How Art Reproduction Works: From Capture to Gallery-Grade Print
Every artist eventually faces the same problem: the original can only hang in one place. Prints are how a painting earns beyond its first sale, how a body of work travels to fairs and shops and collectors who could never afford the original. But a print is only worth selling if it is honest to the piece you made, and that honesty is decided at capture, not at the printer.
The Glass Comes Off
Artwork cannot be photographed properly under glass. Reflections and refraction change color and kill detail, so pieces come out of the frame before they go in front of the camera. It is the single most common thing artists are surprised by, and it matters more than any camera setting.
Color You Can Trust
Every capture at Len Marks Photography is color matched using a 24-patch color chart and a gray card. That reference travels with the file, so the deep red you mixed on the palette is the deep red in the print, not the printer's best guess. It is the difference between a reproduction and a photo of a painting.
Archival Materials, Or Why Cheap Prints Fade
Reproductions are printed with archival inks on acid-free papers, in luster, glossy, giclee, and loose canvas options. Archival matters because your collectors are hanging these in sunlit rooms; a print that shifts or fades takes your name down with it. Pricing depends on size, paper, and quantity, so please contact us for a custom price quote on art copying services and print reproductions.
Files Built for Selling
You receive high-resolution JPEG or TIFF files, and prints can be ordered from those files at any time, in any size the work supports. Large or delicate pieces can be photographed on location at your studio or gallery, and three-dimensional work gets its own consultation, because sculpture is a different problem than a flat canvas.
The Ethics Part
Reproduction is done with the artist's permission and within copyright and licensing agreements, full stop. And while the camera work happens in Huntington, the standard is the same one museums hold: the reproduction serves the original, never the other way around. If you are ready to get your work reproduced, reach out for a free project consultation.