What are the benefits of professional printing?

If you love an image and want to display it, whether it’s a sentimental photograph or stunning piece of artwork, then getting it professionally printed may be just the ticket. Enlarging and manipulating pictures is much easier and more convenient when using this type of service, but what other significant benefits are there?

In this post, we’ll discuss the advantages of using a professional art printing service and the various ways that you might benefit from our expertise, resources, and state of the art equipment here at SohoFrames.

Hand-selected paper

Paper type and quality are crucial aspects of professional printing, however they are frequently overlooked. Even if the ink, equipment, and other resources are of superior standard, using the wrong type or weight of paper can hugely impact the outcome of your final product.

All paper is measured in weight using a unit known as GSM, or grams per square metre. When printing images, we recommend using a weight between 275-300+ GSM — although the ideal weight will depend on the type of paper you are using. For example, we use a weight of at least 275 GSM for satin paper to allow for rich, saturated colours, and for the eye to easily distinguish between the minute details of the image. Matte paper, however, like Hahnemühle cotton papers, require a heavier weight — often over 300 GSM.

At SohoFrames, we offer a wealth of hand-selected, specialist materials, like canvas, digital fine art paper, and the archival PermaJet photographic paper, as part of our cutting-edge, professional art printing services. We will also walk you through the nuances of using the different materials, to offer recommendations and help you make an informed decision.

Extremely high print and file resolution

Throughout the printing process, a wide range of potential problems might emerge. Minor mistakes can snowball into major headaches, and reprinting a project because of quality issues can be expensive and time-consuming.

One common error is using the wrong print and file resolution. Dots per inch (or DPI) measures how many individual ink “dots” there are in a given area of a printed page. For printing images, the ideal resolution is 240-300 DPI, however, determining the optimal DPI and PPI (pixels per inch) for your source image is challenging, to say the least.

If the print resolution is too high or the type of paper is not suitable, the final product may bleed or look blurry. On the contrary, printing at a low or inappropriate resolution for the type of product can result in an unsightly pixelated appearance.

This is where professional printers come in. At SohoFrames, after receiving your original, uncompressed image, we compare and optimise suitable print resolutions until we find the best fit for your project, guaranteeing that it will be finished to the highest of standards.

Colour-managed facilities

Having true-to-life colours is essential for any photographic endeavour, be it printing or archiving. Still, amateur printing setups run the risk of producing substandard or inaccurate colour replication.

This is because neither printers or paper varieties are created equal — often speaking different “languages” — and the calibration settings of different machines can cause noticeable variations in the final product. The same goes when producing images sourced from a computer or mobile device, where colours may not “pop” as much as expected due to no longer being backlit. Consequently, an important goal of professional art printing services is to obtain the most achievable and accurate colour match possible.

At SohoFrames, our colour technologists provide the consistency and control that reduces the frequency of expensive reprints, which are common with in-house office printers. We offer a unique colour profile for each piece we print, and we’d be delighted to help you decide which would work best for your individual project.

In line with our ethos of superior quality, SohoFrames uses the highest-calibre printing materials and strives for excellence in our professional printing services. For more information on what we offer, including our bespoke framing service, do not hesitate to get in touch with us or pop in for a chat at our London workshop — we’d be more than happy to help.