A lot of people think that if you have a cool photo and you want to make prints of it, then you need to buy a photo printer.

That’s not true. You can print your photos at home on any printer.

So, say your printer isn’t working or you’ve just got a new one and want to try it out? Here’s how to make art prints, greeting cards and more with any printer…

Step 1:** Take your own photo on photo paper

Step 2:** Get a piece of card stock or heavy duty paper. You can use regular printer paper, but the quality of the print will be better if you use something thicker.

Step 3:** Cut a piece of card stock into the size you want your print to be (you can use a ruler). If you are going to use two pieces of card stock together, cut them both now (you can cut them both at once with an X-acto knife). The thickness of the two pieces should be half as thick as they were originally (i.e., cut half as many layers).

Step 4:** Print your photo on the card stock using your printer. If the picture doesn’t come out right, go back and fix it in your favorite

A good place to start learning about art prints and making them is this blog post, so I am going to link to it in the card and then expand on it here. The post is a tutorial for using your printer to make art prints. It has five steps:

Find images you like

As a photographer, I’m always looking for ways to display my work. In this post, I’ll show you how to create beautiful art prints from your digital photos.

The process is simple and doesn’t require any fancy software or high-end equipment. All you need is a printer, one of my free Photoshop actions, and some inexpensive paper.

I’ll start with the basics and then get into more advanced techniques, so even if you’re not familiar with Photoshop this should be easy for anyone to follow along with.

Creating a print is incredibly simple. You can create your own art prints or photo prints at home, with tools you probably already have!

Choose a Picture or Artwork to Print

First, you’ll need to choose what you want to print. Your options are nearly limitless; you can scan an existing drawing or photograph, or create a new drawing or photograph from scratch using your hand-eye coordination and drawing skills. Since this is a blog post, I’m going to show you how to take a picture of your dog and turn it into a painting (or more accurately, an artwork).

You can do this with any kind of image–a photo, drawing, painting–but if you’re going to be making art prints all the time, it’s good to have some kind of consistent standard for resolution and color depth.

Tone:humorous

Buying a piece of art is a bit like buying an expensive pair of jeans. You have to try it on, get the best size and fit, and make sure it’s exactly what you want. The difference between jeans and art is that with art you can try it on for free before you buy it.

Trying out a piece of art means making a print. It’s just like making your own T-shirt; when you do it yourself, you can make as many prints as you want. That way, if you find something good but not quite right, you can tweak it until it fits perfectly.

If you want to make a print of one of your own drawings, or if you’ve bought something online and want to make your own copy, here are the instructions.**

Dog art is a fine example of what happens when your dog gets to play with a printer…

The best part is that no one really has any idea where the dog was going with it, or what they were trying to print. My initial thought was that they were behing the printer, and trying to grab some paper (likely due to the paper jam), but then I saw the picture at the top of the post, and started thinking maybe they were trying to make a run for it.

Thing is, my dog has been in front of that printer plenty of times, and I’ve yet to see him try and make his escape on it. He’s got much better odds if he just goes out through the front door…

With the help of a few friends, I just finished up my entry in the ArtPrize 2013 competition. It’s called “Dog Art” and it consists of some old family photos that I’ve given new life with Photoshop. (If you have a blog or website, feel free to use any of the images on this page.)

Most of the images are simple manipulations; one is an original painting. The paintings are (more or less) based on photographs that I took when we first got our dog back in 2007. All of them are meant to be funny, but the only one that’s really “about” anything is this one:

This image is an imaginary portrait, but it was inspired by a real painting from 1856 by Thomas Couture called Young Girl Reading. The reason I wanted to do it was because I liked how Couture had taken a realistic subject and made it look like a painting. I also liked how he had given his young girl such an intense expression.

I decided that since Couture had used such bold colors, I should go with something more subtle, so this is what I came up with:

I think I like this version better than Couture’s; at least it makes me laugh every time I see it.