by Jeff Lewis, co-founder of Escaype Print Lab, Escaype, and landESCAPEvisuals
There are countless print labs out there today that offer fine art printing services, from medium-size online services to big national brands. Why did we feel compelled to start our own boutique fine art print lab in Marin County, California? Why does it matter so much to have a local artisan photo printing studio that you can trust?
Locally Made Prints Have Soul
For us, fine art printing isn't just about producing a physical good, and it's not just about mastering a craft. Printing is an art, just as much as taking the photo itself. Printing brings us joy, and an emotional connection to the print, which is the ultimate representation of our work. When we started Escaype Print Lab, we wanted to bring the artisanal face of fine art printing back to our community. Each print that comes off our large-format printer and makes its way out of our lab is personally handled by us at every step during the process.
Who is "us"? That's kind of you to ask :) Tung and I are professional photographers, with over 25 years of combined experience. We are hopelessly obsessed care very deeply about color, detail, and presentation.
The problem with corporate print labs
It always sat a bit strangely with us to pour our heart and creativity into our work, only to send it off to a corporate print lab. This was especially true when the lab was in another state or country, probably owned by a private equity firm, and the photo was printed by an employee who has never calibrated a monitor on their own. I'd pray that I'd brightened the photo enough to prevent the print from coming out too dark, like most of the prints had before. Then I'd wait for weeks, fight my internal environmental guilt from shipping my large pieces from the corporate print lab in several layers of packaging, and cross my fingers that the print wouldn't arrive damaged. Would the colors match the other prints I'd done from other corporate print labs in the past? Would the colors for the acrylic print be different from the fine art prints and canvas wraps, since they were made on different printers by different teams? Oh, my... it was a nightmare.
But it was more than scary. I ran into constant quality issues. Recently, in a calculated effort to maximize profits, companies have been increasingly outsourcing quality control to the consumer. As long-time professional photographers who oversee large communities of local photographers, we've seen it all. I have fallen victim to this personally, as have many of my colleagues.
Calendars printed upside down,
Hideous vertical white lines down the sides of expensive acrylic facemounts,
A literal dead fly underneath the varnish on a canvas,
Hanging hardware installed upside down,
Obvious printer roller marks on canvases,
Ink that rubs off when simply de-dusting,
$1000 facemounted acrylics that delaminate in the first month,
The same print from the same lab on the same paper coming out with wildly different colors from the previous time,
Tack-sharp images turning into noisy blurry prints,
And the list goes on!
Will the lab redo the print if we complain? Likely, yes. But when those prints are being drop shipped to our clients, the people who trust us enough to spend a good sum on our work... now that's terrifying. How many of our clients hung up prints with major issues, noticed the issue, and shrugged and said, "ehh, I guess it's just not perfect" and didn't say anything? How many didn't notice it, but their house guests did, and didn't want to tell them? The more I thought about it, the worse it got.
Awhile back, I've ordered a multi-panel canvas print for a repeat client from a very well-respected professional lab. The lab has printed this photo before. The order takes six weeks to arrive, just days before Christmas. Tung and I bring the box to the client's home with our power tools for hanging. While I'm chatting with the client about how exciting it will be that this large space on their wall will finally be filled, Tung calls me over and says, Jeff, we have a problem. He shows me the first canvas panel. It's beautiful. Then he shows me the second one. It's... the same as the first one. Like, the print is identical. Then he shows me the third one. It's also identical. He doesn't even need to open the last one... I already know. I'm just standing there, petrified, mortified. My client is standing right there. I'm in their house. All I can do is nervously laugh, and turn to them and apologize that their wall will be staying blank for Christmas dinner this year. My lab is closed for the weekend and Christmas, so I call them the morning after Christmas. They apologize and ship me a new set of 4 panels... which also takes 3 weeks. Now I have four large canvas wraps and two shipping crates to cram into the trash. I hate destroying art. (We ended up reusing the wood for other projects, at least.) I tell this story to my colleague, also a professional photographer. He listens, and says with a bit of a laugh, ummm, Jeff, you won't believe this, but I just delivered a large metal triptych to a client in Lake Tahoe, after 3 hours of driving, we unboxed it at their home and found.... you guessed it, all three panels were identical. We're shaking our heads together, trying to wrap our heads around how the hell this kind of thing could happen, in multiple high end labs. What's a photographer to do when they can't trust their print lab to nail it? Yikes.
To add to matters, what if I make a mistake in preparing for the print? What if there's a dust spot or layer alignment issue that I didn't see? If the lab employees aren't checking for their mistakes, they sure as hell aren't checking for my mistakes. That's also scary. My file has to be perfect, and I won't know for weeks, until it's too late. In fact, if the print's being drop shipped to a client, I may never know.
Why we launched a local artisan print lab
All this headache made large-format printing rather scary and overwhelming for me. It had become a process that I, frankly, found myself avoiding. I wanted something better. I wanted high quality fine art photo prints, made locally in the Bay Area, with a calibrated workflow, by people who understand the difference between a nice print and a mind-blowingly-amazing one, by a professional photographer I knew and trusted to know my vision and perhaps even catch things I might have missed.
So, as serial entrepreneurs who already loved printing in our studio, Tung and I decided to take matters into our own hands, and scale up our operation into a full-fledged Marin County boutique print lab. We compiled our notes of all the things we learned from other labs when things went wrong, all the things that scared us, that annoyed us, that disappointed us -- and in our lab we take steps to mitigate or prevent them. For example, we quickly learned how the multi-panel errors might occur: if the person preparing the file does not themselves inspect the final print(s). So we made that a firm policy. We also learned that there are many reasons why prints might come out dark and dim -- one of the most common complaints print labs get -- and while detailing those reasons why would be its own article, we build in several layers of safeguards to prevent it. In fact, we have yet to have a client say their prints from us were too dark. We quickly learned that printing is not plug-and-play... yeah, it's nowhere close to that. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of settings in the print dialogs and prep work that can dramatically alter the final result. We've drawn from all over our decades of professional experience to dial in our favorite recipes for a faithful, refined look.
In our Escaype Print Lab, we focus on producing vibrant, detailed prints that will last a long time -- we can even go truly archival, if you desire. We specialize in all of our personal favorite print media, and some community favorites: incredible fine art prints, custom built canvas gallery wraps, meticulously mounted and sealed Tamalpais Editions, and bespoke floating frames, all made in house right here in Marin. By printing locally, we can all minimize our waste and carbon footprint, and can maintain full color workflow consistency from one job to the next. And by maintaining a small, local print shop with no other employees, we are even able to offer familiar price points. Our custom giclee printing process uses the same calibrated printers, dialed-in tone curves, and custom sharpening for every print job, so you can trust you'll get the same results you know and love, across every medium, every time.
A personal connection with your prints and the process
At the Escaype Print Lab, we believe in two-way communication and transparency with all of our clients. We understand that a lot of photographers are scared to print their work because there's not an expert at the lab who they feel personally appreciate their vision for the piece and will look it over with eagle eyes for any potential issues. Someone who will flag any processing errors, dust spots, odd colors, things that are too close to the edge, and the like. Tung and I try to establish this personal connection with all of our clients. We want you to feel confident and rest assured: we've got your back.
We've also realized that we never enjoyed how distant the printing process once felt from us. Our labs rarely made us feel like we were part of the process -- we'd just upload the files to their server and hope for the best. In the Escaype Print Lab, we do things a bit differently. We try to bring all of our clients into the process. When you order a fine art print from our Marin print lab, we'll send you photo or video updates as your fine art print, canvas gallery wrap, mounted Tamalpais Edition, or other custom piece comes to life. We'll keep you updated as it progresses, not just when it's finished. You'll get to see the print being made, mounted, and finished by hand -- things you'll never get from a mass-production corporate print lab. As our client, you won't have to worry if we got your order right when you pick it up, because you've already seen it. What a relief!
Our solution to the consistency issue is simple: we are our only staff, and we use the same printers for all of our pieces. We also archive your files, including any edits you approve via our suggestions and hard proofing, so when you achieve a result you love, you know you can call us a second time, or a twentieth time, and you'll get that same result you love.
The bottom line: print local, print with us
So, the case for printing with a local boutique lab: a meaningful connection with the process, a staff that's got your back for both their mistakes and yours, a much smaller environmental footprint by using less packaging and shipping, and consistent results. And at a comparable price to the corporate labs? That'll do it for us -- and we hope it'll do it for you. Contact us today to tell us about your next project, and let's bring it to life together.
