Why We Don't Recommend Printing at Home
You've spent hours perfecting your artwork. The composition is finally right, the colors are exactly what you wanted, and you're ready to see it in print. So why not just print it yourself at home?
The appeal is obvious. You hit print, walk to the other room, and boom, your art is real! No shipping times, no dealing with labs, no waiting around. Plus you're in total control, right?
Here's the thing though: we actually have a professional giclée printer in our studio. Like, a real one, the kind that costs as much as a used car. And we still send most of our orders to professional labs.
Let me explain why, because understanding the different levels of printing will save you a ton of frustration (and money!).
The Three Levels of Printing (And Why They Matter)
Level 1: Consumer Home Printers
You know the ones. The $200 to $500 Epson or Canon you get at Best Buy. Maybe it says "photo printer" on the box. Maybe it even has six ink cartridges instead of four.
Here's my advice if you're thinking about using one of these for art prints: don't.
I'm not being a snob here. The technology just isn't there. These printers use 4 to 6 dye-based inks that are designed for office documents and family photos you'll look at once and stick in a drawer. The color gamut is limited, meaning a huge chunk of the colors in your original artwork simply can't be reproduced. That deep purple? It'll print as a muddy blue-gray. Those subtle skin tones? Flat and lifeless.
And the longevity? Forget it. Dye-based inks start fading within months, especially if there's any sunlight in the room. I've seen prints from consumer printers that looked washed out after just a few weeks on a wall. That's not a print, that's a very expensive temporary decoration.
The paper these printers use is just as bad. Basic photo paper from Staples yellows and deteriorates within a couple years. It's not acid-free, it's not archival, and it definitely doesn't have the weight or texture that makes a print feel like art.
If you're making art to sell, or even just art you care about, consumer printers are a dead end. Moving on.
Level 2: Professional Giclée Printers (Like the One in Our Studio)
Okay, now we're talking real equipment. You can absolutely buy a professional giclée printer for your home or studio. We have a Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000, and it's genuinely a beautiful machine. We love it!
Twelve pigment inks instead of four. Handles proper museum-grade paper. Prints up to 17x22". The output quality is identical to what professional labs produce. When we print something on this machine, it looks good. Like, properly professional.
So... why don't we use it for everything?
Well, here's what nobody tells you about owning a professional printer:
The Speed Issue (It's Slower Than You Think)
A 17x22" print takes almost seven minutes to come out of the PRO-1000. And that's just the printing part. You also need to load the paper correctly, run test strips if you're trying a new color profile, and let the print dry for a bit before you handle it.
If you wanna see it in (interminably slow!) action check out this instagram post.
For one print? Fine. For proofing colors? Perfect.
But when someone orders five prints? That's 35+ minutes of machine time, and you can't just walk away because you need to swap out paper, check registration, make sure nothing's smudging.
When someone orders 20 prints across different sizes? You're looking at hours of babysitting a printer. And if you're running a business, those hours add up fast. Professional labs have multiple large-format printers running at once. They can knock out bulk orders without it taking over their entire day.
Size Limitations Are Real
Our PRO-1000 maxes out at 17x22". That's a decent size, but it's nowhere near what a lot of customers want. Anything bigger and we physically cannot print it in-house.
Professional labs have large-format printers that go up to 44 or even 64 inches wide. They can print statement pieces, posters, huge limited editions. We can't. So even if we wanted to do everything ourselves, we'd still need a lab relationship for large format work.
And buying a large-format printer? Now you're looking at $15,000+ and a machine the size of a couch that needs its own dedicated space and climate control. Not happening in our studio.
The Paper Inventory Problem
We use three different museum-grade papers depending on the artwork: Epson Hot Press Bright for vibrant colors, Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 for a softer feel, and Hahnemühle German Etching 310 for our watercolor collection.
Each of these papers comes in multiple sheet sizes. And if you want to keep them all in stock so you're ready for any order? You're tying up hundreds or thousands of dollars in paper inventory that's just sitting in a drawer.
Professional labs buy these papers by the roll at wholesale prices. They have dozens of paper options available and the volume to make it economical. For us, keeping even three papers in stock is a juggling act.
Maintenance Costs (The Hidden Expense)
Here's something I didn't realize until we owned the printer: it uses ink even when you're not printing.
The PRO-1000 runs automatic cleaning cycles to keep the print heads from clogging. Every few days, it fires ink through the nozzles to make sure everything flows properly. This is necessary. If the heads clog, you're looking at expensive repairs. But it means your ink is slowly disappearing whether you're actually making prints or not.
A full set of ink cartridges for the PRO-1000 costs around $800. And between actual printing and maintenance, you go through them faster than you'd expect. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's a cost that keeps recurring.
Let's Talk Money
I'm going to be honest about the economics here because I wish someone had been honest with me before we bought the printer.
When you factor in the cost of ink, the cost of paper (at retail prices for small quantities), the time spent setting up and monitoring prints, the maintenance ink usage, and the physical space the printer takes up... our per-unit cost for anything beyond a small handful of prints is higher than just sending the order to a lab.
It weighs 70 pounds, takes up an entire work table, and requires a fairly consistent temperature and humidity to work properly. It's not a small commitment.
For high-volume production, the math just doesn't work. Labs have economy of scale on their side. They're printing hundreds of orders a week, so their per-unit costs are way lower than ours could ever be.
So Why Do We Have It?
Great question. Our printer is incredibly valuable for three specific things:
Color proofing. This is the big one. Before we send a new design to the lab for a full print run, we can test it same-day on our own printer. We can try different color adjustments, see how it looks on different papers, and make sure everything is dialed in perfectly. This alone has saved us countless rounds of back-and-forth with labs and probably paid for the printer already.
Limited edition runs. When we're doing a limited edition runs, we want to print them ourselves, so that they can be signed, a note added, etc. There's something special about being able to say "I printed this" rather than "a lab printed this."
Emergency replacements. If a print gets damaged in shipping or a customer needs a replacement immediately, we can print and ship it same-day instead of waiting for the lab. This has saved us multiple times when we needed to fix something fast.
For regular production orders though? Those go to the lab. Every time.
What About Color Accuracy?
This is actually where consumer printers fail the hardest, and it's worth understanding why.
Your artwork exists in a massive color space. Deep burgundies, subtle peaches, rich navy blues, complex earth tones. Consumer printers with their 4 to 6 inks can only reproduce a fraction of that range.
Professional giclée printers, whether it's our PRO-1000 or the equipment at professional labs, use 8 to 12 archival pigment inks. Multiple blacks and grays for depth. Extra magentas and cyans for color saturation. The difference in what they can reproduce is massive.
When we print something on our PRO-1000 versus a consumer printer, it's not a subtle difference. The consumer version looks flat. Colors are off. Details get mushy. The professional version actually looks like the original artwork.
If you care about your art looking right, this isn't negotiable. You need professional-level equipment, whether it's yours or a lab's.
Paper Makes a Bigger Difference Than You Think
I used to think paper was paper. I was extremely wrong.
Consumer photo paper is wood-pulp based, which means it contains acids that cause yellowing over time. It's also thin and flimsy. It feels cheap because it is cheap. And the surface coating is designed for dye inks, not pigment inks, so even if you somehow got archival inks onto it, the paper itself would fail.
Museum-grade archival paper is 100% cotton, acid-free, and lignin-free. It's thick, usually 300+ gsm, which is roughly the weight of card stock. It has texture and presence. When you hold it, it feels substantial. Like art.
And the longevity? These papers are rated to last 100+ years without degradation. The same papers are used for actual museum prints and fine art reproductions. They're not going to yellow or fall apart.
Whether you're printing at home on professional equipment or sending to a lab, you absolutely must use museum-grade paper. Consumer photo paper is not an option if you want your work to last.
This is another area where labs have an advantage. They buy these papers at wholesale and can offer them at reasonable prices. When you're buying individual sheets for home printing, the per-sheet cost gets expensive really fast.
The Longevity Question
Let's be crystal clear about this: if you're using consumer printer inks, your prints will fade. Not "might fade eventually." Will fade, and soon.
Dye-based inks are designed for temporary use. Under normal display conditions, they start showing noticeable color shift within 6 to 12 months. If there's direct sunlight? You're looking at weeks.
I've seen it happen. Someone brings me a print they made at home two years ago and the colors are completely washed out. It's depressing, especially if they sold it to someone.
Archival pigment inks are a completely different technology. They're rated for 100 to 200 years of display life under museum conditions. These aren't made-up marketing numbers. They're based on accelerated aging tests using ISO standards.
When you sell someone a print, you're selling them something they expect to last. Using archival inks isn't optional, it's the bare minimum for professional work.
When Home Printing Actually Makes Sense
I don't want to sound like I'm completely against printing at home. There are legitimate uses for it:
Test prints and proofs. Absolutely. Print draft versions to check composition, color balance, and layout before committing to final prints.
Personal work. If you're printing something just for yourself or as a gift, and you're not worried about it lasting decades, a good consumer printer is fine.
Process documentation. Printing reference images, progress shots, or mockups for your own use.
Learning. If you're experimenting and learning about color management and printing, having a home printer to test with is valuable.
But for final art prints that you're selling or that matter to you? That's when you need to step up to professional printing, either with high-end equipment or through a lab.
Our Honest Recommendation
If you're just starting out selling prints, don't buy a printer. Work with a professional giclée lab. The output quality will be identical to what you'd get from a $7,000 printer, and you won't have to deal with equipment maintenance, ink costs, or space requirements.
If you're established and doing enough volume that you need color proofing capability, or you want to do small limited edition runs in-house, then a professional giclée printer might make sense. Just know what you're getting into. It's not a magic solution that replaces lab services, it's a specialized tool for specific workflows.
And if someone tries to tell you that a $300 consumer printer is good enough for art prints, run away. They either don't know what they're talking about or they're trying to sell you something.
Your art deserves professional printing. Whether that means owning professional equipment or partnering with professional labs depends on your specific situation. But the one thing it definitely doesn't mean is trying to make it work with consumer-grade gear.
We learned this the hard way over years of trial and error. Hopefully you can learn it the easy way by reading this instead.
Want to see what professional giclée printing actually looks like? Browse our art print collections. Everything's printed on museum-grade paper with archival inks, either on our PRO-1000 for limited editions or through our partner labs for regular production.