Greeting cards

[Doug Kerr]

Introduction

Inspired by Rob Watcher’s wonderful description of his own project to produce photo-based greeting cards, and encouraged by Asher Kelman, we have begun a project to generate greeting cards here based on my photos of Carla’s paintings. (She works in acrylics, mostly on canvas.)

At least for the moment, the plan is not to produce those for sale (although that might come in a later stage). Rather, these cards will be for our personal use.

We no longer make a mass mailing of cards at Christmas. But Carla does send cards to selected family members and friends, and from time to time she will send a note on a card to someone thanking them for some kindness or congratulating them on some accomplishment.

Our plan was to use that most-common card size for this kind of project. This uses 7” x 10” paper, folded to make a 5” x 7” card (which can be of either orientation, depending on the aspect ratio of the photo on the front).

The cards will be printed on our new Canon Pixma G3270 inkjet printer. This is a “one step above entry level” four-color tank-type printer. It is not usually advocated for high-quality photo printing, but we have been amazed at how well it does at that.

The “standard” card format will have the photo on the front outside, with a description of the original painting and identification of the artist on the back outside.

The workflow involves two Windows applications. The text “block” for the back is composed in CorelDraw, our normal technical illustration program (vector-style). The text block is then exported as a high-resolution PNG file.

The entire card is then laid out from that image file plus the image file for the photo in Qimage Ultimate, our usual photo printing application. This is a little tricky, since Qimage Ultimate is very “clever” in helping us to size and orient the images to be printed. But I have developed a relatively “foolproof” procedure, which extensive testing has shown to work consistently well.

The printing is then conducted by Qimage Ultimate on the G3270 printer.

One issue was the choice of the paper stock to be used. I will cover that in the next message.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

Paper stock

Considerable attention has been given to the type(s) of paper stock to be used for these cards. Here I will give our conclusions.

Please note that I have not at all tried to “cover the waterfront” of available papers. And my “rating” of different papers is hardly sophisticated, and I recognize that for each worker different criteria might be in force.

The following papers were investigated, and in fact we will probably use more than one of them. One we rejected because of its inferior performance.

Most of the papers were obtained in the required 7” x 10” size, and were scored to facilitate folding. Some included matching envelopes, but others not. The size of envelope that is most appropriate for these cards is the “A7” size, and these are readily available in a wide range of costs.

The papers studied were:

Red River Paper Polar Matte greeting card paper. This is 7” x 10” and is scored for folding. Envelopes are not included (although the company offers a range of suitable envelopes separately). We found this paper to give what I considered the best quality photo rendition of all those we considered, albeit by only a nose. This paper is single-sided, meaning that only one face is coated to be optimal for photo rendition. (The company does offer a double-sided version.) The other side can of course be printed on, but any printing there should be limited to text and/or “poster” type illustrations.

The per-card cost for this paper, based on a package of 50 sheets, including a USD 0.10 allowance each for separately-purchased envelopes, was as of this writing USD 0.827 (not including any sales taxes). (This includes shipping cost from Red River.)

Inkpress Archival Greeting Cards. This is 7” x 10” and is scored for folding. Envelopes are included (and are quite nice, not in any way “”fancy”). We found this paper to give what I considered the the second-best quality photo rendition of all those we considered, albeit behind the Red River paper by only a nose. This paper is double-sided, meaning that we can print on the inside with the same photo quality as for printing on the outside.

The per-card cost for this paper, based on a package of 20 sheets, was as of this writing USD 0.765 (not including any sales taxes). (This includes shipping cost from B&H Foto and Video.) We note that for a small projected usage, the “getting started” cost for this paper is less than for the Red River paper as it is available in a package of 20 sheets. We currently plan to concentrate mainly on this stock for our greeting card work.

Ohulu blank white cards. This is 7” x 10” and is scored for folding. Envelopes are included. We did not like this paper. The background color is noticeably“grayish” compared to the other papers tested. We considered the quality of rendition of the photos perceptibly inferior to the papers mentioned earlier. We sent our package back for a refund.

The per-card cost for this paper, based on a package of 50 sheets, was as of this writing USD 0.238 (not including any sales taxes). (This is the Amazon price, and I have not included any shipping cost as we have the Amazon Prime arrangement.)

Neenah Bright white Premium Cardstock. We tested this because we had a lot of it from another project. This is not intended for “photo” reproduction. We sheared 7” x 10” sheets on our Boston trimmer for this use. These sheets were of course not scored for folding (more on that in a bit). We considered the photo rendition on this stock perceptibly inferior to the two papers mentioned at the outset, but not by much.

The per-card cost for this paper, based on a package of 250 sheets, including a USD 0.11 allowance each for separately-purchased envelopes, was as of this writing USD 0.157 (not including any sales taxes). (This is the Amazon price, and I have not included any shipping cost.)

Epson Premium Photo Paper Glossy. We had this in stock in two sizes, and sheared 7” x 10” sheets on our Boston trimmer for this use. These sheets were of course not scored for folding (more on that in a bit). We consider the photo quality on this paper to be very good, certainly on a par with the two matte papers mentioned at the outset (not making any judgment as to the relative virtue of “matte” vs. “glossy” finishes per se.) I will leave it to the reader to work out the cost for various papers of this class that might be of interest. Carla thinks she will use the glossy paper for some of her cards just for variety.

Folding

For cards printed on scored paper, the printed card could just be folded by hand in the obvious way. Note that for double-sided paper, it might not be obvious which way the paper should be loaded for printing. We finally determined that the recommended way is with the bulge of the scoring away from the printed side (so it will be inside the card when folded).

We then “iron” the fold with a smooth cylindrical object (we use the barrel of a Sharpie pen). We find it best to do this in two passes, each pass comprising two strokes each outward from about the center of the fold (with some overlap), the first pass being "easy" and the second "strong".

The cards printed on unscored paper were easily folded, but it is a bit more work than if the paper is scored. The printed card is bent over (making no crease yet) and the open ends aligned. Holding the open end alignment with one hand, the card is pressed with the other hand until folded. Then the fold is “ironed” as described above.

It is helpful for the alignment to use a miniature carpenter's square as an alignment "fence".

Printer color management

In each case, we set Qimage Ultimate for "Let printer/driver manage color", and set the paper type (which then causes the printer driver to put into play one of its "inbuilt" color profiles) to an appropriate type (e.g., "Matte Photo Paper" for the two matte papers mentioned).

Cost volatility

We note that owing to current (2025-04-05) developments affecting international trade, there may be in the near future substantial cost changes in many items of interest, including photo papers.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

This shows what the finished print layout would be for an illustrative card. I have included a line to show where the fold will go (there is no such line on the actual print) and a border for clarity here (again not present on the actual print):

Best regards,

Doug