WHO IS IMAGING ARTS PRINTING?
Imaging Arts Printing is a quality-centric printing business located in Charleston, SC. We specialize in art reproduction, canvas giclee printing, and printing on a variety of high quality photo and fine art watercolor papers. We work with a wide range of people from full time working professional visual artists and photographers to businesses, designers, galleries, and anyone who happened to take a good photograph and wants it reproduced for hanging in their home or giving as a gift. You don’t have to be a professional to want quality printing.
In addition to high quality printing we also offer photo restoration of family photos you have that may have been cracked or damaged, and scanning of just about anything you need, including film negatives, slides, and prints.
While we offer the usual range of standard printing sizes we are also able to accommodate just about any custom size you may want ranging from small to large format. All our canvas stretcher bars are cut, built, and stretched by hand. Please get in touch with us about any printing needs you have and if we can’t help you then we can likely point you in the direction of someone who can.
OUR HOURS AND LOCATION
Address: 1038 Jenkins Road, Suite 110, Charleston, SC 29407
Office Hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 9am-5pm by appointment
Saturday-Monday: CLOSED
We are available by appointment and use an online system for setting up appointments. Click the button below to set up a time to come by the shop.
SET UP A TIME TO COME BY THE SHOP
We're available by appointment and happy to help. Please click below to set up a time to come by.
TURNAROUND TIMES
Standard turnaround time for paper prints is 3-5 business days and canvas is 5-7 business days. Standard turnaround for digitizing art is one week. Please note that this is standard turnaround, which means that turnaround times can fluctuate. Sometimes we slow down when we are particularly busy and other times we get it done faster. Larger orders (orders with large prints or quantities above 10) will often take longer than our standard turnaround time. Rush services are sometimes available for a rush fee when time permits. We are always happy to work with you on deadlines when we can so if you are in a time crunch please get in touch and let us know your deadline ahead of time. But please remember, we are a quality centric business so it is more important to us to do a good job than to be fast.
MEET YOUR PRINTER
PRINTER
I’m Steven and I am responsible for printing your art and photos. I individually view and adjust everything I print to ensure your prints look their best. I also build your stretcher bars and stretch your canvas with my hands. My goal is to provide you with a high quality print that makes your art look as good as it can every time. Please get in touch with me about anything. (photo by Kelly Edmiston)
PHOTOGRAPHER
In addition to being a printer I am also a photographer. My photographic experience ranges from fine art to commercial to landscape photography and plays a major part in my ability to work with your photos. Working with images is what I do. Please have a look at some of my work, including my historic church photo project and my general photography website.
OUR EQUIPMENT
EPSON 11000XL SCANNER
The Epson Expression 11000xl photo scanner is an oversized flatbed scanner that can be used to scan artwork up to about 12×18″. The large scanner bed allows us to fit more on it at a time as well as gives us the ability to scan larger items that would otherwise have to be photographed thereby, maximizing resolution. We use it with Silverfast professional scanning software to ensure the best clarity and colors.
NIKON Z7 MIRRORLESS CAMERA
The Nikon Z7 is a 46 megapixel digital mirrorless camera. The Z7 has more resolution than you are likely to truly need and does a great job with color, but more important than resolution is the custom profiling we do to ensure the best possible color relative to your original. We use the ColorChecker Digital SG paired with truly top of the line software to build custom profiles worthy of art reproduction. We pair it with a professional quality Nikkor lens and always shoot on a tripod to maximize the detail in your artwork.
COLOR MANAGEMENT
- Monitors– We use industry leading Eizo ColorEdge monitors.
- Image Editing – We use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, both industry standard professional image editing programs.
- Monitor Profiling – We use X-Rite i1 equipment for proper monitor calibration.
- Camera Profiling – We use the Calibrite ColorChecker Digital SG and basICColor Input 6 Pro to build custom camera profiles for art reproduction.
NIKON SUPER COOLSCAN 9000 ED
The Nikon Super CoolScan 9000 ED is one of the finest film scanners out there. Where the best resolution is required this is the scanner we use. It will scan both 35mm and medium format negatives, slides, and transparencies and particularly excels at black and white negatives. If you’re wanting larger prints made from your film this is the go to. It isn’t fast, but it offers scans of the highest quality.
EINSTEIN STUDIO FLASH UNITS
We use Paul C. Buff Einstein flash units in our studio for painting reproduction work. Einsteins are widely regarded for their color consistency and that is a key element of art reproduction. Many lights will have significant color shifts from exposure to exposure or as the power of the lights is raised or lowered. With the Einsteins we know that the color of the light is not going to have major shifts, and this means that the end result is more accurate color time and time again.
HP z3200 PRINTERS
We use 4 HP z3200 printers and only ever use OEM HP, archival, pigment based inks (have a look at print permanence comparison tests here). We never use third party inks. The z3200 is capable of the highest quality prints on a variety of media though we use them specifically for canvas and fine art papers. With 12 inks and built in i1 color management software and spectrophotometers we build our own custom color profiles for each paper we print on to maintain as much color consistency from print to print as possible. We regularly calibrate each printer for every canvas and paper type we offer.
OUR MATERIALS
ARCHIVAL CANVAS AND PAPERS
We use the highest quality canvas that we have been able to find, and that’s Lyve canvas from Breathing Color. It is an archival certified, 19 mil, 450 gsm canvas that is OBA free yet still maintains a bright white point. Everything looks great printed on it and when properly cared for it will last a lifetime (or multiple). The print is coated with a protective varnish that contains UV inhibitors to increase it’s life. We also offer a variety of archival and non archival papers to choose from to fit just about any quality printing need you may have.
ARCHIVAL PIGMENT INKS
We use only OEM (no third party), archival, pigment based inks. Our printers use 12 different inks for a wide color gamut (that just means it can produce a wide range of colors). The inks have been tested to last longer than any of us are going to be alive when properly cared for (check out third party ink permanence testing here). The resulting prints are something you can pass down to younger generations. (See: What does archival mean?)