Printing on art paper..

[Matt Daniels]

I'm putting together a small booklet for my wife that features photography of the kids cloths she's created. She wants it printed on more of textured art paper, like watercolor paper. She'll be handing out this booklet at a trade show type event in NYC next month, and we'll need to print up quite a few of them.

I've successfully used high-quaility watercolor type paper made for inject printers, but due to the number of these that we'll be putting together, using an inkjet would be time consuming and probably expensive.

Any recommendations?

[John Thawley]

Yes... show your wife what her options REALLY are for this sort of thing, then reel her back in. LOL - Seriously though, I'm a bit of a book-meister.... pretty good knowledge of what's out there. How many are you looking and what size?

She will need to get realistic about papers, though. Unless you're headed into a full run on an offset press, paper choices will become limited.

JT

[Matt Daniels]

Size is probably going to be not much more than 5x7 or so. The original plan was to do a small 8 page saddle stiched booklet, but now maybe we're thinking along the lines of 8 pages, printed one sided and bound with a nice twine or something like that. We'll do most of the assembly, I just don't want to deal with printing at home. We'll do maybe 50? Then maybe a single page flyer that can be handed out to the masses.

We're also thinking of maybe doing 1-2 books from Mypublisher.com or similar that can be a permanent fixture in her booth.

[John Thawley]

I don't think there is any way you're going to find a solution that is realistically priced. For any kind of textured or water-color type paper and in those quantities you're prtty much locked into inkjet.

I'd find someone with a large format... maybe 13x19 (Super B) sheet feed and lay your pages out 4-up. Four 6x9 images on a sheet.. So.. with two files (four page images per file) you could have someone run-off 50 of each. Then have Kinkos or a local print-shop cut them and drill your binding holes.

Or.... get someone to run them through on the Mac (or My Publisher) in the small 6x9 softback book. I do the small Mac books all the time. At $9.95 they look great... --- although, you'll have to come up with 20 (10-2 side) pages.

JT

[Dennis Murray]

Try http://www.catprint.bz . They specialize in really small run. Imagers.com might also work for you.

I've used both for some flat card announcements (for kids) and was satisfied with their outputs.

[John Thawley]

Try http://www.catprint.bz . They specialize in really small run. Imagers.com might also work for you.

I've used both for some flat card announcements (for kids) and was satisfied with their outputs.

More than the short run, Dennis... he has a paper issue. His wife wants a textured fine-art type paper. Imagers, btw are an excellent resource for digital printing.

JT

[Matt Daniels]

My wife and I discussed this last night and agree that what she wants may not be realistic. I think what we may try is to have 4x7 prints made up at Costco, then mount those to the art paper she desires. We'll put a couple together and see how it works out.

And thanks for the all the other suggestions and information. The catprint.bz website looks like something I'll utilize in the future. I think we're going to do at least one book from Mypublisher as well for her to keep in her booth at the show.