What is a Giclée Print?
The word Giclée (pronounced "zhee-clay") is French for "to spray on." This word had become synonymous with the "Iris" printing process, but is now used for any inkjet-produced print.
In the beginning only an image printed from an IrisGprint machine was accepted as a giclee print. But then people found out that this machine was just a slightly modified proofer (the Iris 3047), simply with the ability to accept thick fine art paper. So basically it was a regular Iris 3047 model proofer with a different label.
But more importantly, all kinds of advances in inkjet technology continued to overwhelm the now somewhat outdated Iris system. Roland offered variable drop; ColorSpan offered considerably increased speed; Hewlett-Packard offered a completely user-friendly printer; even Encad developed a printer that could reproduce art.
During these recent years thousands of artists began to buy their own printers to reproduce their paintings. In other words individual artists and photographers learned that they could often get more reliable output by buying their own printers rather than having unacceptable and costly prints attempted at a commercial location.
In the final analysis, remember that the pseudo French word giclee means merely sprayed (substance), as in "squirted ink" on an inkjet printer. Yes, a true giclee print should have a quality standard, but it's presumptuous to assume that only piezo technology can work. Some of the worst printheads in the industry are piezo (such as the printheads used on many solvent ink grandformat printers).
Thus it is self-defeating to attempt to claim that only a piezo printer is "true giclee." Any such movement will simply result in end users of thermal printhead technology responding by pointing out the embarrassing defects of Iris giclee printers, the well documented propensity of most piezo printers to ruin images with horizontal banding defects, and so on.
Unlike the lithograph or serigraph printing methods the image is digitally scanned into a computer and then digitally manipulated. The digital image can be color corrected, imperfections eliminated, resized, and tweaked in many different ways. A colour image can be turned into a black and white image, and a black and white image can be collared. Unlike the offset lithograph process the possibilities are almost endless.
Advantages of Giclée Prints
If you paint with the intention of selling your work you need to make some upfront decisions. Are you going to sell only originals or are you going to offer limited edition images for sale?
Here is a very good reason to offer limited edition prints. When a person purchases one of your original paintings they are not only purchasing the image because they like it, but with the idea it may increase in value. The only way it will do this is if you and your work become well known. If you only sell originals this will be hard to do. Very few people will ever see your work.
Now comes the advantage of Giclée reproductions. When you sell an original painting you need to reserve the right to produce limited edition prints. When you produce and sell limited edition prints your work becomes more in demand and your value as an artist increases. As your value increased so does your work. As your work increases in value so does the original prints that were sold to your customers. Everyone wins.
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