James Theopistos – Page 23 – FinerWorks Help and Support Portal

January 1, 2014January 14, 2018

Setting 3 Goals for the Year

What are your plans for 2014. With the entrance into January many people like to start their new year with resolutions. For artists I think it is a good time to set goals rather than resolutions. I like the term goals because it implies you have set a finish line that must be crossed to complete. And in many cases you might have a larger goal in mind that may consists of smaller goals. At FinerWorks we always set goals thought the year but January is especially important. The final months of the year are so busy that implementing new solutions seamlessly can be challenging but with the holiday season behind us we have a chance to evaluate ourselves and come up with ideas with the idea of becoming more capable in meeting our customers’ expectations. So what are some ideas that we can offer artists who want to set new goals for themselves? I will name a few that you can either take with you or expand on yourself.

December 4, 2013January 14, 2018

5 Tips for Holiday Shipments

Don’t wait until the last moment. We have not finalized our Christmas ordering deadlines just yet but it will probably fall around the 18th of this month which is only two weeks away. Right now we are getting close to running at full capacity so if you have to submit an order for order fulfillment to your customer and have been putting it off for whatever reason don’t wait much longer. Here are five useful tips for your holiday shipments that you should consider when order prints for your friends, family or even customers.

November 13, 2013January 14, 2018

Targeting Your Audience as an Artist

An artist can be like an entertainer. Like someone who performs for a living, they want to enable an emotional yet thoughtful response by the people viewing their work.

October 20, 2013January 14, 2018

The Future of Prints

I was in a meeting with some artists/photographers who were very interested in the topic of digital printing and we were discussing how producing prints from photography and artwork has changed over time. One of the questions brought up was what I expected the future to bring about. I had to think about that for a moment as I gauged how it had changed in the past decade when it came to the inks we use compared to when I started.

October 16, 2013January 14, 2018

New Finishing Options for Canvas

When ordering a gloss or matte stretched and mounted canvas print you now have the option to order a basic finishing at no charge or professional finishing for $15. Both are optional and either is recommended if you plan to hang your stretched & mounted canvas print unframed. Continue reading for more details on these options.

October 2, 2013January 14, 2018

Print on Sunset Cotton Etching Fine Art Paper

Nothing like the month of October, one of my favorite months of the year. Living in south/central Texas Fall usually does not begin to hint it even exists until sometime this month so the change from upper 90s to lower 90s is always welcome. Of course any little change in the temperature in this region to a more comfortable level is always welcome. With Fall showing up it puts us in the mood at FinerWorks to add a new paper to our current lineup. In this case we are getting ready to add a fine art paper called Sunset Cotton Etching which bridges a gap between two of the most popular papers we offer.

September 16, 2013January 14, 2018

Drop Shipping New Feature

Over the past few months we have seen a big increase in the number of orders placed by artists using the drop shipping option. If you are not familiar with the order fulfillment service, it is a free feature we offer in which you can have your prints shipped to someone and have it look like it was shipped by you rather than us. No prices are used and your name and address shows up as the sender on the shipping label and packing slip. Up until now this would be the name and address used during checkout under your order’s billing section. This would include your name, company name, address and phone number. We realize this might not be ideal for everyone, especially when you don’t want to use your billing information. We now have a remedy so you can control what is displayed as the order’s sender.

August 17, 2013January 14, 2018

Printing Smaller than 8×8 inches

We get a lot of people asking us about ordering prints smaller than 8×8 inches. Of course you can do that on standard Kodak stock but the vast majority of our customers are ordering their prints on either on one of the art papers or canvas. Unfortunately the smallest we offer in giclee printing is 8×8 inches. We put together a video tutorial which shows how to get around this by having your smaller image positioned within an 8×8 inch blank image. The video uses Photoshop Elements which you can download from the Adobe website and use for free for 30 days. A link to this download page is posted below the video.

July 30, 2013January 14, 2018

What Size Should You Print

A few weeks ago I was meeting with some artists and photographers and the topic came up as how to choose print sizes. What is better, printing your images large or small and how do you know what sizes are in demand by your customers. One young lady there was an artist who initially wasn’t selling her work at shows in the numbers she had expected. She had printed almost everything as an 8×10 or slightly smaller. Many of the other artists at the show were successful at selling smaller sizes so she knew it had to be something she was doing wrong. After trying a larger size instead of what she was offering she found buyers were purchasing prints at a higher rate. When she asked some of the other artists at the show what they thought about this she was told very frankly that the style of the artwork needed to sync up with the sizes she was printing. Unfortunately she had done her initial sizes based on what a friend who was not an experienced artist had suggested rather than what her work called for. Her artwork had so much more appeal and interest than what the small 8x10s could reflect.

July 17, 2013January 14, 2018

3 Ways to Proof Your Work

Most people printing their work whether it be a painting reproduction, photograph or even digital art are going want to get the most out of their print. They want it to reflect everything about the original image as accurately as possible. If you are like me, whenever I used to print some of my art or photography there was always a little bit of apprehension as to how it would turn out. Perhaps also like me you would ask these questions: Will my image look crisp and sharp? Will my colors match my original or what I see on my computer screen? Will it have the impact and emotional appeal I want based on the size I chose? All these are valid questions. I know I was not the only one because we hear these same questions all the time. So what do you do about this? I have observed 3 ways artists and photographers at FinerWorks approach this: An artist’s proof, a contact sheet, and soft proofing.