How Fine Art Photography Is Printed
The process of printing fine art photography is far more involved than most print buyers realize. Between the moment a photographer captures an image in the field and the moment a print arrives at your door, a series of highly technical steps determine whether the final product will be museum-quality or mediocre. Understanding this process helps collectors appreciate what they are purchasing — and why archival fine art prints cost more than retail photographic prints.
Step 1: File Preparation and Color Calibration
Fine art printing begins with the master file. Edin Chavez shoots RAW format images that contain far more data than a standard JPEG. This raw data is processed in professional post-production software — Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and Luminar Neo (Edin is a Skylum Ambassador) — using a fully color-calibrated monitor. Color calibration ensures that the colors Edin sees on screen match what the printer will produce, eliminating the guesswork that causes color drift between screen and print.
Step 2: Soft Proofing
Before printing, fine art photographers soft-proof their images — using ICC profiles specific to the paper being used to simulate how the image will appear on that substrate. Hahnemühle papers have specific ICC profiles that account for how their surfaces absorb ink. Soft proofing allows the photographer to make targeted adjustments to the file before printing, ensuring the print matches the artistic intent.
Step 3: Professional Lab Submission
Edin’s prints are submitted to WHCC (White House Custom Colour), one of North America’s premier professional printing labs. WHCC operates large-format giclée printers — typically wide-format Epson or Canon production printers — loaded with professional pigment inks and calibrated to precise standards. These are not consumer-grade printers; they are the same machines used by galleries, museums, and fine art publishers.
Step 4: Printing on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper
Edin’s prints are output on Hahnemühle archival fine art paper. The printer deposits microscopic droplets of pigment ink onto the paper surface with extreme precision — a process called giclée printing. Pigment inks bond with the paper fibers and resist fading for 100+ years under proper conditions. The result is a print with extraordinary tonal range, color accuracy, and surface quality.
Step 5: Quality Review
Professional labs inspect each print for color accuracy, surface defects, and output quality before shipping. Any print that does not meet standard is reprinted. This quality control step is what separates professional lab output from consumer printing services.
Step 6: Packaging and Shipping
Fine art prints are packaged with acid-free interleaving tissue, rigid backing boards, and protective wrapping to prevent damage in transit. Larger prints are typically rolled in tubes rather than flat-packed to reduce the risk of surface pressure damage.
The Result
Following this process, every print in Edin Chavez’s collection arrives as a museum-quality archival work, accompanied by a signed Certificate of Authenticity. Browse the collection at edinfineart.com/prints/, order at the shop, and learn about the artist at about.