Giclée Printing – The Full Story
Artwork is captured from high resolution scans or photographs, and is then proofed and printed digitally using precise printers, archival-quality inks and acid-free art and photo papers. Giclée prints are quickly being recognized by the world’s leading galleries and museums as the finest reproductions available to date.
Our 12-colour Canon giclée printer produces incredibly detailed prints for both the fine art and photographic markets. Giclée prints render deep, saturated colors and have an exceptional quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends. The term giclée is meant to be applied only to archival digital prints made with fine art paper or canvas.
Giclée prints are advantageous to artists who do not find it feasible to mass produce their work, but want to reproduce their art as needed, on-demand, or for limited edition. Once an image is digitally archived, additional reproductions can be made with minimal effort and reasonable cost. The prohibitive up-front cost of mass production for an edition is eliminated. Archived files will not deteriorate in quality as negatives and film inherently do. Digital images can be reproduced to almost any size and onto various papers, giving the artist the ability to customize prints for a specific client.
Today, Giclée prints have gained wide acceptance and legitimacy, and are now shown in museums and galleries throughout the world. Numerous examples of giclée prints can for example be found in the New York Metropolitan Museum, and in the Tate Galleries. Recent auctions of giclée prints have fetched £10,800 for Annie Leibovitz, and £22,800 for Wolfgang Tillmans.
The Giclée printing process is environmentally safe since the inks are water-based and the paper is archival and acid-free. Thus, a Giclée must be treated as fine art and placed away from direct sunlight, even though we use long-life archival UV-safe pigmented inks supplied by Canon.