Everything Creators and Collectors Need to Know About Giclee Printing
The process of giclee printing revolutionized the art world when it came on the scene in the 1980s. It made high-quality prints affordable to art lovers and enabled creators to reach a broader audience with well-made reproductions of their work.
All giclees are digital prints, but not all digital prints are giclees; knowing the difference will help you create or select authentic giclee printing examples.
What Are Giclee Prints?
A giclee is a museum-quality reproduction of an original work of art, printed with a large-format printer. It was the first and is still the only fine-art printing process that uses an inkjet printer. That explains its name: Gicler (or gicleur) is a French word meaning "spray" or "spurt," which is how inkjet printers work; they spray ink across the material on which the work is printed.
A giclee print and a digital print both enable the artist to create many more copies of their work, more quickly than other forms of art prints, like lithography or screen printing. But a giclee will last longer and be much closer to the original's quality than a digital print.
Many artists and photographers have invested in their own giclee printing equipment, but it's a sizable expense. If your business hasn't reached that level or if you'd rather focus on your art without worrying about technology, high-quality print shops like Prints Giclee Shop are excellent sources of the high quality your work deserves.
Before delving into the giclee printing process, it's important to get clear on how it differs from ordinary digital prints and the artistic medium of hand-pulled printmaking.
Digital Prints
It's mostly a matter of longevity. Both giclee and digital copies come out of a printer. But a simple digital print uses ink and paper that can start fading in a matter of days. Giclee prints are meant to last years, even centuries, and use more sophisticated materials and processes than the print of the image you sent from your smartphone.
Hand-Pulled Printmaking
A hand-pulled print is an original work of fine art, not a reproduction. Lithography, screen printing, and monotype are examples of this complex, laborious process that can take years to master. The process usually begins with the creator applying their original work directly onto a plate, screen, block or other material. Ink is spread across the plate, which is then applied to the print material.
Hand-pulled prints can fetch a hefty price because of their quality and the skill required to create them. Prices may have been deserved, but they shut a lot of art lovers out of the market.
Then came giclee printing.
Backstory: How Giclee Printing Began
The process has become so common, it's surprising to learn it has only been available since the late 1980s. When it came along, it was a huge step forward for artists and photographers as well as for the people who bought their work.
Much of the credit goes to the printmakers at Nash Editions, a fine-art digital printing company in Manhattan Beach, California. It was founded by photographer/collector Graham Nash, better known as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician and veteran of pop group The Hollies and the various iterations of rock super-group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
The company experimented with equipment and inks for fine-art printing, using a modified industrial pre-press printer that had just been introduced by Iris Graphics of Stoneham, Massachusetts. Nash Editions adapted the Iris until finally perfecting the process. Graham Nash called the resulting print a "digigraph" but Nash Editions printmaker Jack Duganne coined the term that stuck: giclee.
The Iris was an expensive piece of equipment – Nash had paid $126,000 for it – and other manufacturers like Epson soon came up with lower-priced versions. In 2015, Nash Editions donated the experimental Iris printer to the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
The Benefits of Giclee Printing
Now a popular source of high-quality art, giclee printing can reproduce any form of two-dimensional artwork, including acrylic and watercolor paintings, as well as photographs. The format offers benefits to artist and art lover alike:
The quality and efficiency of giclee printing is the result of four specific elements that must be present.
The 4 Characteristics of Giclee Printing
Be aware of these factors when you have your work reproduced. If you're buying a piece from a gallery or artist, be sure to ask if all of these criteria are satisfied:
Large-Format Printer
The printer must be a large-format inkjet printer. While home inkjets have come a long way, so have the expectations for quality printing. Many printers have 12 different-colored ink cartridges; you should use one that has at least eight, including several shades of black. An industrial-grade printer is a necessity.
High-Resolution Scan
The original piece of art should be professionally scanned or photographed at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch). The higher the resolution, the sharper the detail and the more accurate the colors in the final print. This requires a large flatbed scanner.
Pigmented Ink
The ink must be pigmented, not dyed. What's the difference?
Pigment-based ink contains small colored particles in a suspension, like paint. Dye-based ink is a colorant that is dissolved in water. Dyed ink is cheaper – it's probably what your home printer uses – but it doesn't produce the rich tones you get from pigmented inks. Pigmented inks also last longer – up to a century or more – and are less likely to stain or smear.
Archival Paper
Your final must-have is that the paper be museum-quality and 100% archival, so it's acid-free. This will create a sharp, well-defined image that won't deteriorate over time. Ask for an Archival Quality Certificate for complete confidence that your work will use the right material to look as good many years from now as it does today.
When choosing a finish for your paper, you have a number of advantages and drawbacks to consider:
Creating the Giclee
The measure of a giclee's quality is its faithfulness to the original image and its use of archival paper that won't fade, crack or lose colors over time. Here's how the creation proceeds:
Image Capture
It's essential to begin with a sharp, high-resolution image. Previously, the image was photographed and then scanned into the computer, but now it is captured directly with a fine art scanner or digital camera. This results in a better image, because you're cutting out one generation of imagery; every time you capture an image, it loses more quality.
Even better, modern print labs like Prints Giclee Shop now let creators upload images directly to the shop. If your image is already digital, just visit the online-ordering page to get the process started.Image Editing and Proofing
Editing is necessary to fix subtle variations and imperfections that can creep into the image when it's scanned and uploaded to the computer. A technician digitally adjusts the hues, color saturation and contrast of the image to get it as close as possible to the original.
Once the image is fully edited, the artist gets a printer proof to check the quality and make small corrections if necessary. The shop should let you proof this stage in person, since you'll get the most accurate view of the image.
Printing and Finishing
The approved image is printed on your chosen paper, with chosen finishes applied and at quantities you've agreed. It's all yours to show to the world!
Ready for Giclee Printing?
Giclee printing is designed to bring more of your work to the world. It's an art form that empowers artists, photographers, designers and art enthusiasts to create the images they love, by using technology to preserve the authenticity of handmade expression.
