Drew's News - Red River Paper

How to Design a Greeting Card for Printing

Before you print a greeting card, you need a print-ready design file — and the rule is simple: your file size should match your paper size. Printing on our 7x10 greeting card stock? Your file (JPEG, PDF, PSD, etc.) needs to be exactly 7" x 10". That single file covers the entire card — front and back — so your printer knows exactly where to place your images, artwork, and text.

Choosing the Right Design App

The most popular tools for designing printable greeting cards are Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom — and for good reason. But here's the key thing to look for in any app you use: it needs to be a layout program. That means you can start with a blank canvas at a custom size and freely place photos, graphics, and text wherever you want. That flexibility is what makes a card design actually printable.

Affinity Photo: A Free Adobe Alternative

A great option worth knowing about is Affinity Photo. Canva acquired Affinity and made the entire suite free, giving many designers a solid replacement for Adobe products. We've put together card setup and printing guides specifically for Affinity Photo. It has a few quirks, so we recommend reading the instructions at least twice before diving in. Once you get the hang of it, making cards is pretty straightforward.

Using Canva to Design Greeting Cards

Yes, Canva is a layout app — and it works well for designing cards. The catch: Canva's built-in print function doesn't play nicely with card printing. The workaround is to export your design to your desktop and print from there. Just make sure your exported file stays true to size. A 7x10 card design should export as a 7" x 10" file at 300 ppi for best results.

Printing from Epson or Canon

Once your file is ready, printing is easy. Epson users can open and print directly from Epson Print Layout (EPL) — it's free and works great. Canon PRO series printer owners can use Canon Professional Print & Layout, which typically installs alongside your printer drivers.

What's in a Name?

For many years, Red River Paper used pound weight in our product names. Papers like UltraPro Satin 68lb. and ColorJet 26lb. became familiar staples for many of our customers. We're now updating our naming convention by removing pound weight and adding GSM (grams per square meter) to the end of each paper name.

Why the change? GSM is the worldwide standard for paper weight, and it provides a clearer, more consistent reference. It also eliminates the confusion that comes with pound weight, which varies depending on paper type and measurement scale.

Important: This is a name change only. The papers themselves have not changed.

On each product page, you'll see the updated name along with the former name listed directly below it for easy reference.

Some papers already use this format. Below is a guide showing the previous and updated names for products that were recently changed.

How Long are Your Rolls?

A quick PSA for roll buyers. The industry standard for inkjet mini-rolls has always been 50 ft and 100 ft. Yet lately, you may see rolls out there that are only 39 ft.

That shorter length can make the roll price look attractive, but it also inflates the true cost of media. If you're comparing roll pricing, don't compare roll to roll, compare cost per square foot. That's the real number that drives your actual print cost.

At Red River, our rolls are standard length -  50 ft and 100 ft - and we clearly publish cost per square foot so you can evaluate media honestly.

And if you're a production shop, lab, university, or enterprise buyer who needs non-standard footage, we can run custom lengths for you. (Minimums apply.)

Bottom line:
Short rolls can "look" cheaper. But the math tells the real story every time.

Questions? We'll break down the cost per square foot for your exact workflow. Contact us today.

Profiles and Updates

For most of the inkjet paper industry, profiles are usually make them and forget them objects. Not at Red River Paper. We are constantly improving our ICC profile performance with new measuring tools, custom software, and profile editing techniques. Put our profiles up against the "big brands" from Europe and you'll see a difference. What does it mean for you? With Red River papers and our profiles for your printer, you will get better and more consistent results. Here's a list of recently updated profiles:

• Epson P800
• Canon PRO-1100
• Canon PRO-1000
• Canon PRO-310
• Epson ET-8550
• Epson 502 Ink Printers
• Epson 522 Ink Printers

Update Your Mac?

MacOS Tahoe was released this month, which brings up a recurring question. "Should I update or should I wait?" 

Our answer for the past 15 years has been unwavering. If printing and color management are important to you, do not update. Wait at least six months, then consider updating. So what's the big deal? With every major OS update from Mac, there is a decent chance that your ability to print or get accurate color management will come to a halt. Why? That's for Apple's engineers to answer. We don't make'em, we just help people fix'em!

Jokes aside, if printing important to you, stay put at your current version of the OS. Let others update and find out, while you continue to print happily.

Say Hello to Trinity River Velvet!

Meet Trinity River Velvet - the most textured cotton paper we've ever made.

Created for artists, photographers, and designers who demand more than just ink on a page. This 100% cotton, cold press paper adds striking depth and dimension to every print. Sourced from the finest European paper mill, this cold press highly textured art paper is sure to add depth and feeling to your prints. Trinity River Velvet features a latest-generation matte inkjet coating to ensure deep blacks and rich colors using either pigment or dye based inks.

You may ask: "Why another cotton paper?" Here's why!

Customer preference and what is being printed call for different levels of texture. With the addition of Trinity, RRP has the full gamut of texture choices that also match up to some "big names" that you might be paying way too much for now.

Aurora Art - Hot press cotton with just a hint of texture.
Palo Duro Etching - Cold press cotton with subtle texture
Trinity River Velvet - Cold press cotton with clearly defined texture 

Profile Refresh - Epson ET 502 Ink Series

We've updated our ICC profiles for Epson EcoTank printers using Epson 502 series ink-models like the ET-2850, ET-3850, ET-15000, and others. This new set is fully compatible with the latest firmware and drivers, and includes profiles for all Red River papers that work with these printers.

Epson 502 ink is optimized for office printing on matte paper, which means it can struggle to deliver deep blacks and rich colors on glossy, luster, or satin finishes-especially compared to printers with a dedicated Photo Black ink. But with our custom ICC profiles, you'll get the most accurate color and best performance possible from your EcoTank printer.

We've also included detailed media compatibility notes, based on hands-on testing. These will help you choose the right Red River Paper and dial in the correct print settings for optimal results.

What are DESIGN Profiles?

The profiles that we publish on our website are all what we call "general purpose profiles".That is to say, they are optimized to work well under a variety of lighting conditions for a wide range of use cases. In addition to our general purpose profiles, we offer special profiles that are mostly useful to graphic designers and artists working in fields where exact color accuracy is more important than overall contrast we offer a special set of ICC profiles with the word DESIGN in the name.

Learn more about DESIGN profiles here

Gathered Light Magazine

RRP is proud to sponsor Gathered Light Magazine, which focuses on photography and conservation. 

Gathered Light Magazine is a bi-monthly print and digital publication exploring fine art photography, conservation, and education. We feature photographers whose work champions human and planetary rights, using imagery to document, inspire, and engage meaningfully.

Photography shapes our awareness of the planet, its ecosystems, and its diverse communities. Each issue highlights visual storytelling, fine art printing techniques, film and darkroom processes, and photography's role in advocacy and environmental responsibility.

Check out the first edition free of charge.

Make sure to read their review of Big Bend Baryta!

Learn more and subscribe

24" Photo Paper Rolls on 2" Cores

Updated, High-Performance Profiles for the Canon PRO-1000

We continue to up the stakes on ICC profile performance. Today we posted the latest ICC profiles for the Canon PRO-1000. They are made to tighter tolerances and designed to work with the latest firmware. The new profiles can be installed alongside the old ones so you can select which one to use at print time.

Download the latest Canon PRO-1000 ICC profiles here

Questions about them? Contact us today.

Let's Talk Tariffs

You've probably seen the news about new tariffs on goods from countries like Japan, Germany, and China. Since we import from those regions (mostly Japan and the EU with a little from China), we wanted to give you a quick heads-up.  Our only 100% USA-made paper is Aurora Art. 

Right now, we've got plenty of inventory on hand, and our suppliers have stock that landed in the U.S. before any tariff changes kicked in. So in the short term, it's business as usual.

Long term? It's still a little too early to know exactly how this will play out. There could be price changes down the road, depending on how things shake out globally - and things may keep shifting as other countries respond to U.S. policy.

As always, we'll keep you in the loop and be as transparent as possible. Thanks for being part of the Red River Paper community.

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Last updated: March 16, 2026