Giclee Prints
The term Giclée’ (pronounced "Zhee-clay") is derived from the French verb gicler’, which literally means to squirt’ or to spray’ and describes the way that the printer nozzle applies the pigments to the paper. Using a high resolution photograph of an original painting, giclee prints are typically created using large format inkjet printers. These printers use highly pigmented archival inks that are laid down on fine art paper or canvas. The resulting product is a vivid print with exceptional lightfastness & stability.
It was a major break through in the fine art community when giclee reproductions were introduced to the market in the late 1980s . The quality of a giclee print is far superior to all other forms of printing. It fact, when done correctly, it’s the closest an artist can get to matching their original 2-D artwork. For art lovers who wanted to collect fine art but couldn’t afford an original, giclee reproductions quickly became a popular alternative to purchase.
Giclee prints can be made to reproduce any form of 2-D artwork, such as oil, acrylic, and watercolor paintings. In order to create a giclee print, four major criteria must be met during the printing process:
Resolution- The original piece of art should be professionally scanned or photograph at 300 dpi or higher resolution.
Ink- The ink must be pigmented (not dye). There also needs to be 8 or more different colored pigmented inks used in the printer.
Paper- The paper must be 100% archival. With that said there are a wide variety of materials available for giclee printing (as long as it’s archival) such as: canvas, gloss paper, mat paper, velvet paper, watercolor textured paper, and specialty artisan paper.
Printer- The printer itself must be a wide format ink jet printer that uses 8 or more archival pigments during the printing process.
It was a major break through in the fine art community when giclee reproductions were introduced to the market in the late 1980s . The quality of a giclee print is far superior to all other forms of printing. It fact, when done correctly, it’s the closest an artist can get to matching their original 2-D artwork. For art lovers who wanted to collect fine art but couldn’t afford an original, giclee reproductions quickly became a popular alternative to purchase.
Giclee prints can be made to reproduce any form of 2-D artwork, such as oil, acrylic, and watercolor paintings. In order to create a giclee print, four major criteria must be met during the printing process:
Resolution- The original piece of art should be professionally scanned or photograph at 300 dpi or higher resolution.
Ink- The ink must be pigmented (not dye). There also needs to be 8 or more different colored pigmented inks used in the printer.
Paper- The paper must be 100% archival. With that said there are a wide variety of materials available for giclee printing (as long as it’s archival) such as: canvas, gloss paper, mat paper, velvet paper, watercolor textured paper, and specialty artisan paper.
Printer- The printer itself must be a wide format ink jet printer that uses 8 or more archival pigments during the printing process.