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Giclee Printing |
| What does Giclee Mean? (from
the French for "spray") is a process or method for making
(art) prints with a special type of computer printer, or a print made
using this method. |
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Giclee is basically a scanned
image(s) printed on a high resolution, ink-jet printer. Giclée prints
are advantageous to artists who find it not feasible to mass produce
their work, but want to reproduce their art as needed. The prints
are printed using dye base or pigment based inks on archival papers,
canvas, poster stock or a number of other medias. |
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| Once an image is archived, additional reproductions
can be made with minimal effort and cost. Thus the up-front cost of
mass production is eliminated and printing is done on demand. Another
tremendous advantage to Giclée printmaking is that artwork can be
reproduced to almost any size and on various media, giving the artist
the ability to customize prints for a specific client. |
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| What are the advantages of the Giclee over a Lithograph? |
| 1. Museum
quality prints. |
| 2. Long
lasting pigment based archival inks. |
| 3. Acid
free 100% cotton all rag paper, not wood pulp based paper that yellows. |
| 4. Heavier
paper than a lithograph. |
| 5. Wider
color range and deeper colors than offset litho prints. |
| 6. More
accurate to original art. |
| 7. Allows
for enhancements by the artist. |
| 8. Can
be printed on canvas, and sealed with a gloss or matte UV inhibitor
varnish. |
| 9. Canvas
is less expensive to frame and works well where there can be a lot
of reflection from windows. |
| 10. Can
be printed in custom sizes. |
| 11. More
long term value because of archival printing methods. |
| 12. And
most important, once a final proof is complete, you do not have
to print your whole limited edition or poster run
at once. It is print on demand. This saves a lot of money. And
you can have them sold before they are printed!! |
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| Major Museums and Galleries showing Giclees include: |
Metropolitan
Museum, New York
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Philadelphia
Museum of Art
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The Corcoran
Gallery
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San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art
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Museum
of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
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The
British Museum
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| What is the quality of the Giclee reproduction
method? Giclees are one of the finest reproduction methods available
today. The depth of color far surpasses that of lithographs. Lithographs
use the same process as printing a magazine.Also litho inks have dyes
in them that are subject fading. When an lithograph is printed on
a rag paper the colors are lifeless and dull because much of the ink
is absorbed into the paper. The "dot gain" causes the printed dot
to expand into the adjoining dot, this muddies the color. A water
color artist fights this when an opposite color will contaminate a
color he is laying on his paper. To counter this problem printers
may print on pulp made papers that have a coating. The coating minimizes
the dot gain, but the acid in the paper yellows and attacks the ink
over time.The 310 gram Giclee paper we use is much more substantial
than lithograph prints. Digital Scanning and proofing allows for better
color fidelity on a Giclee than lithographs. A proof can be printed
in minutes on a Giclee printer but a color proof on a litho takes
a day and hundreds of dollars for one proof. With a digital proofing
you can isolate an object in the print, color correct and run a small
proof in minutes. The artist can see the results of the corrections
almost immediately. At pro-art-source.com we use Endurachrome inks
from ColorSpan which are very stable, giving fade & color shift resistance
of over 75 years on watercolor paper under average indoor light conditions.
Visit www.Wilhelm-research.com for more information. |
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Pro ART Source reserves the
right to refuse reproduction services of images based on content. If content is questionable, email a .jpg for
assessment. |
