What Is A Gicleé Print? - The Gold Standard Of Art Reproduction

At the start of my career as an artist, my level of knowledge about creating faithful reproductions from original works was limited. There were so many different processes involved, choosing quality papers, scanning technology, and inks. I discovered along the way that gicleé prints are the only way to go if you want to produce the best quality prints from your work.

What is a Gicleé Print?

A Gicleé print is basically the gold standard when it comes to reproduction from original art.

Also known as ‘museum quality’ a gicleé print must be 300 DPI or over to be considered a true gicleé. The name is derived from a french term meaning ‘spray’ relating to the inks being sprayed onto the surface medium, which is usually either heavyweight archival paper or canvas

Which type of inks are used for Giclee Printing?

A regular inkjet print uses the CMYK print process (4 colour) wheras gicleé uses an 8 or 12 colour process. The other crucial difference is the type of ink used, which in this case is a pigment based ink rather than traditional lithographic printing with 4 colours. Pigment based inks have a much wider colour gamut than inkjet inks. These cover the full range of magentas, cyans, photo blacks etc, and last for up to 100 years with no loss of tone and vibrancy. Regular inkjet inks are cheap to manufacture and lack the quality and longevity of pigment based prints

Scanning your work V’s photographing your work

I invested in an epson scanner a few years ago, allowing me to scan my paintings without having to outsource. In the past my work was photographed by a professional photographer, but as a personal preference feel that scanning the work gives more control and provides a much higher quality digital file.

"The Epson 50000 A3 Flatbed Scanner allows me to scan work at 600-700 DPI to acheive the results needed for making large digital files. I  scan my larger paintings in sections, which are then pieced together digitally using professional image stitch software"

Choosing a Print Specialist

As times have moved on there are many new online gicleé print specialists to choose from who have the capabilities of printing high quality images on whichever type of medium you prefer.

If you want a more seamless production process The Print Space are a professional print studio with locations in London, Germany and the USA, and can provide a high quality online remote service for artists and photographers. They offer a dropshipping service, sending prints directly to your customers via your online shop. This can be more costly, but does save a great deal of time and energy for you as the artist.

Fine Art Papers

The majority of museum grade, acid free papers are made from Alpha Cellulose, Cotton Rag, or a mixture of the two such as Permajet Giclee Art Paper . My new range of open-edition prints are printed on Hahnemule Bamboo Paper, the worlds first FineArt inkjet paper made from 90% bamboo fibres. This paper is one of my favourites, in terms of texture, sustainability and colour reproduction.

Proofing Your Work 

This crucial stage of the gicleé print process allows me to view individual test strips which show me how the final print will look. Adjustments can then be made before producing the final print. I also learned about the importance of investing in a screen calibration device to ensure my screen colours were accurate, before starting this whole process.

I hope this article has been helpful, let me know how you progress with your own gicleé printing journey!