How To: Trim, Tidy, and Sign Your Prints

You've just finished printing your edition, good job! 

Now it's time to get them ready for showing and selling.

For an edition of more than one, your prints will need to all end up the same size. You'll probably have smudges, smears, and thumbprints to tidy up after the ink is dry. You'll also need to sign and edition each one, and come up with a nifty name for your print. I can't help with naming anything, but here's a pictorial guide to how I take care of the rest:

Step 1: Trim

First of all, this might seem like an overkill method for getting perfectly uniform margins, and yes- yes it is. But this method works great for oddly shaped images, or round ones. This method also works well for visually-oriented people who don't think in numbers, and it cuts down on the decision fatigue that plagues those of us that are not neurotypical. You only have to make decisions for the first one, then use it as a stencil for the rest. 

Pick out your worst one to sacrifice. Seriously. This is going to be your template for the rest of them, this sacrificial lamb will make the coming harvest easier.

I picked the one that had two registration offsets, an excessive pressure smoosh, and an unreasonable number of ink spots I don't actually want to put the energy into cleaning up. 

This print is borked-up big time.

You will need: pencil, regular ruler, framing ruler (L shaped), lightbox or light table, masking tape, and a cutting table or utility knife.

Use the regular ruler to measure the smallest margin of the four on your image.

I did this to myself.

The question of "how big you want your margins" can turn into "what can I actually do here," if you (like me) have printed close to the edge of your paper. In this case, the smallest margin I was left with was 1.25" on one side, so that's going to become my margin for all of the print's sides.

A note on margins: there's no hard rule that you have to have uniform margins all around the print, but it's done fairly often. Another habit of printers is to do uniform margins for three of the sides, but to make the bottom margin slightly wider - make it "bottom heavy" for aesthetic reasons.

Use your ruler to measure and pencil mark your other three margins at the same width. My print is round, but this will work fine for any shape of print. Just think of it as marking a compass point at East, West, North, and South. Measure outward from the part of your image that sticks out the most on each side.

Do this 4 times for a rectangular trim.

Now get out your framing ruler and line it up with one of your marks and square it up with the side you aren't going to have to cut (that first one we measured). Make a complete line with your pencil.

I've exaggerated the pencil line here so you can see it easier.

Do this for all of the marks, make sure the lines go all the way to the paper's edge. Using the pencil lines as a guide, trim excess paper off with your utility knife or a cutting table.

Trimmed all around.

You now have a stencil to use for trimming the rest of your edition. Take it to the light table for the next steps!

Turn on the light table and lay down one of your untrimmed prints, then lay your stencil over it. Line up the print images as well as you can, then use at least two pieces of masking tape to hold the stencil in place. 

Stencil over the next print.

Now you're going to trace just the corners with your pencil, so that you won't have to do too much erasing later. Following the edge of the stencil, trace this cross shape:

You can see in the image on the right that the crosses extend to the edges of the paper - things can go wrong if you don't do this. If your excess margins are small, you can just freehand the lines. If your excess margins are wide, then use a ruler to accurately extend the corner lines to the paper's edge.

After you've marked the rest of your edition, take them to the cutting table. In this picture I'm using a large guillotine paper cutter, and slicing along the cross lines:

The blue lines are exaggerated cross lines.

Now you should have a stack of identically sized prints that are ready to clean up.

Step 2: Tidy

I usually use a few sizes of eraser. Mono is a great brand which gives you the option of a traditional brick style or an eraser that works like a mechanical pencil. 

I also use a new X-Acto blade, but let me warn you about this method before you try it. First, some new blades come coated in machine oil, carefully clean that off before it goes anywhere near your papers. Also: scraping with a blade can take off the splatters of ink, but it will also remove the protective surface of the paper, which leaves the scraped spot vulnerable to picking up more dirt later - it can also be noticeable to a keen eye! You may wish to experiment with a clear wax crayon to restore a protective finish to the scraped area. Before you use the blade for cleanup, ask yourself if a few spots of ink are really a problem, do they absolutely need to be removed?

I have heard of people using an eraser that contains fine sand for cleaning up their prints, but my same warnings apply, you will be damaging your paper. 

Now on with it:

First, clean your erasers by rubbing them thoroughly on a scrap piece of paper. slice pieces of the eraser off if they are impregnated with ink or dye, you won't want these to be leaving more marks on your prints. 

Now erase the pencil lines left from trimming your edition. Aren't you glad you only made marks at the corners? Go over all of your prints to see what you can remove with the eraser. If you find that the marks are streaking, your ink may not be dry enough, or is simply prone to smudging. In which case, do not attempt to erase further.

Whatever won't come off with the erasers may be easier to scrape off with the X-Acto blade, but bear in mind my above dire warning about this method. That said, make sure your blade is parallel with the paper, and that you scrape in small motions side to side - perpendicular to the blade line. Imagine you are shaving your legs, in that you won't want to scrape too deep, just enough to remove the surface mark. 

Practice on a scrap of your printing paper before trying it on your prints.

Pick a spot to attack, then begin scraping carefully until you see some of the mark is gone. Switch to a clean eraser to rub the exposed fibers until more of the mark is gone. Repeat these two actions until the mark is not visible when you look at it from a reasonable distance. Remember, most people aren't as critical of your work as you are, they probably won't notice it unless they are being paid to notice these things.

"Rinse and repeat"

Once you have a stack of relatively tidy prints, you can head back to the light table for signing them.

Step 3: Sign

Grab your "worst print," the one you used as a stencil for trimming the rest. You'll sign this one first, then use it as a guide for signing the rest. 

Traditionally, a printmaker indicates what number of the edition each print is and what the name of the image is, and then they sign and date it (all in pencil). This information usually goes at the bottom of the print, either the bottom of the page or the bottom of the image. In this case, I chose to follow the curve of the image:

On the left is your edition number. On mine I labeled it A.P. for artist's proof, because while I'm not including the worst print in my edition, I'm not throwing it away either. For those I included in my edition, I labeled 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, etc....

In the center, write the name of your print - if any. You can always choose to not name it. I chose to put the name in parenthesis, which seems to be optional if you look at prints by different artists.

On the far right, sign your name and include the date. I chose to just use my first name, and to simplify the date to just the year. 

Once your stencil is signed, turn on the light table and lay one of your unsigned prints on top of the stencil. Line up the image, then edition and sign right on top of the lettering you can see below your paper:

Hard to see, but it's there.

This method makes it easier to create signatures that are uniform in size and spacing. It also helps cut down on misspelling that can happen if you're writing the same word so many times that you start to wonder if it's even a word anymore.... 

Repeat this process for the rest of your edition, then fan them out and look at them for a while. Bask in the dopamine release from a job well done, and then move on to your next project.

Good job! Now back to work.

Written by 

Raven Ramaria,

novice printer and 

cat fancier