<p>I have trouble in printing my artworks out. I went to Kinkos and print my artworks out as photos, I found that they are too glossy and it costs 5 bucks a piece. Later I bought some Epson Injet Printer matte presentation paper and print my artoworks out with injet ink. The outcome is much better but they are a bit too dull. </p>
<p>I'm wondering if there is any better or professional way or stores that can help me in printing my stuff? and what is the price for printing out a portfolio about 20 pages?</p>
<p>I'm not sure if all the stores are the same, but we were shocked to find that the Kinko's price to print a portfolio was about $90 each. For the same paper my daughter was able to print and bind for about $26 each at Office Depot. They did a beautiful job (from a proud mom who doesn't really understand what I'm looking at. :))</p>
<p>My son talked to his art teacher about putting a portfolio together and how to take photos of his artwork. He ended up using a high end digital camera and save the files to a flash drive. We took it to Kinko's and asked them to print it out for us. They turned out really nice (though I noticed some paintings he did copies/photos don't do justice to the actual paintings). It did not cost us $5 per copy nor $90. It was around the $30 momoftwins' daughter spent at Office Depot.</p>
<p>When I was making my portfolio last year, I ended up choosing a local printing store. They gave me the best deal since they are much more flexible about pricing than big chain companies, and gave me a discount for being a student applying for college and that they thought my portfolio was better than all the ones they had done in the past. My printer almost didn't come through (someone in his family ended up dying) so I ended up going through and trying Kinkos and Officemax and all those things. Either they couldn't print it on any type of paper I wanted or the quality on the proofs was horrible (plus Kinkos tried to make me pay $100 to let them change the format of my saved files which was completely insane since I could have just done that myself, and Kinkos was running already at almost $100 per portfolio).
But, my local printer was great and he managed to get it done. So try looking for one of those around you. They can advise you on paper types and have a lot more paper types on stock to begin with. They will also help you get your files set up so they print the best as well. Also make sure you proof through all the pages you get and make sure they come out correct when you're done, cause sometimes they make slight errors or things are misaligned. My portfolios ended up being around $30 or $40, with around 20 (I think) thick pages that needed trimming to size, a laminated front and back cover, color right on to what it needed to be, and a spiral binding...so it was def worth it compared to Kinkos and all those other places.</p>
<p>I brought my son to a Kinkos last year and watched him.
He rented their computer time to transfer to their machine his portfolio photos that he had stored on a CD and paste in the text he had written onto a flash drive the night before. He arranged and composed the entire thing on the screen, changing fonts, spacing, photo size, pages etc. at lightning speed as I sat in amazement to what you computer people consider routine. -And I thought all he did with his computer was play video games :). Then he created a file of the entire portfolio and that went back on the flash drive. At the main counter he selected a heavy off-white matte paper and handed the flashdrive to the counter person who printed and spiral bound eight copies while we waited. I paid the bill so I remember, $53 and change for everything above plus a complimentary copy on CD. We were back in my pick-up about 35 minutes after we had arrived, and wow, was my head spinning.</p>
<p>For the last portfolio I had done, I too went to a local printing store in Boston. I did the layout on InDesign and they were able to deal with this format (not sure if Kinkos can process InDesign). I actually bought my own paper because I wanted a specific feel and colour. They printed up a page right then and there to see if I liked the colour balance, and had the entire portfolio printed and vello-bound at the end of the day. Paid only $60.</p>
<p>I had mine digitally printed by a printer who usually does commercial flyers and stuff. Charged me about $100 for eight copies of it, cut to size but not bound or organized. It was a great deal. Full color glossy, too.</p>