What is a Giclee Print?

“Giclee” (pronounced Jee Clay), from the French for little squirt.

A “giclee” print is a piece of printed artwork or photograph produced by using a high quality digital inkjet printer.

Giclee prints are big news in the USA. In the fine art business they have taken over from lithographs and screen prints as the dominant and preferred way for artists, galleries and publishers to make reproductions and prints. The growth in the American giclee market has been phenomenal while the traditional print methods have stagnated. It has been reported that something like 80% of new images in the US are being produced using giclee techniques.

The technology behind this revolution is based on the power of computers combining with advances in printing techniques. Extremely fine droplets of ink can be spurted onto heavy water-colour paper or artists canvas. These droplets can be controlled by computer so that the resolution of the printed image is much finer than conventional printing. The image and printer commands are recorded as a digital file and can be accessed on demand. This means that an edition can be proofed and then tested for popularity. Then when the artist, gallery or publisher wishes to print more copies of the image they can be produced as and whenever needed.

Overall, the benefits to artists, galleries and publishers are that the quality and print-on-demand features enable more fine art prints to be available. The benefits for collectors are the superb quality, stability and fidelity of giclee prints, and the extra supply from new artist publishers.

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What's so good about a Giclee Print?

Giclee report Information for artists and galleries in a report produced for The Fine Art Trade Guild.

Introduction

“Giclee” (pronounced Jee Clay), from the French for little squirt.

A “giclee” print is a piece of printed artwork or photograph produced by using a high quality digital inkjet printer. The first printer in this class was an Iris, and Iris printers still claim to lead the field. Other print machine makers include Epson, Mimaki, Mutoh, Hewlett Packard and Roland. The inks used must be specially formulated and compatible with the extreme fineness of the printer head that spurts jets of ink in minute droplets at a resolution of 1440dpi or more. Epson, Iris and Lyson supply many of the ink-sets that have been tested. The paper or canvas that is used is specially prepared to accept this type of printing mechanism and ink-set. Hahnemuhle, St Cuthberts, Epson and Lyson produce tested papers and canvas.

Lightfastness

Early inkjet prints in the mid 1990’s were disappointingly fugitive with noticeable fading occurring quite quickly. Dramatic improvements have been made in the inks used and the paper or canvas substrate. It was found that it is crucial that the combination of machine, ink-set and substrate is compatible and tested as a whole. Recent tests show that the resulting print can be lightfast to very high levels with a minimum of six on the Blue Wool test, or 25 years by Wilhelm Institute tests. The latest test results show life expectancy rates of 100 to 200 years for some giclee prints. When printed on good quality heavyweight art paper the print should possess archival standards of permanence comparable or better than other collectable artwork.

Quality

The visual quality of the print result is extremely high with seeming continuous tone prints without dots, lines or barring. The colour saturation and definition can be stunning.

Benefits

One advantage that digital printing offers to the artist and publisher is that the edition can be printed on demand. Giclee images are recorded as a digital file and can be produced on a giclee printer singly, or more, whenever required. The prints will be exactly the same at the start and end of a print run, even if the run is interrupted and printed on different occasions. This means that the high cost and risk of producing a complete print edition all at once is avoided.

A second advantage to the artist and publisher is the control available by manipulation of the digital file. Using special software it is possible to tweak and alter the original image to improve the size, colour, tone and other qualities of the image.

It is also possible to design or create the print image completely on a computer using designer software such as Adobe PhotoShop, thus producing effects that could not be hand made in the studio using paint or ink.

Update latest information.

There has been a rapid increase in bureau services offering giclee quality print facilities to self-publishing artists, galleries and fine art publishers. Most of the established print houses are experiencing full order books, while some others are not offering the service any more. Many new bureau services have appeared with a variety of background experiences. Potential giclee publishers have a wide range of expertise to choose from, with some bureau services offering specialism such as giclee for photography.

Machine manufacturers are continually producing new large format and desktop machines for commercial print house or small office/studio. In July 1990 Epson presented their desktop size photo-style printer the 2000P. Costing about £600 plus VAT, the 2000P produces giclee quality [6 colour at 1440 dpi] prints at A3+ size. Epson claim 100 -200 year lightfast results for these prints using their own paper. A new RIP [computer software commanding the printer] is promised which will assist the 2000P to print on the heavier Hahnemuhle paper range with similar longevity. But, this has already been upstaged with the forthcoming Epson 5500, promising faster printing at 2800 dpi, also using 6 colour pigment inkset.

With so many more combinations of machine, ink and paper available, test results are not always available for the latest prints, but 99.9% of pigmented inksets are now scoring extremely high in blue wool tests.

Conclusion

The effect of print-on-demand production will increasingly affect the quantity and quality of published art images as more artists publish “giclee” editions.

Galleries will have more choice and the collecting public should be stimulated by wider choice and better quality art.

Publishers will be freed from the necessity to hold large stocks.

Giclee prints are a radically new way that artists can produce art, publishers can supply art, and museums, galleries and collectors can display or own high quality art.

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Do you guaranty the quality of the prints?

I guaranty that the prints that you receive will be in pristine condition.

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Who Pays for Shipping?

Prices for prints include Insurance and Shipping. Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery. This of course depends on where you live in this world.

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Could you tell me more about commissioning a portrait?

Commissioned portraiture can be done from either private sittings in the studio or from the photograph and executed in your medium of choice such as: pastel, pencil, watercolor or oil on canvas. To price a desired work the best option would be to contact me by telephone or e-mail.. A portrait is a very personal thing by nature, there are a number of variables involved and every portrait is different.

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