Giclee Printing

 

  1. Where comes the Name?
    The word Giclee (pronounced ghee-clay) is derived from the French word gicler which means 'spraying' or 'spurting', to indicate a technique which uses non-interrupted fine streams of ink to get ink colors onto the substrate.

  2. A short history of Giclee technology
    This technology was first developed as a proofing process for digital prepress applications, and remains the ultimate soft proof in the digital workflow. [1]P‡ The high quality of the process was noticed in the mid 1980s by pioneers of Giclé[1]H‡e printing like Graham Nash and Jon Coons. The high quality fine art printing technique started to grow in popularity in the mid 1990s and become mature and widely accepted in the past 5 years.

  3. How good is Giclee Prints?
    A giclee prints are now regarded to rival the originals in detail and in color.

q       The Look: At present giclee prints can rival the quality of originals, especially for all watercolors and oil paintings not so heavy textured. It has an excellent color and detail rendition capability which is a far cry from traditional lithograph (poor detail rendition) and serigraph (poor color dynamic range) technology.

q       The Life: Giclee printing use pigmented-based ink that is highly stable and has colorfastness over 100 years under display light.

q       The size: With large format printer, one can normally reproduce artwork with width up to 50 inches and length at virtually any size.

q       The acceptance: giclee prints are widely accepted by collectors, general households and museums. [1]P‡

  1. Why Giclee printing can have such a high quality?
    Four basic elements determine the success of giclee printing business:

q       Modern printer technology, such as EPSON 9600, its printhead can spray 6 million droplets per second on the substrate. Each droplet of ink is about the size of a red blood cell. Multiple droplets, in 30 various sizes, are overlaid to create a beautiful continuous tone reproduction

q       Latest software development in imaging processing such as Photoshop.

q       Archival grade ink which has a colorfastness index more than 100 years, e.g. [1]P‡ Ultrachrome™ pigmented inks

q       Print Media: modern researchers have developed excellent quality media for giclee printers. A wide selection of media is now available, including those for watercolors, oils and those for brush paintings; e.g. EPSON Canvas.

1.       How big is the fine art Giclee print market?
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 (more than 70% over the past 5 years) while the traditional print methods have stagnated. It has been reported that on average over 50% of [1]P‡ the gallery income are now coming from giclee print sales.

 

To learn more about Giclee prints, please click Q&A here.