Business Cards

[dennykyser]

Does anyone make there own business cards and if you do any tips.
I am not trying to be cheap but with a photoprinter (epson) and Photoshop thinking it can be done at home if you use the corect paper and paper cutter. I need some by Sept. 18th so if I need to order them better get going.

[JOKI]

I don't know about PS. But If you'r willing to use/have Picture Publisher 8, I have a cool tutorial for you. Please PM. Joki

[ssim]

I know one person that made his own and they look pretty good.

I can't remember for sure how he did them but I do think it was in photoshop and then cut them.

[robertwgross]

Business cards look pretty good when printed on Epson Premium Luster Photo Paper. The text does not matter, but the photo looks great.

---Bob Gross---

[cmM]

I desidned mine in Corel Draw. Simple and effective.

On tip: do not buy the perforated paper. Looks like crap. Buy the "precut" one. I used matte paper, but there's only text on my card. Looks nice.

[lednam]

I made mine in Photoshop, five layers. Tweaking opacity etc. found a cheap but professional print on the net.
http://www.boprod.se/davidsson/bo/bilder/boprod_media_visit_600.jpg

[Digital Prophet]

I have seen some nice cards printed on home printers. Basically any printer that can produce a good photo can certainly do a good card.

But my concern ( I have been mulling this very question over for my own cards) is the paper. For instance, there is Avery Perforated Cards (http://www.avery.com/us/Main?action=product.HierarchyList&node=10211399&ca talogcode=WEB01) and other product similar to them. Now I do not like these at all because of the little perforations. Very very unprofessional. Then there is Avery Clean Edge Cards (http://www.avery.com/us/Main?action=product.HierarchyList&node=10211397&ca talogcode=WEB01). These so far as I have seen are the only cards that you can put through an inkjet that are clean edge. Those are nice little cards, but the paper just doesn't feel like a very heavy bond. Frankly they are a bit flimsy.

So on one hand having cards run by a printer is going to get you better quality paper and print. But the advantage of doing them yourself is that you can change designs, run small batches and also have several different designs.

So in short, I don't know. But I would like to know who lednam used. Because I am cheap and poor. The second making the first alot easier.

- Digital Prophet -

[lednam]

Since I live in Sweden I´m afraid this will not be helpful to you ...
Anyway, for every visitor who lives in Sweden, the company is Digitalporten (http://www.digitalporten.se)

Hope you can find some good prices in your area!
Now it´s time to shut down the computer and go to sleep,
good night!

Lednam

[DocFrankenstein]

imo Adam Smith wasn't a total moron when he was talking about specialization of labour. I would not bother printing and cutting, because it would simply take too long.

If and when I'm gonna get a "photographer" card, I'm gonna order 1000 cards for 60 bucks and give them out to everybody.

It's not about good pic on your card. It's too small and can't tell much.

[robertwgross]

The advantage of doing your own cards is that you can specialize them.

For example, if you give one to somebody who perceives you as a wildlife photographer, then you give them the card with your best wildlife photo on it.

If you give one to an engaged couple, then you give them the card with the wedding photo on it.

And so forth.

I have four or five different specialty cards floating around out there.

Plus, I have standard business cards with just black text that were printed for me.

---Bob Gross---

[Olegis]

There was a thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37848) once about business cards. After that one, I'd designed my own card in PS :

http://www.pbase.com/image/31550745.jpg

A local printing company printed me 1000 cards for about $65.

[NativeCraft]

Olegis,
I read somewhere in the thread that you linked that one of the people that posted a response said that he "flattens" his image before saving it to print on his card. Any idea why one would want to flatten an image for a business card? Does it print better or something?

Tom A.

[Olegis]

"Flatten" in photoshop means to get rid of all the layers that were created during the actual image making - text layers, adjust layers etc. Flatten command just merges all layers into one layer - I guess that this was the intention of the guy in that thread.
Besides, when you save a JPEG file, it becomes flattened automatically as far as I understand.

[NativeCraft]

Ahah! That's exactly what it means - I just tried doing it on a photo and when I clicked Flatten Image, it asked me if I wanted to remove all the layers or something like that and when I clicked "Yes" it did its stuff - the image looked the very same.
For some reason, I thought that "Flatten" would be the opposite of "Sharpen", but it's not.

Thanks, Olegis.

Tom A.

[Digital Prophet]

Actually flattening has a more important influence. Flattening a PSD will reduce it's filesize. In large files this can be a difference of several hundred megs.

Of course once you flatten and save those layers are fused together forever. All of the elements that were previously mobile and able to be edited individually will now act like a single JPG that has been dropped into a PSD file.

- Digital Prophet -

[Motorsports Photo]

Interesting thread.

I do it a different way.

I set up a "grid" of cards in pagemaker. I print that out on plain paper and stop in at my local Kinkos (large copier chain) and have them copy the master to card stock. Then I cut them put on their cutter, or just do it at home.

Good looking and dirt cheap. Best of all in these wacky times, the data is easily editable. Comes in handy if your area code has been changed for the 5th time in th last few years! You dont have to trash the other 800 cards still in that 1000 box.

-Pete