling fine art prints, you just need the right store & location. i sell 5-10 large framed prints (18x24" & 24x36") a month at the shop i'm in. it's in a tourist town and there's 60ish vendors in the store ranging from clothes to candles to home furnishings. buyers want to see the framed print on a wall, specifically looking the size and the colors before they purchase. i sell a lot art & photos in 8x10" frames and 4x6" notecards. loose prints don't sell very well, nobody wants to deal with the hassle of framing them. card packs don't sell well either, despite being a better deal than buying them individually. i keep things simple, everything framed goes in a black frame. these aren't art people, they don't want to talk to the photographer, they just want something beachy to hang over the couch in their beach house.