Calendar printing advice

[Clovishound]

The Pup and I have put together a calendar featuring some of this year's work from both of us. We were thinking about printing about 10 of them for friends and family. We aren't necessarily doing this for Christmas, but more as a fun project, but would probably be looking to get them out either before the end of the year, or very early in Jan. I had Staples do one of their same day printings, and was not overly impressed with the print quality. They do have a better quality version available, although it's a good bit more expensive. I've heard that Vistaprint does a good job. They currently have a sale running for around $12 each, in quantity of 10.

Anyone have experience with calendar printing? I could print them myself on presentation paper, and probably be able to print the calendar on the back of the next month's sheet. It would require buying a comb, or spiral binding machine. Even with paper and ink costs, I could print them myself a lot cheaper, but not sure if the $50 binder machines I see on Amazon would hold up, or work well enough. The nice thing about this route is I would have the machine for future projects. The other down side is wear and tear on the printer, and time involved, although I'm retired so time isn't a big deal.

Input appreciated.

This is the cover picture. It's one of the Pup's photos taken with her new Z50ii.

 

[BF Hammer]

I do use Vistaprint each year. I make a run with family birthdays and anniversaries preprinted as Christmas gifts. I make another run of desk format calendars that are handed out to coworkers at Christmas. And then I do another run of the letter size format with the spiral binding at top which goes to my neighbors.

What you never will control is print darkness. Even in the different runs from Vistaprint I get some photos looking dark in 1 format and OK in another. For short run prints like this, there can never be any way to fix that. Do a run of 5000, and you might get a chance to review a physical proof.

Also as another option is Lulu.com. They offer less designs, but it is entirely a print-on-demand publisher. You need 5 more a couple of days later, place another order from your project list. Easy as that. And you can ship directly to others instead of receiving the whole batch yourself. But I rate the Vistaprint product a little better.

 

[BF Hammer]

Also you won't match the price of Vistaprint on home gear. Printing a full-page photo on 13 pages (12 months plus cover) is going to burn several ink cartridges unless you use an Epson eco-tank. And the premium paper often is only coated on 1 side and cannot be printed on both sides. So you might be limited to the flip-around style that way.

 

[hark]

I created calendars a couple times for church. They used a company that offered non-profits a lower price. Make sure if you have a company do the printing, find out if the file has to be RGB or CMYK. The company my church used was set up for CMYK. I also set up the file to be print ready. That meant the first and last images were on one page together (these were folded and stapled in the middle). And each subsequent page was set to print in the same way. I had to size up each page by 1/4" to 1/2" because there wasn't any white margin – something to do with the bleed. It's been a number of years so I don't remember all the specific names they used.

 

[Esteila]

I’ve done a few photo calendars and what worked best for me was using a simple template in Photoshop or Canva and exporting as high-res PDF. Then send it to a local print shop — they usually handle the sizing and paper quality better than home printers. Makes the whole process way smoother!