London Trip: The Prints Space and Metro Print

A very tiring but useful day! I came away feeling a lot more confident about printing large formats of my work but also knowing what each company had to offer. All the staff seemed really friendly and would love to give us a hand when we need it which is great to know. Sometimes I feel embarrassed because I should know more about photography and printing methods etc however I don't. Therefore it's relieving knowing I have somewhere to go for help!

I started off at Metro which we were shown to their small gallery featuring the different types of printing methods and some of the images completed by other artists. We were then shown around Metro and how they print our work. The process can be really quick as long as we make sure everything is set correctly before we send the photo off, such as colour correcting. If we struggle doing this then we are able to come in for a consultation or even email them. There is a step-by-step guide on their website to help us otherwise. 

An advantage with Metro is that with your own business website if you want to sell prints online they can do all the work for you. They receive 10% of the profit from this. Simple set up a gallery on your website, get it linked to Metro and when your customers purchase your work online it gets sent to Metro and they print off the images and send to the client. I thought it was a great service to consider once I get myself out in the photographic industry and start getting clients. It saves hassle and time, I think it's a brilliant idea. I'm not so sure whether The Prints Space has this option too as it was never mentioned during the day and I haven't been able to see anything on their website so far...

Next I visited The Prints Space and in comparison to Metro we wasn't shown as much. However, we were able to get a closer look into the different types of printing paper and in detail was told why you might print on that paper and more. We was also shown some of the guys own work and he had showed planning of what he had done to find which print was bets for his image. A small scale of each print with the same image looked really helpful and straight away I was able to recognise which one looked best. This is something to consider nearer the time before my exhibitions. They also have an online chat if you need during the use of their website which I found really helpful. A lot of the time if I'm trying to get in touch with places such as Apple I would normally go through the chat. I find it a quick and easy way to get in touch with people.