You are holding a print that cost you two hundred dollars. The question is whether you just bought two hundred dollars’ worth of printing, or twenty dollars’ worth with a story attached. Here is how to check.
1. Weigh the Paper (Literally)
Pick up the print. If it feels like copy paper, it probably is. Art-grade paper starts at 200 gsm—grams per square metre, which is about twice the weight of office stock—and runs to 310 gsm for heavyweight cotton rag. You can feel the difference immediately. A flimsy sheet with a three-figure price is a red flag, full stop.
If the seller will not tell you the paper weight before you buy, assume the worst and move on.
2. Check the Ink Under a Lamp
Hold the print at an angle under a bright light. You are looking for two things: surface texture and ink density. A pigment inkjet print—what most galleries use now—should show faint texture where the ink sits on the paper, like very fine grains of sand. If the surface is completely flat and shiny, you are looking at a poster-grade dye print, which fades in sunlight within two years.
Now look at the darkest area, usually a shadow or a black. It should be black, not charcoal grey. If you can see the paper texture through the darkest ink, the printer skimped on passes or the file was prepared badly. Either way, you have a weak print that will look worse as it ages.
3. Match the Colours to a Reference
This one requires a laptop or a phone with a decent screen. Open the image file you bought from—the gallery listing, the artist’s portfolio—and hold it next to the print in the same light. They should match. Not sort of match. Match.
If the print is warmer, cooler, muddier or brighter than the file, the printer did not calibrate. That is a technical failure, not an artistic choice, and it means you did not get what you ordered. A serious print studio will include a test strip or a calibration note with the print to prove they checked. If yours did not, and the colours are off, send it back.
4. Measure the Margins
Art prints have borders—white space around the image—typically two inches on all sides for a standard framed piece. The borders should be even. Get a ruler. If one side is an inch and three quarters and another is two and a quarter, the print was trimmed by eye, which means the studio does not use a proper cutter. That is a small shop cutting corners, sometimes literally.
Uneven margins also make the print harder to frame. A professional framer will charge you extra to centre it, assuming they agree to frame it at all.
5. Look for the Edition Number (and Then Ignore It)
If the print says it is a limited edition, the number should be pencilled in the margin, bottom left, in the format 12/100—your copy is number twelve of one hundred printed. The artist’s signature goes bottom right. If those are missing, the edition claim is decorative.
Now: does the edition number actually affect value? For a living artist selling online, not much. A gallery can print fifty, call it sold out, and print fifty more next year under a new edition name. What matters is whether the print is good—the paper, the ink, the colour—not whether it has a small number written on it. Editions are for resale provenance and for collectors who care about that sort of thing. You can care if you like. I care about the paper.
6. Add It Up
Here is what a properly made print costs to produce, in raw materials and lab time, at trade rates: Premium cotton rag paper, $8–15 per sheet depending on size. Pigment ink and printer time, $12–25. Colour proofing and calibration, another $10–20 if done right. Packaging and shipping, $10–15 for a tube, more for flat. That is $40–75 before anyone takes a margin.
So if you paid $120 for a small print on mystery paper, you got roughly what you paid for. If you paid $400 for the same thing, you paid for a story, a name, or a website that knows how to charge. And if you paid $400 for a 310 gsm cotton rag print, colour-matched and properly dense, printed by someone who signed their work? You are fine. That is the wholesale cost plus a fair retail margin, and you can frame it without embarrassment.
At Printasso, the spec is listed before the price: paper weight, ink type, pigment or dye, calibrated or not. If a gallery will not tell you those things up front, they are hoping you will not ask. So ask. And if the print arrives and fails any of these six checks, send it back. You are not being difficult. You are being a collector.
The Real Test
Put the print on your wall for a week. Live with it. If you find yourself walking past without looking, the price does not matter—it was too much. If you stop to look at it, if the colour or the texture pulls you back, then it was worth it. That is the only test that counts, and it has nothing to do with the number in the margin.
More from Ruby: Ruby’s writing. Prints ship free within the continental US.