Advice: Specialty Printing Services?

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not having a whole lot of luck with my google-fu I thought I would try asking here to see if I'd have any luck. :)

I'm trying to find a printing service (or most likely services) where I can get specialty images printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I'm trying to find anyone of the following but not having much luck:

-Black light printing (I found only one site and you have to order in bulk)
-Glow in the dark printing
-Shiny/sparkly/holographic printing (mostly I seem to keep find printing services for security stickers).

I'm not sure if I'm using the wrong keywords, looking in the wrong places, or would be better off just trying to find printer ink to use in a regular printer or what. Most of the print shops I've seen offer printing on various items (mugs, T-shirts, posters, etc) but don't really offer different types of printed images like I'm looking for or only do that kind of printing on T-shirts.

Any advice on places where I could get this done or even just suggestions on where/how to search would be most appreciated. :) Thanks!

Comments

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

I think with holographic printing, it's more a matter of finding holographic/sparkly paper that can be printed on. I know Crayola actually sells some paper like that in small packets, I have some around somewhere in my eclectic paper collection, I think it was meant for inkjet printers? Otherwise metallic type printing is usually called foil printing and I do think there are types of heat-transfer/heat press vinyl that come in sparkly kinds, they are more meant for cutting machine use but if you are good with a knife or small scissors you could cut out some designs yourself.

I know some silkscreen places will do UV reactant / phosphorescent ink printing but it tends to be way more expensive than normal ink, especially for smaller batches. Some places do offer to special order the ink if they don't offer it normally. (I looked into this too for my fangdanas and gave it up after the price they quoted me was like five times the normal ink price)

It is possibly to do glow in the dark printing yourself using phosphorescent acrylic paint in green or blue glow, I did that for a while with an acetate stencil to do very small batches (it's tedious and time-consuming) and if you are more ambitious you could set up a simple silkscreen screen and try your hand and using phosphorescent silkscreen ink. I've heard of people making stencils out of acrylic medium and embroidery hoops and gauze, there are lots of DIY blogs on the subject of at-home silkscreening.

Hope any of this ramble helps lol

[phineus.livejournal.com]

Yes, the metallic/holographic/etc printing is indeed foil and is usually applied by a hot stamp machine, which does just what it sounds. Printing for this can get expensive because the company has to cover the costs of unique stamp plates, and hot stamp machines can only run so fast (which is not fast at all) so while set-up and foil is cheap, it can take several hours or even [work] days to fill an order.

snapesgirl34, it sounds like you just want to do prints on fancy paper? As myxini below suggested, you may be best off buying speciality papers for a home inkjet printer and printing them yourself, at least as far as the metallic/sparkle. There's several brands of silver or gold metallic inkjet papers available, and yep, Crayola does some sparkly ones.

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll try that, thank you! :)

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Foil! Okay, that's what it's called, thank you for that, and for the in depth explanation. :)

Using a stencil to do the glow in the prints sounds like it might be the best way to go, thanks for the advice! And I will look into getting some of the Crayola paper you mentioned to see how the image quality is.

[raeraesama.livejournal.com]

Mpix has black and white printing and metallic/pearlescent printing. Not sure about glow in the dark.

[myxini.livejournal.com]

you won't be able to find ink for a regular printer for any of this stuff. (well, maybe the black light printing, you'd just have to find UV-reactive dye-based inks.) For UV, look for the phrase 'UV-reactive' or just 'neon' and maybe see if you can get a sample to see if it's reactive.

The glow-in-the-dark inks are way too thick, and are usually applied in high volume methods like silkscreen where there's a huge setup cost. For the foil printing, it's usually done with either silkscreen (apply an adhesive with the silkscreen, apply the foil over it, then remove excess foil) or a machined die in the shape of the foil design which heat-stamps the foil to the paper. again, huge setup costs for both methods.

Another option if you're wanting to add a metallic effect to your own art, is that you can sometimes buy rolls of the foil, and adhesive pens, it'd be similar to gold-leafing. (or if it just needs to be metallic, then gold leafing may work, it come in colors other than gold, I know they sell supplies at michaels. If this is for small numbers of prints, and the setup fees for the other methods are too expensive, I know they also sell glow in the dark paint in several colors, and some neon paints that might be UV reactive.

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! I will do more research on UV reactive inks. It looks like I might be better of just doing it by hand (since the images I am making are so small) if what you say is correct, I will look into gold leafing as well. Thanks again!

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Try http://clubcardprinting.com/

(www.clubcard.ca if you're canadian)

They do some specialty printing, but be warned, it is hellishly expensive.

[mottenfest.livejournal.com]

Check out http://dragonfru.it/ !

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

I don't think they actually offer any of those currently?

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

I think they only do normal prints, but thanks for the link!

[mottenfest.livejournal.com]

For the glow in the dark printing, are you looking for someone who prints using glow ink, or that paper that glows? I'm trying to get specifics. I work for DragonFruit and I'm interested in seeing if we have the ability to get this done for you. :)

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Glow in the dark ink. :) So far I've had no luck finding anyone who does this! I'm also trying to find someone who can print with black light paint. I might have to resort to hand painting but that takes forever and of course each image would be slightly different. That'd be awesome if it's something you could do!

[mottenfest.livejournal.com]

As of this time we're now actively looking into offering this service. We'll let you know if there any updates in the future.