Limited Edition Prints

Davide! · Aug 11, 2020

Hi all,
I have decided to sell some prints of my work and do some limited editions.
I am very new to all this, I understood that limited editions of different sizes are allowed as long as it's specified at the beginning, so for a limited edition of 50 you could do 20 A3s, 20 A4s and 10 A1a for instance.
What I wanted to do is limited editions of different papers in the same size or similar (A3 and 12x16), does anyone know if this is allowed? For example 20 editions of A3 Canson and 20 editions of A3 of Hahnemühle even though they would be similar papers.
Thank you,
Davide

Ariston · Aug 11, 2020

Is it allowed? I don’t know who would stop it. I don’t think anyone can complain as long as you are up front about what you do.

Vaughn · Aug 11, 2020

Usually an edition is for one size. Then a second edition for another size.

Why edition? To give your work more cash value? To impress people that you are actually an artist, because that is what artists do?

Doing so many different 'editions' of the same image weakens any rarity draw of said editions, and is not attractive to a collector.

If you are going to do editions, set up your record-keeping system first...you'll need to keep those records for the rest of your life.

Are we talking photographs or inkjet prints? Are you going to print the entire editions, or print on demand? I love your positiveness.

Davide! · Aug 11, 2020

Ariston said:
Is it allowed? I don’t know who would stop it. I don’t think anyone can complain as long as you are up front about what you do.

I thought so but the more I read the more rules I find! Arty people and buyers sound very fussy and I wanted to be professional.

Luckless · Aug 11, 2020

The only real rule is that you label and sell your product in an informed manner without misleading your customer so as to avoid running into advertising/sales law, or violating contract law.

Anything beyond that is down to how you want to build your reputation.

"Buy this limited edition print NOW, there will NEVER be more made again!", and then issuing a new edition as a reprint is an obvious 'No-no'.

Doing a clearly labelled 'First Series', followed by a 'Second Series' of printing in the same format, where it is very clear what series the image is part of, is far less of an issue. However if they're done at nearly the same time, and aren't visually different in some way [Same paper, same development processing and style], then odds are your reputation will be diminished in the eyes of collectors.

Coming back to a negative a decade or two later to run another edition with a new take on how you develop the print is far more acceptable, and I would argue culturally valuable, even if they're in the same print size as a previous run. This of course is a debated viewpoint, where others will basically demand you burn your negative at the end of a print edition.

In my own view I think the most sensible option here would be to define your series before you begin printing. If you're exploring different papers, then define your series as a set of print-runs, and include a little blurb about the project as a whole. As long as each set of prints can be clearly identified, then I personally don't see an issue with using multiple sequences such that you have prints that can be identified as [Photo-Name], [Printing Edition], [Paper Set], [Serial Number]. You might even get some geeky collector paying extra to get Print 1 of each paper set...

Davide! · Aug 11, 2020

Vaughn said:
Usually an edition is for one size. Then a second edition for another size.

Why edition? To give your work more cash value? To impress people that you are actually an artist, because that is what artists do?

Doing so many different 'editions' of the same image weakens any rarity draw of said editions, and is not attractive to a collector.

If you are going to do editions, set up your record-keeping system first...you'll need to keep those records for the rest of your life.

Are we talking photographs or inkjet prints? Are you going to print the entire editions, or print on demand? I love your positiveness.

Hi Vaughn, thank you for your reply.

I've been documenting myself and it seemed the right thing to do. The reason is to give some value and apparently buyers love editions. Do you think i wouldn't be the right thing to do?

The idea came because I wanted to sell at a low-ish price for the Artist Support Pledge but didn't want to close any doors for the future.

I will print on demand on inkjet for the Artist Support Pledge maybe just editions of 10 or 20 then on another paper, in the future, only 3 other edition sizes.

I think of myself just as a photographer rather then an artist, don't want to look or sound pretentious just do the right thing. But I overthink, always!

MattKing · Aug 11, 2020

If you are working with an agent or a gallery, ask them. Limited editions have a role in the marketplace, and marketplaces vary.
I would suggest that if you are going to use limited editions to market your work, that you make the various editions sufficiently different as to allow people to easily tell them apart.
Be careful with limited editions. If you are fortunate enough to have an image that is very popular, you may prefer not to have it restricted by "editioning".

Vaughn · Aug 11, 2020

Editioning for 99.9% of photographers, including me, is an artificial marketing construct that is not related to the making of the work. One of the original sources of editions was in the making of etchings -- the etched plates would wear out during the printing and the earlier prints of the edition were more desirable. So my point is that make sure that you have a strong reason to go this route.

One of the reasons I edition...or better, how I justified editioning to myself when asked to edition by my gallery...is that I would rather spend my time on new work than keep reprinting older work (I just can't grab another piece of photopaper, or hit Command-P). It is a little painful not to be able to sell an image again to someone who wants it...both in the pocketbook and as an artist. I compensate my pocketbook by increasing the prices as the edition sells out (the couple times they have). The other pain I deal with by making better work...or try to, anyway.

Some alternatives...use editioning only for special projects. Editioning does make more sense to me (YMMD) in the case of your idea of the Artist Support Pledge Series. Pick a unusual size or paper or other distiguishing characteristics for the series. I am thinking along the lines of AA's Special Edition Prints -- while not a limited edition, the images were also printed outside of the Special Edition series.

Instead of editioning work, consider numbering them as they are made and sold. Basically, open-ended editions. It tells a lot more about the success of the image -- how many have actually been bought, rather than the photographer's dream of selling out an large edition. And if you end up with some Best Sellers, then you can print and sell as many as you wish.

Bob Carnie · Aug 11, 2020

I edition my work in 5 total for any image no matter what size or process I use.
Also I do have Book Sets in edition of two of my series.

Have been doing this for over 20 years now .... I am glad I kept the edition low, and really glad I have the book set edition

DREW WILEY · Aug 11, 2020

As Vaughn just hinted, limited editions once made sense with media like real lithographs, where the original printing plate or stone simply wore out after awhile. Then when the era of photomechanical reproduction arrived, the whole idea got ruined with deceptive practices, where often thousands of particular items by famous artists could be mass produced at a time and sold at ridiculous profit margins by unscrupulous galleries to suckers naively thinking they were investing in something. For those of us who hand-print our work in a darkroom or via even more complex processes, the amount of work involved inherently limits how many repeat images ever come out. I seldom make more than two of the same, and even those are likely to be experimentally tweaked a little differently. I think six is the most I ever made of a single specific image, in the same size and medium. Some are impossible to replicate in the same way now because the particular paper involved is no longer available. There were also times when a client was willing to pay a hefty premium for a unique image. But it would seem more difficult to convince people of the value of something "limited" when it can be digitally generated in quantity like an inkjet. If they like your work and can afford it, then they might buy it just for the look itself; or it you happen to be exceptionally famous and already dead, that might be a factor too. But numbering your prints in say, an edition or 50 or 100, might hurt you more than help you.

Vaughn · Aug 11, 2020

Bob Carnie said:
I edition my work in 5 total for any image no matter what size or process I use...

I contact print only from the original negative, so different sizes are not a factor. It is rare for a neg of mine to serve two processes, but when it happens, I treat them as two separate works...I treat the image on paper as the unique final work...not the image itself. It does help that one of the processes I use reverses the image.

But carbon prints are editioned to five. Platinum prints go to ten since they are relatively easy to print.

Alan Edward Klein · Aug 11, 2020

If making editions or numbering makes you feel special, do it. You only go around once. It may help to do better work and craft it more professionally.

NB23 · Aug 11, 2020

Making money from photogeaphy?

(emoji of face laughing to tears)

Good Luck!

ic-racer · Aug 11, 2020

For a limited edition of, say 20, I'd chop the negative into 20 pieces and each print comes with a piece of the negative.

Davide! · Aug 12, 2020

Luckless said:
The only real rule is that you label and sell your product in an informed manner without misleading your customer so as to avoid running into advertising/sales law, or violating contract law.

Anything beyond that is down to how you want to build your reputation.

"Buy this limited edition print NOW, there will NEVER be more made again!", and then issuing a new edition as a reprint is an obvious 'No-no'.

Doing a clearly labelled 'First Series', followed by a 'Second Series' of printing in the same format, where it is very clear what series the image is part of, is far less of an issue. However if they're done at nearly the same time, and aren't visually different in some way [Same paper, same development processing and style], then odds are your reputation will be diminished in the eyes of collectors.

Coming back to a negative a decade or two later to run another edition with a new take on how you develop the print is far more acceptable, and I would argue culturally valuable, even if they're in the same print size as a previous run. This of course is a debated viewpoint, where others will basically demand you burn your negative at the end of a print edition.

In my own view I think the most sensible option here would be to define your series before you begin printing. If you're exploring different papers, then define your series as a set of print-runs, and include a little blurb about the project as a whole. As long as each set of prints can be clearly identified, then I personally don't see an issue with using multiple sequences such that you have prints that can be identified as [Photo-Name], [Printing Edition], [Paper Set], [Serial Number]. You might even get some geeky collector paying extra to get Print 1 of each paper set...

Thank you, you've been very helpful. I will definitely consider sets of print-runs, the only issue would be that the first run should be the most expensive but the ASP has a maximum price of £/$200 so if things go well I can't put the prices up..

Davide! · Aug 12, 2020

NB23 said:
Making money from photogeaphy?

(emoji of face laughing to tears)

Good Luck!

Thank you! I actually do make money from photography although I'm not rich!

Davide! · Aug 12, 2020

So Vaughn and Drew, you think that in my situation, selling inkjet prints that can be printed and re-printed is better to go for an open edition?

Vaughn, again thank you for the alternatives suggested which I will consider carefully.
What does AA in "AA's Special Edition Prints" stand for? I like this idea very much

tezzasmall · Aug 12, 2020

Out of interest, do you have a link to some of your work Davide?

Terry S

Deleted member 88956 · Aug 12, 2020

Davide! said:
Hi all,
I have decided to sell some prints of my work and do some limited editions.
I am very new to all this, I understood that limited editions of different sizes are allowed as long as it's specified at the beginning, so for a limited edition of 50 you could do 20 A3s, 20 A4s and 10 A1a for instance.
What I wanted to do is limited editions of different papers in the same size or similar (A3 and 12x16), does anyone know if this is allowed? For example 20 editions of A3 Canson and 20 editions of A3 of Hahnemühle even though they would be similar papers.
Thank you,
Davide

Although I've seen the so-called limited editions, only to later see the same just no more ... limited, making it an oxymoron to be called that.

Is this about photographs inkjet printed (sounds like it) ? I doubt there is much unique value to any inkjet printed item no matter how few of them there may be as there is always going to be a suspicion of more of them being out there anyways, even if not outputted in a controlled manner (something that limited also means) . If limited implies rare then different paper size or type kills the idea, at least it would for me. IN other words, if I were to make limited or better, yet to buy one, it would have to be that ... limited ... and that is end of it's printing story (outside of what is publicized in widely available forms like books, magazines etc. ) Once that image gets into mass factory for cheap reproductions, my limited print I've been so proud to own is now hardly any different than what sold at a fraction or was used on some licensed product.

To sum it up, I view limited as rarest and (better) not available at all in any other forms. So I would pick a few images I want to preserve to the lucky few and forget about them once few are sold out, focusing instead on other work that would up my reputation as a worthy artist, automatically making those limited prints so much more valuable. Any other way of looking at it dilutes any potential increase in value.

Picasso called himself the first collector of ... Picasso's work. He knew what he was up to.

DonJ · Aug 12, 2020

Davide! said:
Hi all,
I have decided to sell some prints of my work and do some limited editions.
I am very new to all this, I understood that limited editions of different sizes are allowed as long as it's specified at the beginning, so for a limited edition of 50 you could do 20 A3s, 20 A4s and 10 A1a for instance.
What I wanted to do is limited editions of different papers in the same size or similar (A3 and 12x16), does anyone know if this is allowed? For example 20 editions of A3 Canson and 20 editions of A3 of Hahnemühle even though they would be similar papers.
Thank you,
Davide

I have no experience with inkjet printing. Can you explain how those two papers would produce a print that would be considered "artistically different"? Would the typical viewer notice/appreciate the difference? How would an owner of one of your editioned prints on Canson paper react if they saw the same photo, same size, in a separate edition on Hahnemühle paper?

Stats · Aug 12, 2020

The older I get, the more I realize that all of my work is a limited edition.

Davide! · Aug 12, 2020

DonJ said:
I have no experience with inkjet printing. Can you explain how those two papers would produce a print that would be considered "artistically different"? Would the typical viewer notice/appreciate the difference? How would an owner of one of your editioned prints on Canson paper react if they saw the same photo, same size, in a separate edition on Hahnemühle paper?

That was my concern. I did some tests, they are different papers but at the same time have a similar texture, but maybe not enough different to justify different editions. And I'm trying to see if someone out there knows more than me in this regards..

pentaxuser · Aug 12, 2020

Stats said:
The older I get, the more I realize that all of my work is a limited edition.

I like it. You like me and everyone else is a limited and unique edition.

pentaxuser

Davide! · Aug 12, 2020

tezzasmall said:
Out of interest, do you have a link to some of your work Davide?

Terry S

Hi Terry, some of my work is on davidecossu.com

pentaxuser · Aug 12, 2020

Davide, just out of curiosity what colour and b&w films do you use and what camera or cameras were used?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Limited Edition Prints

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