A “giclée” print is a piece of printed artwork or photograph produced by using a high quality digital inkjet printer. The inks used must be specially formulated and compatible with the extreme fineness of the printer head that spurts jets of ink in minute droplets at a resolution of 1440dpi or more. Epson, Iris and Lyson supply many of the ink-sets that have been tested. The paper or canvas that is used is specially prepared to accept this type of printing mechanism and ink-set. Hahnemuhle, St Cuthberts, Epson and Lyson produce tested papers and canvas.

Lightfastness

Early inkjet prints in the mid 1990’s were disappointingly fugitive with noticeable fading occurring quite quickly. Dramatic improvements have been made in the inks used and the paper or canvas substrate. It was found that it is crucial that the combination of machine, ink-set and substrate is compatible and tested as a whole. Recent tests show that the resulting print can be lightfast to very high levels with a minimum of six on the Blue Wool test, or 25 years by Wilhelm Institute tests. The latest test results show life expectancy rates of 100 to 200 years for some giclée prints. When printed on good quality heavyweight art paper the print should possess archival standards of permanence comparable or better than other collectable artwork.

Quality

The visual quality of the print result is extremely high with seeming continuous tone prints without dots, lines or barring. The colour saturation and definition can be stunning.

Benefits and disadvantages

One advantage that digital printing offers to the artist and publisher is that the edition can be printed on demand. Giclée images are recorded as a digital file and can be produced on a giclée printer singly, or more, whenever required. The prints will be exactly the same at the start and end of a print run, even if the run is interrupted and printed on different occasions. However, the costs per giclée print are quite high because the paper, ink machinery and specialist time involved are expensive. The machines are very slow often taking an hour to print one A0 print sheet. The machines can cost £50,000.00 and the paper may be £10 a sheet.

Conclusion

As more artists publish “giclée” editions. Galleries will have more choice and the collecting public should be stimulated by wider choice and better quality art. Giclée prints are a radically new way that artists can produce art and museums, galleries and collectors can display or own high quality art.