This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Unjica may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
An original painting can only be sold once. A good reproduction can be sold many times, at a price more people can afford, while the original stays in your studio, goes to a collector or hangs in a gallery. For a long time, selling prints meant ordering an edition from a print shop, storing boxes of paper, and packing tubes at the kitchen table. Print-on-demand has changed that: you upload a file once, list it in a shop, and a print lab only produces and ships a copy after someone has paid for it.This guide walks through the whole process, from photographing a canvas to setting a price that still works after production costs and shipping. It is written for painters, illustrators, photographers and digital artists, and it pays particular attention to sellers based in Europe.
What print-on-demand means for artists
Print-on-demand (POD) is a fulfilment model. You prepare a digital file of your artwork and connect it to a product, such as a poster, a fine-art paper print, a stretched canvas or a framed print. When a customer orders from your shop, the order is passed to a production partner, which prints, packs and ships it, usually without its own branding on the parcel. You pay the provider's production and shipping price; the customer pays your retail price; the difference is your margin.
For artists, the practical consequences are straightforward. There is no upfront edition: you don't pay for 50 prints of an image that might sell five. There is no storage or packing: paper prints are easily damaged, and with POD, handling and shipping are the lab's job.
The trade-offs are just as concrete. Your margin per sale is lower, because producing one print at a time costs more than printing a batch; you trade margin for zero inventory risk. You also have less control over the physical object. You are not inspecting every print before it leaves, so sample orders and a careful choice of paper and provider matter more than they would if you printed in-house.
POD works best for open editions and for testing which images people actually want. Many artists later move a proven bestseller to a numbered limited edition printed locally, and keep POD for the rest of the catalogue.
Step 1: Digitize your artwork properly
The print can only be as good as the file. For digital artwork this step is mostly about export settings; for physical work it is the most important part of the whole process.
Scanning vs. photographing
Scan flat work when you can. Drawings, watercolours, prints and small paintings on paper are best captured on a flatbed scanner. A scanner gives even lighting, no lens distortion and no glare. If a piece is bigger than the scanner bed, you can scan it in overlapping sections and stitch them in image-editing software, though alignment needs care.
Photograph textured or large work. Impasto oil paintings, canvases and anything framed are usually photographed, and a few rules make a large difference.
Shoot with the camera parallel to the artwork and centred on it, to avoid keystone distortion. Use two identical light sources at roughly 45 degrees on either side, or soft, even daylight without direct sun; raking light from one side exaggerates texture and creates hot spots.
Avoid glare on varnished or glossy surfaces. Shifting the lights further to the sides usually helps, and polarizing filters on both lights and lens remove most reflections if you shoot this kind of work often.
Include a colour reference card (a grey card or colour checker) in a test frame so you can correct white balance accurately later, and shoot in RAW if your camera allows it, at a low ISO, on a tripod.
If you don't have the equipment, a local professional reproduction photographer or scanning service is often worth paying for once per artwork, especially for pieces you expect to sell well.
Colour accuracy
Calibrate your monitor if you can, because adjusting colours on an uncalibrated screen just moves the error around. Edit in a standard colour space. Printful's file guidance recommends sRGB for its products, and Gelato asks for sRGB-tagged files if you work in RGB for posters (it also accepts pre-converted CMYK PDF/X-4 files). When in doubt, follow the colour-profile instructions on the specific product you plan to sell.
Then order a test print. Screens are backlit; paper is not. Many artists find their first print darker than expected and brighten the file slightly for print.
Step 2: Get resolution and print preparation right
How many pixels do you need?
Print resolution is measured in DPI (dots per inch): how many pixels end up in each inch of paper. Providers set their own minimums, but recommendations for paper products converge on the same figure.
Printful's file guidance states that the minimum accepted for paper products is 75 DPI but strongly recommends 300 DPI for posters and canvas, and notes that its browser-based Design Maker works at 150 DPI. Gelato's poster guidance asks for at least 150 DPI at final print size, with 300 DPI as the ideal.
To work out the pixel dimensions you need, multiply the print size in inches by the DPI (1 inch = 2.54 cm). At 300 DPI, a 20 × 25 cm (8 × 10 in) print needs 2400 × 3000 pixels, an A4 print (21 × 29.7 cm) needs 2480 × 3508, a 30 × 40 cm print needs 3543 × 4724, an A3 print (29.7 × 42 cm) needs 3508 × 4961, and a 50 × 70 cm print needs 5906 × 8268.
At the 150 DPI minimum, the same sizes need roughly half those dimensions: 1200 × 1500 pixels for 20 × 25 cm, 1240 × 1754 for A4, 1772 × 2362 for 30 × 40 cm, 1754 × 2480 for A3 and 2953 × 4134 for 50 × 70 cm.
Your largest offered size should be set by your file, not by the provider's catalogue. If your scan only reaches 300 DPI at A3, don't sell it at 70 × 100 cm. Enlarging a small file in software adds pixels but not detail. Printful's guidance makes the same point: don't stretch a low-resolution image and expect it to print sharply.
Aspect ratio and cropping
Artworks rarely match standard paper ratios exactly. A4 and A3 share one ratio (about 1:1.41), 30 × 40 cm and 8 × 10 in are different, and 50 × 70 cm is different again. For each work, decide whether to crop slightly to fit the paper (fine for many images, bad for compositions with important edges), add a white or neutral border so the full work appears (common for fine-art reproductions), or offer only the sizes that match the work's proportions.
Check each product's template or file guidelines before exporting. Some products need bleed, extra image area beyond the trim line. Gelato's help centre, for example, asks for 4 mm of bleed on all sides of poster PDFs, with important content kept away from the edge.
File format
PNG or high-quality JPEG is accepted for most paper products. Keep a full-resolution master file (TIFF or PSD) of every artwork and export product-specific files from it. Name files clearly by work and size; once you have twenty works in four sizes, this saves a lot of time.
Step 3: Choose what to sell
Start narrow. The products that suit fine art are the ones that present the image as an image.
Fine-art paper (giclée) prints use pigment inks on matte cotton or archival paper. They are usually the closest to a gallery reproduction and the easiest to justify at a higher price. Posters use cheaper paper and a simpler print process, which makes them a good entry product at a lower price point.
Canvas prints are popular for painting reproductions; check how the image wraps around the stretcher bars (mirrored edges, solid colour or image wrap). Framed prints carry a higher price and higher perceived value, but shipping is more expensive and the parcel is more fragile.
Mugs, T-shirts and tote bags can work for illustrators with a graphic style, but they rarely suit a contemplative painting. A focused shop of prints and framed prints reads as an artist's shop; a shop selling every product type reads as a merchandise store.
When choosing paper, read the provider's paper descriptions closely. Gelato, for instance, describes its archival poster paper as having no brightening agents and a natural, slightly warm tone that affects pale pastels and greys, while its premium coated paper is closer to the vibrancy of an RGB preview. These differences are visible on a wall.
Step 4: Compare print-on-demand providers
There is no single best provider. Your choice depends on where your buyers are, which products you sell and how much quality control you want. Below are three established options that serve European artists, described using information from their own websites. Prices, product ranges and locations change, so check current details before you commit.
Printful
Printful suits artists who want one dashboard for prints and, later, other merchandise. Production is mostly in-house, plus partner facilities. In Europe, its own fulfilment centres are in Barcelona, which mainly serves Western Europe, and Riga, which handles apparel; it also has a UK facility that only ships within the UK. Its free plan has no monthly fee, an optional Growth plan ($24.99 per month at the time of writing) adds product discounts, and it connects to more than 20 e-commerce platforms and marketplaces. Its wall-art range includes posters, canvas and framed prints, with 300 DPI recommended for paper. Sample orders are discounted (20% on the free plan at the time of writing), which helps with the test print you should order anyway. If that mix fits your plans, you can open a free Printful account and order a sample of your bestseller before you list it.
Gelato
Gelato is built around routing orders to a production partner near the customer, through a network of more than 250 partner production hubs in 32 countries. That can shorten delivery times for buyers spread across many countries; wall-art availability by country is listed in its catalogue. There are no upfront fees and no commission on sales, with optional subscription plans for discounts. It offers several poster papers, including archival and fine-art (giclée) options, and asks for 150 DPI at minimum with 300 DPI as the ideal. The trade-off of any partner network is that your print may be produced by different partners in different countries, so check samples from the regions where you sell most.
Prodigi
Prodigi focuses heavily on wall art. It runs in-house labs in the UK, the EU and the US, including a facility in Venlo in the Netherlands, plus more than 100 print partners. It is free to use with no setup fees or required subscription, and offers an optional paid Pro plan. It describes its in-house fine-art prints as giclée prints made with pigment inks, and says its prints are tested annually for lightfastness under the Fine Art Trade Guild standard. That focus may suit artists whose priority is reproduction quality over product range.
Questions to answer before you choose
Where are most of your buyers? Production close to them keeps shipping cost and delivery time down. Which exact paper and print method will your bestseller use? Order it as a sample.
Does the provider integrate with the shop or marketplace you plan to use? How are damaged or misprinted orders handled? Each provider publishes its own policy. And can you add your own branding, such as a packing insert or a certificate of authenticity card?
Step 5: Price your prints
Your price has to cover more than the provider's base price. A simple way to build it: retail price = production cost + shipping you absorb + platform and payment fees + your margin.
Run the numbers with real quotes from your chosen provider and platform. Here is an illustrative example with made-up round numbers, not current prices from any company. A 30 × 40 cm print costs €14 to produce, you include €6 of shipping, marketplace and payment fees come to around 10% of the sale price (€4–5), and you want a margin of €15. That puts the retail price at around €40.
Keep the gap between prints and originals clear. Prints should not undercut your originals so much that collectors stop buying originals, but they shouldn't be so expensive that they compete with them either.
Price larger sizes for their actual costs. Bigger prints cost more to produce and ship, so raise your margin with size too rather than adding only the extra cost.
Factor in VAT. If you are VAT-registered, your prices need to account for it. Selling to consumers in other EU countries can trigger destination-country VAT rules; the EU's VAT One Stop Shop explains how cross-border sales are declared.
Remember that refunds and reprints happen, and leave some room in your margin for the occasional problem order. Revisit prices after the first few months of sales data. If one image sells consistently, it may justify a higher-priced edition.
Step 6: Choose where to sell
You have three main options, and many artists combine them.
Your own website shop. Store builders and e-commerce platforms connect to POD providers, so orders flow straight to the lab. You control the presentation, keep the customer relationship and pay platform fees instead of marketplace commissions. The downside is that you have to bring all the traffic yourself.
Marketplaces. Etsy and similar marketplaces come with built-in buyer traffic and search. You pay listing and transaction fees, compete next to thousands of similar listings, and have less control over how your work is presented. Read the marketplace's current fee schedule and its rules on production partners before listing POD products.
Your existing portfolio site. If you already have a portfolio, add a "Prints" page linking to your shop rather than starting a separate brand. Visitors who come to see your work are your most qualified buyers.
Selling in person still matters. A small stock of prints at open studios or fairs, combined with POD for online orders, is a common hybrid model.
Step 7: Present and promote your prints
Buyers can't hold the paper, so your listing has to answer their questions. Show the print in context: a mockup in a room helps buyers judge scale, as long as the room is realistic enough that a 30 × 40 cm print doesn't look like a mural. Show the real object too. A photo of your own sample print, including a close-up of the paper texture, builds more trust than mockups alone.
State the facts: paper type, weight, print method, exact dimensions, whether there is a border, whether it is framed, and roughly when it ships. Tell the story of the work in a few sentences about when and why you made it; this is what separates an artist's print from wall decor. And say what kind of edition it is. If it's an open edition, say so, and don't call POD prints "limited" unless you actually cap and track the number sold.
To promote the shop, share work in progress and the finished print side by side on social media, and build an email list, even a small one; collectors who already know your work are the most likely to buy a print. Release new prints in small batches instead of uploading everything at once, so each release gives you something to announce. Write clear titles and descriptions, because marketplace and search engine visibility depends on them.
Pros and cons of print-on-demand for artists
Advantages
There is no upfront print run and no unsold stock, and you can test many images and sizes cheaply. Production, packing and shipping are handled for you, and production near the buyer is possible in many regions.
Disadvantages
The margin per print is lower than buying a batch and fulfilling it yourself, and you have less direct quality control because you depend on the provider's checks. Personal touches are limited unless the provider offers branded inserts, and delivery times and costs depend on the provider's network, not on you.
If those trade-offs work for you, set up a free account with one of the providers above (Printful, Gelato or Prodigi), order samples of your two or three strongest works, and only list the ones that look right on paper.
FAQ
What resolution do I need to sell art prints?
Aim for 300 DPI at the final print size for paper products; that is the recommendation from both Printful and Gelato. Gelato accepts 150 DPI as a minimum for posters. Multiply the print size in inches by 300 to get the pixel dimensions you need; an A3 print, for example, needs about 3508 × 4961 pixels.
Can I sell prints of a painting I have already sold?
Usually yes. Selling a physical artwork does not by itself transfer the copyright in the image, which normally stays with the artist. A sale contract or commission agreement can say otherwise, though, so check what you signed. With commissioned portraits and similar personal works, ask the owner's permission as a matter of courtesy.
Should I scan or photograph my artwork?
Scan flat works on paper whenever they fit a scanner bed: you get even light, no distortion and no glare. Photograph textured, framed or large work with even lighting on both sides, a tripod and a colour reference card. For valuable pieces, a professional reproduction service is worth considering.
Do I need to register a business to sell prints in Slovenia?
Regular sales for profit generally count as a business activity, and most sellers register one, for example as a sole proprietor (s.p.). Registration is handled through the government's SPOT portal. Tax treatment depends on your situation, so ask FURS or an accountant before you start selling at volume.
Are there EU rules about product information for prints?
Yes. Since 13 December 2024, consumer products sold in the EU, including those sold online, fall under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988. It requires certain product and responsible-party information to be available. Some POD providers publish templates to help sellers comply, so check your provider's guidance for the products you list.
Is print-on-demand good enough for fine-art reproductions?
It can be, but it depends on the product. Look specifically for giclée or fine-art paper options printed with pigment inks rather than standard poster paper, and judge a physical sample before you sell anything. Quality can vary between products and production locations, even with the same provider.
Getting started
Choose three to five works with strong, clear images that suit print. Digitize them at the highest quality you can and keep master files, then prepare files for one or two sizes per work.
Pick a provider whose production is close to your buyers, and order samples. List only the prints that pass your own inspection, with honest descriptions and real photos. Then track which images sell, and grow the catalogue around them. All three providers above let you set up products for free before your first sale.
For more on contemporary artists working between physical and digital media, see our digital art coverage. For painting news and context, see the painting section, including our look at modern painting in the digital era. Photographers can find more in our photography section.