What Is Giclee

If you walk into an art gallery or go through their catalogue, chances are you would find a section reserved for reproduced artwork. It would come under the strange sounding name, giclée (pronounced zhee-clay). What exactly is giclée, you might wonder.

Giclée is a type of digital fine-art inkjet print, usually reproductions of artwork originally created in traditional media (paintings, drawing, and so on). Before the era of high quality digital printing, fine art prints were usually produced by conventional four-color offset lithography. Since the 1990s, that role has been taken over by giclée printing.

History.

In the late 1980’s, the digital printing pioneers were looking for a new identity for the beautiful prints they had worked so hard to achieve.  They wanted a distinction between their artistic work and the commercial pre-press proofs churned out by IRIS printers.

Initially, IRIS prints were not quite topnotch. Their color fastness was doubtful, and the prints tended to fade within a few years.  It was also not possible to achieve a completely smooth transition of color gradients, so important for reproducing artwork. After all, they were used mainly to match colors before the mass scale print run.

The development of new technology changed all that.
* Archival inks with fade-resistant properties increased the life of the prints.
* The versatility of inkjet printing enabled printing on a great range of substrates, the media on which prints are taken. (Giclée prints are today taken on canvas, water color paper, photo-base papers, even vinyl and transparent acetates).
* Finally, extensive research by the pioneers fine-tuned the process.

Digital prints of paintings and other artwork had finally come of age.

Branding.

However, in the art world, words like “computer” and “digital” still had negative associations. Jack Duganne of Nash Editions, California supplied the perfect name for the new art form in 1991. He searched for a French word for the nozzle, which was generic enough for most printers, and it was le gicleur. The related French word for the verb “to spray” was gicler, and its noun version (feminine) was la giclée or “that which is sprayed”. Giclée soon became another name for high quality art prints with IRIS inkjet printers.

Giclée however was to become more than a brand name. It started being used as a broad generic term for any digitally produced high quality fine-art print.

There have been attempts to standardize the quality of giclée prints by various printers’ associations. Some of the common requirements are:
* Light fastness – 6 or higher on the Blue Wool Scale
* pH  of the substrate ranging between 7 – 9
* Weight of substrate at least 250 gsm
* Mention of various details like title, artist’s name, publisher’s name and year of print
* Information on substrate, ink type and machine/production details.

Technology and printing methods.

Giclée prints are high resolution, high quality reproductions printed individually from a digital file using special large format printers. This file can not only be a digitally scanned image of a traditional artwork, but also digital art which has no tangible “original” artwork that can hang on a wall.

Inkjet technology used in giclée printing is way ahead of what the common desktop printer uses.

* Giclée printing these days employs six or more colors, including variants of the same color (for example, regular cyan ‘C’ and light cyan ’c’). A six color CcMmYK model greatly improves print quality by increasing middle-tones. This increases the perceived resolution and richness of the print and the ability to capture subtle color distinctions.
* Archival quality pigment based inks (instead of dye-based inks) ensure better light fastness. Unlike a dye, a pigment particle is not completely soluble in its base. It also tends to be larger and less susceptible to environmental damage, and the image stability of pigment prints is therefore far superior to that of dye based prints.
* A large number of fine replaceable print-heads ensure a wider color range (gamut) and allows printing on different substrates.
* A combination of precise color correction and expert scanning helps giclée printing provide better color accuracy than other techniques of reproduction.

Advantages of giclée.

Before giclée was developed, there were a number of other techniques available to make prints of original artwork. The most popular was the conventional four-color offset lithography. It is a photomechanical process of image printing carried out by commercial printing presses.

Both giclée and offset litho prints have extended the reach of high art into homes by making them affordable to many buyers, who cannot pay for an original. In terms of quality of printing, both these methods of reproduction are accepted by galleries. They can be used to churn out quality prints that can survive the ravages of time.

However, giclée prints have a few advantages over offset litho prints. The advantages pertain to quality, convenience and economy.

The Quality Advantage.

In offset litho, tiny dots in four colors are printed in varying sizes to deceive the eye into seeing different colors.

On the other hand, in giclée prints as in all inkjet printing, spraying the ink onto the substrate actually mixes the colors to create exact shades and virtually continuous tones.  The color range (gamut) of giclée is beyond the scope of lithography. As a result, giclée prints are prized by collectors for their quality and fidelity.

Convenience.

Once an artwork is digitally scanned and archived, the artist can get it custom printed on demand with minimal effort, as and when required.

This also gives the artist control and flexibility over all aspects of printing – the size, the media, and the color tone. The artist can even own and operate the printer.

Printing directly from a digital file does away with intermediate negatives and plates, associated with litho printing, which reduce image detail.

Archived files are also less likely to deteriorate than slides or negatives.

Economy

Giclée printing is an economical alternative to offset litho prints. Though the cost to print a giclée print can be as much as $50 compared to about $5 for an offset litho print, the latter has print runs of at least 1000.

Capital outlay, marketing and storage costs for litho prints work out much higher. The artist can print and sell giclée prints one at a time, according to demand, at a much lower cost.

Considering all this, you can truly say that giclée prints have been a godsend to artists, galleries and collectors alike.

For more information about Giclee visit http://www.gicleestore.com

Photos on Canvas

Everyone loves photographs

It is difficult to find a home where there isn’t a single photograph on display. It can be snaps of a family member; a beautiful landscape; some landmark you visited with your family on a vacation; or photos of your friends and dear ones. It can be the photograph of a special occasion, a much-loved pet or even an old family photograph.

People use photographs to adorn not only their homes, but also as items of office décor. Purposes vary from the decorative to advertising to the inspirational, to go with the ambience of the workplace.

Like a painting

Canvas on the other hand, has been associated with painting for centuries on end. Just say “canvas” and the first things that come to mind are gorgeous oil paintings hanging from the walls in art galleries and museums the world over.

Now just think: what if you could transfer your photographs to canvas and display them on the walls of your home? Wouldn’t that be a great idea? The checkered texture of the canvas would give the photographs an artistic edge aesthetically far superior to a poster or a print on photographic paper, wouldn’t it?

High on elegance

Welcome to the world of photos on canvas! It’s a realm of old world charm, fine craftsmanship and easy elegance. Just like an original oil painting, a photo printed on canvas soothes your mind when you look at it.

No wonder, canvas prints of photographs are a rage. It’s driven by a comparatively new technology, and is adorning the homes of art lovers across the world. High quality canvas prints of original artwork can be the nearest to the real thing, at a negligible fraction of the price. It has almost the same effect on the viewer, though.

Process

In the recent past, printing of artwork has taken some giant strides, especially with the development of giclée or high quality inkjet printing. Dye sublimation printers are another printing technique that is used.

Greater capabilities in digital photography and computer software have helped in increasing the resolution of photographs. At the same time, superior technologies in the field of digital printing in the form of high quality large format printers have widened its scope.  The images are color corrected, resized, given the desired effect, and made ready to print.

Printing on canvas uses these technological enhancements to deliver stunning results. Much bigger enlargements are now possible from normal prints. High fidelity archival quality ink-sets, based either on dyestuffs or pigments, are used to print images on canvas.

Once the printing is over, it is coated with a finishing material to make it more lightfast and scratchproof. Then the canvas is stretched around a wooden frame. The finished product looks just like a frame mounted painting on canvas.

Media

Canvas photo printers choose from a variety of canvas fabrics as the substrate. The best quality is 100% cotton. Finishes include matte, glossy, and waterproof. Depending on your preference and your budget you can choose virtually any size of canvas, even 60” wide, for printing your favorite photograph.

Advantages

Affordable
For an art form so striking in its impact, canvas photo prints are surprisingly reasonably priced. For most people, even a replica of an original painting might be quite expensive, let alone a painting by a well known artist. Canvas photo prints offer an inexpensive alternative for those who are fascinated by art.

Moreover, canvas photo printing lets you give the oil painting look to your favorite photographs, those that have a special significance to you.

Widely available – even online
Though quite exotic, you don’t have to go to an art gallery to get your photos printed on canvas. Already there are a large number of canvas print makers across the world. If by chance there isn’t one in your city or town, you always have the option of ordering a canvas photo print online.

All you have to do is to upload your reasonable quality photographs to the portal of such a service provider. The printer will do everything, including dispatch of the print to your address.

Different formats
Canvas photo prints can be made from almost any format. It could be from your old family photograph, your child’s drawing, from old negatives or slides – virtually from anything that can be photographed or scanned.

Great as gifts
Canvas photo prints are a great option for gifting to people you care about. It fits into almost any occasion – birthdays, anniversaries, housewarming, and so on. The fact that it can be personalized only adds to its suitability as a gift item.

Flexibility
Because canvas photo printing is based on digital technology, it can use a wide array of software to give the exact look and size that you want.  Your photos can be enlarged, combined, given special effects, color enhanced and so on just like digital photo prints using pro-level image editing software.

For example, you might want your childhood photograph from the old family album to have a sepia tone for the old look. The effect would look stunning in a canvas print.

No glare
Canvas prints do not have to be framed and covered with a glass sheet. So the view is not obstructed by light reflection from the glass in a brightly lit room.  No glass also means there’s a lower risk of breakage and damage to the print.

Long life
Canvas prints have a far greater life span than photographic paper or other substrates.

Flipside
Canvas photo prints are a great way to print your photographs. And like all things great, they have a few drawbacks too.

More expensive
While canvas prints invariably look better, they do cost more than prints on photographic paper. This is because of the high level of skill required at every stage of their production. However, people are generally willing to pay a premium for their unique appearance, and the price difference is slowly getting reduced as more and more printers enter the market.

Less commonly found
You cannot find a canvas printer as often as you can find a photo printer. Online canvas printing options are a way of getting around this shortcoming.

Conclusion
Overall you can safely say that canvas photo prints are a vast improvement in the photo printing scenario. Considering the beauty and impact of the final product, it is good value for money and is a development that is here to stay.

For more information about Photos on Canvas visit www.gicleestore.com

Fine Art Reproductions

If you love fine art like nearly all people do, chances are you’d want to hang a specimen on your wall. Who wouldn’t want a da Vinci, a Rembrandt, a Monet, a Renoir, a Goya, a Constable, a Van Gogh, a Cezanne, a Matisse, a Picasso, or a Dali to adorn their walls?

High art has been there since the dawn of civilization, but since the Renaissance i.e. the fourteenth century onwards, there is a deluge of sculptures, murals, gouache, watercolor, and oil paintings to choose from. In the closing decades of the last century, digital art too has made its way into the ranks of fine art.

Masterpieces don’t come cheap

The problem lies with the finances. Possessing an original painted by the likes of those mentioned above could set you back by millions of dollars. Only a handful of art galleries, museums or billionaire private collectors can afford to have a painting by such luminaries in their collection. Does that mean the not so rich art lovers cannot have a painting at home to marvel at, or to lift their minds above the mundane? Of course they can! In such a situation, fine art reproduction can come to your rescue.

Copies

An obvious way to get a great painting for your home is to go for a copy. There are artists specializing in copying the work of masters. Such copies are hand-painted by on real canvas, using real oil paints. The artists also try their best to make the copies as near identical to the original as possible. While you can hardly expect the class of the original, you can have the satisfaction that it is a genuine oil painting, done on canvas with real oil paint instead of being a paper poster.

The flipside is that:

a. A copy is painted by a trained and skilled artist, using expensive equipment and oil paint, and taking a lot of time. As a result it might still be too expensive for your budget.

b. The touch of masterful genius is bound to be absent. The great artists were, well, great artists after all.

Paper prints

Fine art has been reproduced in the print form since the 1900s, with the advancement of printing technology. Various techniques have been used, the best among them being offset lithography until Giclee printing came along.

Both these techniques can make “museum quality”, high fidelity prints of the original artwork. And both have been a boon for art lovers on a budget who would still want to possess a fine art specimen or two for their homes or workplaces.

Offset litho

Color offset lithography is a photo-mechanical process of commercial printing where tiny dots in four colors are printed in different sizes. The overall effect is to produce an illusion of rich colors and minute detail. Before that, the original artwork is scanned using large format drum scanners and a series of negatives and plates made.

Giclee printing on the other hand is an advanced ink-jet printing technique using large format specialized printers on to a host of substrates or media. It emerged in the early nineties and has for all practical purposes replaced offset litho as the art reproduction technology of choice. Let’s take a look at the advantages of Giclee printing to see the reasons behind the phenomenon.

Offset vs. Giclee

a. Better color mixing: in Giclee printing, the ink is sprayed onto the substrate to actually mix the colors. This produces better color fidelity than offset litho where tiny dots of color merely deceive the eye into seeing a shade of color.

b. More colors: Giclee printers may use even twelve color ink sets, including more than one shade of the same color. This helps in creating perfect middle tones. As a result the color range or gamut achieved by Giclee printing cannot be matched by offset litho printing.

c. Pigment advantage: the latest inks used in Giclee printing are based on pigments rather than dyes. Pigment particles are less soluble, bigger in size, and much less likely to get degraded by the environment than dyes. As a result, Giclee prints provide better light fastness and therefore much greater shelf life than offset litho prints.

d. Digital advantage: the first stage of Giclee printing involves scanning or digital photography of the original artwork and archiving it. This has a whole lot of advantages.

i. It obviates the need for quality-reducing negatives and plates used in offset litho (and the associated storage problems).

ii. Archived digital files are less likely to deteriorate over time compared to film.

iii. All the advantages of digital image editing tools come into play.  Imparting any special effect, color tone etc. becomes easy, as does the possibility of printing on any one from a host of media for each single print.

iv. The prints can be taken one at a time on demand. There is no need to print in a lot.

e. Cheaper to print: while offset litho prints can be cheaper than a Giclee print, such low cost can be achieved only with a print run of 1000!  In fact, there is little difference in cost of printing a thousand or a single piece with offset litho. So for a single print or just a few prints, Giclee printing actually turns out to be the much cheaper alternative.

“Original Prints”

Giclee printing has another great advantage.

If you are thinking about buying an “original print”, the artist who created the original has to create the copy too, or at least have total creative control over the printing process. The artist also certifies such prints by signing on the bottom right hand margin.

Giclee prints are best suited for making original, authorized prints. The artist can recreate the original artwork himself, choose the color tones, decide on the size and type of media, and even operate the printer himself.

Giclee printing on canvas

The latest craze in the fine art reproduction market is the Giclee print on canvas. The reasons are easy to see. If all the advantages of Giclee printing are combined with the natural and artistic texture of canvas, you have a product which is as close to the real thing as is humanly possible to create.

The rich color tones and high color fidelity on the medium most suited to fine art can recreate the magic of the original like no other. And you should rightly be proud of possessing such a beautiful work of art.

For more information about Fine Art Reproductions visit www.gicleestore.com