You have original art, now you need to figure out how to make prints of your art to sell without losing money on the process. Print-on-demand costs nothing upfront but takes a bigger cut per sale.
Printing yourself costs more at the start but pays off once you’re selling regularly — most artists switch once volume picks up. This guide walks through those choices, plus pricing and packaging, in the order you’ll actually need them.
Why Selling Prints of Your Art Is a Good Idea
One original painting can only be sold once. A print of that same painting can be sold dozens of times, since the file or plate doesn’t wear out from making copies.
This is the basic math that makes prints worth doing: the hard work of creating the piece happens once, but the income from it does not have to stop after one sale.Prints also open the door to buyers who like the work but cannot afford an original.
A painting priced at several hundred dollars might sit unsold for months, while a print of the same image priced under thirty dollars could sell regularly. This widens the pool of people who can actually buy something, without changing the art itself.
Cost is another factor. Services that print and ship on demand mean an artist does not need to buy paper, ink, or storage space upfront.
Nothing gets printed until someone places an order, so there is no risk of ending up with boxes of unsold copies. For anyone testing whether their art can sell at all, this lowers the stakes considerably.
How to Make Prints of Your Art to Sell in 6 Steps
Steps 1: Decide how you’ll get your art printed
Before anything else, figure out where your prints will actually come from. A local print shop is great if you want to see and touch a sample before paying for a full run.
If you’re planning to sell more than a handful, an online service like PrintKK can print, pack, and ship for you, which frees up your time.
Worth knowing too — many of these same platforms print on other surfaces, so if someone asks about print on demand wallpaper, you’re not starting from scratch.
Steps 2: Scan or photograph your original piece
Your phone camera might look fine at first glance, but zoom in and you’ll usually spot glare, warped edges, or colors that don’t quite match the real thing. A flatbed scanner solves most of that for smaller artwork — it lays everything flat and picks up true color.
Larger paintings need a different approach: either find someone with studio lighting and a real camera, or ask around at local shops, since some offer scanning as part of their service. Whatever you choose, don’t rush this part.
Steps 3: Clean up the digital file
With your scan or photo in hand, open it up in Photoshop or GIMP if you’re not ready to spend money yet. Go through it slowly and look for anything that shifted — color casts, tilted edges, stray dust marks the scanner grabbed.
The point isn’t to improve on the original, it’s to get the file as close to it as possible. A common mistake here is over-editing: heavy filters or sharpening can make a print look artificial instead of accurate.
Steps 4: Pick your paper and print type
Paper choice ends up shaping how the whole piece feels once it’s printed, so it’s worth slowing down on this one. A few things to weigh:
Matte finishes suit softer work like pencil sketches or watercolor, since there’s no glare pulling attention away
Glossy paper makes bold, saturated colors stand out more, which fits digital art well
Canvas adds texture, so it reads closer to a painting than a flat reproduction
If longevity matters to you or your buyers, giclee printing is the standard — the archival inks resist fading for years.
Steps 5: Order a test print before going bigger
Don’t order fifty prints the second you fall in love with a piece — trust me, wait. Print one or two test copies first and hold them right next to your screen and the original.
Your monitor is backlit, paper isn’t, so that glowing red or deep blue you’re seeing on screen can turn flat and muddy once it hits paper.
Catching that now means a quick fix in your file. Catching it later means fifty boxes of prints you can’t sell.
Steps 6: Price, package, and list them for sale
Printing costs are only part of the price tag. Factor in packaging, shipping, and the hours you actually spent on the piece — then add your profit on top of all that, not squeezed in after the fact.
And when you list the print — Etsy, your own site, a table at a market, doesn’t matter — spell out the paper, the size, whether it’s part of a limited run. Buyers who know exactly what they’re paying for are way more likely to actually click buy.
Conclusion
Turns out figuring out how to make prints of your art to sell isn’t the maze it seems like at first. Scan your work carefully, clean up the file, pick paper that actually fits the piece, and always — always — test before you print in bulk. That’s the whole game.
Your art already has value — prints just mean more people get to hang it on their own walls instead of only yours. So don’t overthink it. Start small, see what actually sells, tweak as you go. You’ve got everything you need to give it a shot.
Caroline is doing her graduation in IT from the University of South California but keens to work as a freelance blogger. She loves to write on the latest information about IoT, technology, and business. She has innovative ideas and shares her experience with her readers.
