Art and Creativity: Moving Painlessly Between Digital Art and Physical Presentation

As a gallery proprietor, it seemed pretty inevitable that we would-- sooner or later-- be approached with the question of including digital art in the gallery.

Maybe what comes to your mind is a digital picture frame displaying art... but that's not what we have in mind here. We're talking about framed art, on the wall!

Digital Art in 3D Space? A Tricky Proposition

Digital artists have been around for quite a while. As technologies and software options have improved, so has the quality of the art.

Gone are the days when printed versions of digital art only manifested as designs for mugs and T-shirts, and occasional book covers. The quality of the art nowadays can be quite stunning, and is quite worthy of gracing the walls of your home!

But where does this all fit, in the greater stream of art... such as displaying your work in an art gallery?

Back in the spring, we were approached by the first "purely digital" artist we've worked with, and whose work we now have in the gallery. It was an interesting experience, so I wanted to share a little bit more about the digital-to-brick-and-mortar transition.

Digital Art... and the Art Gallery Business

In the traditional sense, art galleries have only ever sold "physical" art to clients. Performance art notwithstanding, the expectation of most gallery visitors is that they will potentially be able to buy what they see on the walls and take it home.

Conversely, most digital artists are familiar with creating art in electronic space, and perhaps selling their work as "downloads." Which is perfectly reasonable. A few digital artists do explore "print space," but mostly in the form of trading cards, fantasy games and the like. Actual "art you hang on the wall" is somewhat of a rarity.

In this case, we were tasked with bringing the digital to life.

We learned a lot, and it was an interesting collaboration between artist and gallery.

Getting it Into Print: Odds and Ends

One of the first things to understand about digital art-- as a gallery owner-- is that there is no such thing as "the original" that exists in physical space. The original art is simply a computer file.

The next thing to understand-- because now we are going to get into the business of print making-- is that most digital art is "scalable." Which means that the artist and gallery have to agree on what a good size for each piece might be.

From this perspective, one of the important tips for digital artists is "build it BIG!" 

If we assume that we want to print a 16" x 20" (about 40.5 x 51cm) image at 300dpi (which will render a high quality print when printed), you're looking at an original file that's 4800 x 6000 pixels. 

Oddly enough, you don't really need anything much bigger than that.

How come?

Well, once you get to 16 x 20 any additional size also means the observer will be further away from the image, so additional detail doesn't really make the art look crisper or better, when viewed from a natural observation distance.

What Kind of Print?

Of course, there's more to the process than merely coming up with the right size file and hitting the "print" button.

One of the greatest challenges with digital art is correct color matching... or avoiding the dreaded "Why doesn't my print look like my screen image?" question.

The basics (and I am NOT a print expert) is that electronic screens render color using the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) model while print is rendered with the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) model. This may sound like so much technical mumbo-jumbo, but it becomes especially important when trying to print something that involves substantial amounts of the color black. RGB black is actually a mixture of colors, while CMYK black is "true black." Which means your RGB print can end up with "colorful shadows" in the black areas if the file isn't converted before a print is made.

Luckily, the file conversion is pretty easy, but some experimentation is still needed.

The next consideration is the medium and method of printing. 

Most of the digital artists I have met take the "quick and dirty" route-- they simply print their art as a photographic image, on photographic paper. The results are usually pretty good, and work well if your ambitions don't stretch too far beyond selling some casual 8x10 prints people can take away and frame for themselves.

If you have a number of images, I suggest ordering a "test set" in an expensive 4x6 or 5x7 size, just to see how the colors transfer.

For a more "fine art" looking result, giclée printing on archival quality paper (or even canvas) would be a more appropriate choice. 

Again, getting smaller test prints made-- possibly on different types of paper-- is highly recommended, so you can decide whether the colors need further adjusting before committing to larger prints-- and more expense.

So Do We Just Start Printing?

Before you put in a print order, it is important to sit down and examine your objectives, as a digital artist entering the print world.

What do you want to do?

To maintain the value and integrity of your work, we suggest you keep prints in strict signed limited editions, regardless of size and print type. If you're printing large art prints to be framed and displayed in a gallery for sale, you might do well to limit editions to 10 or 20 signed and numbered pieces.

Smaller sizes to be sold unframed might be in signed editions of 50. If you also want to get into ACEOs, we certainly wouldn't recommend an edition size above 100 signed copies per image.

Last, but not Least: Your Signature Matters!

Since digital art is basically infinitely reproducible, the greatest value you add is your hand written signature. It is the mark of authenticity that makes an "official" print someone buys at a gallery (or even through your own online shop) stand out from a downloaded file someone printed out at home.

This is an important area of digital art we cannot overemphasize to our digital artist friends. Your signature is-- basically-- gold. So take it seriously!

Thank you for reading! Red Dragonfly is a proud member of the @sndbox creative initiative.

The Red Dragonfly is an independent alternative art gallery located in Port Townsend, WA; showcasing edgy and unique contemporary art & handmade crafts by local and worldwide artists. All images are our own, unless otherwise credited. Where applicable, artist images used with permission.