What is Giclee Printing?
Giclee is a french name invented for the use of high quality ink-jet printers to produce fine art prints. The word giclee is derived from the french verb "gicler" which means "to squirt," and that is what an ink-jet printer does when making a giclee print. Giclee (pronounced "zhee-clay") is often used in fine arts galleries and print shops, or it is used by the artists themselves when they want to re-create their work on their own. Although this description may sound quite common, it is important to understand the high quality of technology that goes into the art of giclee printing.
How to Make a Giclee Print
In order to make a giclee print, the images are first scanned digitally and in high resolution. Then, the images are printed onto various surfaces such as cotton canvas, watercolor paper, matte photo paper, or artist textured vinyl. What makes the giclee printing process so special is the use of archival quality inks. This means that along with using the basic CMYK color model, the printers also have extra cartridges for further variation of color shades. This allows giclee to create a better resolution, more accurate colors, and cleaner gradient transitions. This makes the print look identical to the original work, maintaining all of its original tones and hues. As a result, giclee prints are of a much better quality than traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes. Giclee prints are also not to be confused with "iris prints," which are 4-Color ink-jet prints invented by Iris Graphics in the late 1970s.
Giclee Prints Benefit Artists and Buyers
Giclee prints are good for both artists and buyers. For artists, giclee printing means faster, cheaper, and better quality reproductions of artwork based on demand rather than a set number for mass production. Furthermore, once a giclee image has been scanned for use with the giclee printing process, it is immediately archived. This image will not deteriorate over time like film will. Finally, the giclee printing process means that artwork can be reproduced in any size and on any type of media.
Giclee prints can be found in many famous galleries and museums. The Metroplitan Museum features artists who have used the giclee printing process to reproduce their work. Giclee can also be found at the Museum of Modern Art. Furthermore, famous artists and photographers such as Annie Leibovitz use giclee prints for personal auctions of their work. Clearly, giclee is a high quality printing process that is not to be outdone.
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