A look at what goes into making a print folio or box set collection for your art
Before I even placed the order for my Canon imagePROGRAF Pro 2100 large format printer back in early 2021, I had ideas of producing an annual box set of some of my favorite prints. Whether you're considering doing the same or are just curious as to what all is involved in the production of a box set or print folio collection, this article is for you.
Table of Contents
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Choosing a Format: Photography Box Set or Folio?
Back in 2020, when I was attending the Out of Yosemite conference in, not surprisingly, Yosemite National Park, I had the opportunity to see and hold Charlotte Gibb's new-at-the-time box set of prints. I loved everything about it, from the presentation to the nicely textured fine art paper she chose, to the photos themselves (which was a given, as I love her work!).
Charlotte's box set targets a far different audience than mine, in that it is a high-priced offering aimed at collectors with the financial means to make such a purchase. That's not to say my limited-edition folios are not meant to be highly appreciated or regarded, but I did know before going into my own project that I wanted to maintain an affordable price point while still providing an exceptional level of quality.
Regardless, my original intent was to follow her lead, and that of Ben Horne's, by presenting my prints in a more traditional box set format. As I was plotting everything out in my head, however, and researching - for weeks on end - options for the right combination of affordable yet high-quality boxes, Ben announced he was switching over to a folio design for his 2022 collection.
If I recall correctly, his decision primarily came down to packaging and shipping costs: as both had increased during and after the depths of the pandemic, he opted for the folio presentation as they are easier - and less costly - to ship.
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and, finding his reasoning sound (and wanting to keep my own up-front costs well under control as I tried something new), I shamelessly followed suit, discarding my plans to use larger and heavier boxes and opting for folios that are similar to Ben's (indeed, I use the same vendor, Tyndell Photographic).
In my case, I use Tyndell Photographic's Portrait Case with a black, soft-touch finish.
Another important factor in deciding which route to go - box set or folio - is the number of prints you wish to include, and how much depth is needed to fit them. A box set can include more prints, but filling out the entire depth of the box would be cost-prohibitive. You could opt to not fill the box, but then you're essentially paying for material you don't actually need and paying more for shipping for no reason other than providing a box instead of a thinner folio.
My Look for the Light folios include 10 of my fine art prints, which fills them perfectly once I add in the Certificate of Authenticity (covered later in this post) and Thank You sheets.
Continued below...
Suggested Content
If you'd like to enjoy behind the scenes looks of my photography trips and outings, you may also like my in-field videos I've started to produce. Head to my in-field playlist on my YouTube channel to check them out. Here's one from my March 2024 return to southern Utah:
Design Considerations for Box Sets or Folios
Once I (finally) landed on the foundational presentation for my print collection (using folios instead of boxes), I had to make another decision: how would I actually title and design the folios?
Charlotte's box set uses foil-embossed stamping for the title on the outside of the box. Another option would be to follow Ben's lead once again and produce paper title sleeves for each folio. There are advantages and disadvantages to both...
While I love the look of the foil embossing, it does add a significant up-front cost as the vendor has to produce a custom die to stamp and emboss each box set or folio. It also locks you into a set number of boxes or folios to order for a single box set or folio edition: you can't repurpose them for future needs/collections, if you decide to change course for one reason or another, since they are literally stamped with the title.
On the flip side, producing my own title sleeves would likely come out cheaper, at least initially, and I could have placed a larger order (reducing the per-unit cost) since the folios could be used for future volumes, other collections, etc., but I was very concerned about the time investment that would be required to print, cut, glue, and "install" each one for every folio I produced.
I felt there was a tipping point between saving some money versus the opportunity cost of the added time that would be required to produce each folio, if I went down the path of manufacturing my own sleeves.
In the end, I chose to pay the additional fee for the custom die - which was about 30% of the total cost of my folio order from Tyndell - as I felt confident the amount of time I would save during production would more than pay for the greater investment of the die casting and foil embossing. Yes, I lost the flexibility of repurposing folio stock, but I still feel it was the best decision and followed suit when I produced my second folio in 2023.
Choosing the Best Paper for Fine Art Photography Prints
Given I wanted to keep my folios at a more affordable price point, I could have easily opted to go in two different directions from the path I eventually chose. Firstly, I could have outsourced the actual print production to a trusted lab, greatly reducing my time investment and, therefore, my total Time & Materials cost. Secondly, I could have kept print production in-house, so to speak, but opting for a cheaper paper than I use for my larger individual prints.
In the end, I chose neither path.
Instead, I use the same archival, museum-quality fine art paper that I use for my standalone Artist Series prints: Palo Duro Etching 315 by Red River Paper. I absolutely love this paper, from its heavy weight and beautiful texture to its ability to accurately reproduce both bold colors and deep shadows without a loss of detail. When properly displayed and cared for, prints produced on this paper should last for generations, and this is an area in which I am not willing to compromise on quality.
If someone makes the investment to support my work through the purchase of a folio, I want them to receive prints that meet the same exacting standards I have for my Artists Series line.
One minor downside to this decision (aside from the increased cost of production reducing my profit) is that, once I account for the inclusion of a Certificate of Authenticity and personalized thank you sheet, I'm limited to including 10 actual prints in the folio. Using a different paper, cheaper or not, that is lighter weight would allow for more flexibility in regard to how many prints I could include (especially when opting for the thinner folio presentation over a box).
As noted previously, though, including more prints would also quickly become cost-prohibitive, and I feel the inclusion of 10 prints, especially at the price point I've set, is a tremendous value.
Cost Versus Value Versus Profit
Speaking of costs and profit, let's dig a bit further into that. As of the time of production of my first Look for the Light volume in 2022, my total cost of production - including packing materials and the shipping box - was around $45 per folio, or nearly $2,300.00 for an entire run of 50 (which is the production limit I've chosen for my first two volumes).
Since then, I've decided to provide free shipping for all customers in the contiguous United States, which adds another $10.00 - $15.00 to the cost of each folio (or approximately $625.00 for an entire volume of 50 editions). That raises my total cost of production to nearly $3,000.00.
So, that's my all-in cost per volume (keeping in mind I now have two volumes available to purchase). Leading up to my first folio with that information in-hand, I had to decide on pricing. Unfortunately, there's little science involved when it comes to pricing prints or collections like this; it's very much an art... but you can still use some logic to arrive at a decision.
Looking at others, such as Ben, that were selling box or folio sets at more affordable prices didn't provide much help. Some photographers charge far too little, in my opinion, while others charge more but may also put their collections out of reach for many potential buyers. How to strike the right balance?
I once again found myself following Ben's example as I landed on tiered pricing, trying to walk the line between my costs versus desired profit while also (hopefully) incentivizing buyers to purchase sooner than later as each volume sells through.
Assuming, worst case, my cost of production for a single folio was going to be $60.00, that would translate to a profit of $65.00 for each folio sold within my first tier. Since I chose to use a tiered pricing structure, my profit increases after each tier sells out. But let's assume I was using flat pricing, set at my Tier 1 level (currently $125.00 for volumes one and two).
$65.00 of profit across 50 folios comes to $3,250.00. At first blush, that may not sound too bad: over three grand for 50 folios. Huzzah!
But reality, as it has a nasty habit of doing, quickly begins to set in.
As a self-employed business owner, I can safely assume about 30% of my profit will go back to the government for taxes. So, that immediately takes me from $3,250.00 in profit down to $2,275.00.
Then, if you find yourself in a similar position, you may realize that you'd also like to be paid, as it were, for your time. And that's where things really get messy.
It's almost impossible to account for the hours upon hours of research, planning, pondering, calculating, and so on that went into the first folio. Of course, that first one was going to be the toughest as I hadn't produced a folio before, so the second one would be a breeze... right?
Not quite. Although the design aspect of the folio was all set, there were still countless hours spent selecting the candidate photos, producing contact sheet prints to get a feel for which photos may work best, making proofing adjustments to the images to account for the differences between viewing pixels on a screen versus ink on paper, cropping each of the images to account for the 8x10 format of the folio, deciding on the final 10 images, reprinting them at full size to check for any hitherto unseen flaws or further adjustments, setting up my website for preorders and then ongoing sales, so on and so forth.
I really don't know how many hours went into pre-production for either folio, but let's just make an assumption that the second folio required 40 hours to run through all the steps I just listed. Let's also assume I'd like to value my time at a rate of $50.00/hour (that sounds like a lot, perhaps, but keep in mind one must account for employee and employer taxes when self-employed).
40 hours times $50.00/hour comes to $2,000.00. Suddenly, my profit is down to $275.00. For an entire production run of 50 folios. Or, perhaps more drastically, only $5.50 per folio sold.
Ouch.
But we're not done! I haven't even accounted for my time actually producing the folios as orders come in.
At best, without any hiccups or interruptions, I can produce a single folio in probably an hour and 15 minutes (and that's really pushing it). That's accounting for the actual printing of everything included, filling out and signing the Certificate of Authenticity, initialing and numbering each print, and packaging the finished folio for shipping. Sticking with that "pay myself" rate of $50.00/hour, we can subtract another $62.50 per folio.
Giving me a full-volume profit of... -$2,850.00.
Now, this isn't meant to garner sympathy, or to set myself up as some benevolent photographer who's giving away his work at a loss... it's just the reality of the pricing I've chosen to implement for my first two folios.
It's also worth noting that the whole "Time = Money" argument is not black and white: one can really only argue that they're losing money on an endeavor such as this if they're actively turning down other work that would generate more income, or they're putting off completing other paid work, for the sake of producing a folio or box set.
At the end of the day, I'm only running off the final prints and assembling a folio when I have an order come in, meaning I have "cash in hand" for the time spent fulfilling the order.
The opportunity cost of the time spent is a murky calculation, at best.
Producing the Fine Art Prints
As I noted above, a speed-run of production for a single folio is about an hour and 15 minutes. Roughly 45 minutes of that is spent on the prints themselves.
Leading up to the point of actually producing the prints is the proofing process, but that really occurs during the initial planning and image selection phase and is a one-time effort. Once I have the proofing edits made for each image, it's just a matter of queueing the prints up via Lightroom Classic as I have each proofed version saved as a print copy in Lightroom.
This brings up another decision one must make around the production of a box set or folio: if using a larger format printer, do you use roll paper or pre-cut sheets?
While roll paper is cheaper and more efficient (I could have all 10 images set up in a saved layout and just hit print once), it comes with the added work of cutting each print out after the fact, and potentially dealing with having to flatten them afterwards to remove any curl from the roll.
Pre-cut sheets eliminate all that work, but on the flip side they must be loaded individually for each print as there's no paper tray like a home or office printer. I also use an anti-static brush to prep each sheet, removing any stray paper dust or debris from the manufacturing process. That doesn't involve much time, and it pays off in reducing the number of prints that get tossed due to production flaws, but it still adds to the total time it takes to produce a single folio.
In the end, I chose to go with the second option as I feel the process of cutting and flattening all the individual prints would add a significant amount of time to production. Even though my actual printing time takes longer, I'm quite confident I make up for it on the back end: once a print comes off my printer, I'm done with it (aside from initialing and numbering it).
Depending on your printer, there is one other consideration, though, when deciding between roll paper or pre-cut sheets: on my Canon Pro 2100, the minimum margin size on pre-cut sheets is 0.79" on one side of the sheet. So, if I want even margins on all sides, I'm going with 0.79" margins all the way around. This does, of course, impact the size of the actual print area on each 8" x 10" sheet.
I could get around this by using roll paper, where I could opt to print borderless if I wanted. Or, for instance, I could decide to go with a 0.25" border on all sides instead of 0.79". As it is, I'm still perfectly happy with the border size for my folio prints (especially as they are more likely to be handled regularly compared to larger individual prints that will be framed and hung on the wall).
For now, I'm content with my printing process. If I were to see a marked increase in preorders and volume sizes in the future, it's quite possible I may end up switching to roll paper as the time and benefit equation may swing in the other direction at higher volumes.
Certificate of Authenticity
In the grand scheme of things related to producing my folios, this is fairly minor but it's still something one may want to consider.
I provide Certificates of Authenticity for all my Artist Series fine art prints and, since I use the same high-quality paper and pigments, I chose to do the same for my limited-edition folios. Since my folios are, indeed, limited-edition, the certificates provide a way to document the edition numbers.
I also make note of the production date, add my signature (and the date of signing), and note the paper used to produce the prints.
The certificate is included inside each folio, atop the actual photographic prints.
Preparing the Final Product
As much as I truly enjoy watching every print come off the printer, there's also something incredibly special about holding a finished folio in my hand before it's packed up for shipping.
As noted above, I initial and number each fine art print on the back before placing them in the folio, and each print is separated by a sheet of acid-free interleaving tissue for added protection (although, honestly, I would expect the prints to hold up perfectly fine without this).
Before I can place the prints and Certificate of Authenticity in the folio, however, I have to prepare the folio itself. They come scored for folding but laid flat for shipping from Tyndell Photographic; using a pair of white cotton gloves to protect the soft-touch coating on the exterior of the folios, each one must be folded by hand. The steps are fairly straightforward, but it is possible to ruin a folio during this process, so care is needed, and it cannot be rushed.
Once that's done, the prints can then be placed inside the "assembled" folio. I place the Certificate of Authenticity on top of the prints, and, at that point, the folio is complete and ready to be packaged for shipping.
I also place a sheet of 8.5" x 11" interleaving tissue under and on top of the folio for added protection during shipping - a step I would not recommend skipping - and then add a printed sheet which includes a thank you message, a QR code and link to my collector-exclusive videos for each folio, and a brief note informing the recipient to be on the lookout for an email from my review platform.
Packaging and Shipping
The shipping boxes I use for my folios are designed to accommodate books or framed art and work perfectly for safely delivering folios to my customers. They measure 8 5/8" x 11 1/8", and I pack a single folio between four sheets - two on top of the folio, and two beneath - of 8.5" x 11" corrugated cardboard as filler and added protection (the box is designed to fold at a depth of either 1/2" or 1").
After purchasing the shipping label, I also print a packing slip which I include beneath the folio, on top of the cardboard filler sheets.
Regarding shipping, if I'm sending a folio to someone within the contiguous United States, the United States Postal Service Two-Day Priority is usually the cheapest and fastest (and, knock on wood, USPS shipping has been extremely timely and reliable to-date). Occasionally, UPS or FedEx may come in at a cheaper rate but it's rare, whether I need domestic or international shipping (I estimate 90 to 95% of my shipping has been done via USPS).
From there, it's just a matter of folding the shipping box up and securely taping it closed before adding the shipping label.
And that, my friends, is "all" it takes to produce a box set or print folio!
Closing Thoughts
If you're a fellow photographer or an artist contemplating producing your own box set or folio of prints, you hopefully have a far better understanding of all the work that goes into it, and the considerations to account for regarding pricing and profit (or lack thereof!).
At the end of the day, I produce my folios for two main reasons: 1) I love printing and am extremely proud of the quality of the fine art prints I produce, and 2) I want to share my prints with as many people as is reasonably possible. Currently, at least, that means I'm technically taking a loss on every folio I sell.
That being said, I feel the intangible benefits greatly outweigh the financial drawbacks.
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