Raw & Post Processing, Printing > Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks

Metal Prints

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wmchauncey:
I've never printed, but...now I'm toying with the idea of making metal prints for the Art Show circuit and local Galleries.
Is it even economically feasible as these galleries want 50% of sale price?  What gear is usually used?

Slobodan Blagojevic:
You mean to print it yourself? Do not think it is feasible.

bargainguy:
It's a sublimation process and beyond the scope of most homeowners.  This is a good description:

Sublimation onto metal is a new, cutting edge way to reproduce an image. Sublimation itself is the process of going from a solid to a gas, back to a solid - skipping the liquid state.

The image is first printed onto a transfer paper, and then is adhered to pretreated aluminum (other substrates such as tile, wood, or glass are available).

The aluminum and transfer paper are placed into a custom heat press, which is heated to temperatures exceeding 380 degrees Fahrenheit. While being subjected to extreme heat the dyes from the transfer paper turn into a gas, are pressed into the surface of the metal, and then solidify into the treated aluminum. As the dyes cool they are permanently infused beneath the surface of the metal substrate.

dgberg:
Very doable if you can find good reliable used equipment.
I found a used Epson 4880 plus a used Geo. knight 16x20 heat press.
Add about $1500 for extra ink transfer paper and your Chromaluxe metals.
I spent around $3,500 to start with used equipment only to find out the Sawgrass driver is only Pc and I am all Mac. So it was more money to get that all straightened out.
Do your homework, there is a learning curve. There has been such a demand latey I have added dye sublimation as an additional workshop.
You might want to try purchasing from a major vendor to start. See if they sell and at what price before jumping in head first.

Ps:
If they want 50% you may not make any money even if you keystone (triple) your cost.
Sell for $150, pay $75 commission and $50 for your print that leaves $25 for you.
Not worth the effort.
That means you have to sell a metal print you paid $50 for at least $200 , pretty tough during the present economy. All that to make $50???
You have to negotiate that 50% commission lower to make that work.
Just my opinion.

Landscapes:

--- Quote from: Dan Berg on May 18, 2015, 07:33:00 pm ---Ps:
If they want 50% you may not make any money even if you keystone (triple) your cost.
Sell for $150, pay $75 commission and $50 for your print that leaves $25 for you.
Not worth the effort.
That means you have to sell a metal print you paid $50 for at least $200 , pretty tough during the present economy. All that to make $50???
You have to negotiate that 50% commission lower to make that work.
Just my opinion.

--- End quote ---
I fully agree that the numbers just don't work out if your business is selling wholesale to an art shop or gallery that will take 50%.  Its one thing to print on canvas where you are able to markup 5 times to arrive at your wholesale price and the store/gallery doubles this to arrive at their selling price.  I can produce a stretched canvas for about $30, which I can wholesale for $150, and which might sell for $300.  But if now I'm paying at least $100 for someone else to do it, even if I double that to $200, and they double it to arrive at a sale price of $400, I'm still not happy making only $100 from a $400 sale.  The trouble even is that for the same size of canvas that I'm doing for $30 myself, there is no way that the equivalent metal print size is $100, so the customer has to be willing to pay more money for a smaller size.

There is nothing wrong with having some small samples done to show what is possible, but no way would I even put up so much money to have stock of something that might not even sell.  I know these metal prints are getting very popular, and I see them everywhere more and more now, but they aren't helping the bottom line of the photographer.  The numbers just don't work and if you're a photographer, you're either having to sell these at the upper end of the price scale, or sell them just because you have to and hope to make up by selling just prints or canvases, or you simply aren't making enough money to do this for a living. 

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