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What are giclée prints?
Giclee, pronounced “jee-clay “ is a French word meaning “fine spray.” It is a form of printmaking where original works can be reproduced in limited editions with archival quality inks. The giclée process generally provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction as they are printed from high resolution digital scans.
My giclée prints are made at Old Town Editions in Alexandia, Virginia, a company which I have found to be very exacting in its quality standards.
How are giclée prints made?
According to Old Town Editions: There are two basic steps in the IRIS printing process. First, a digital image of an original art work is created, either by scanning a photographic transparency or negative of the original or by using a high-resolution digital camera to make a record of the original art. The digital image is manipulated on a computer to create a faithful reproduction of the original art. The second step is the actual printing of the image on the IRIS printer. A high quality fine arts paper is wrapped around a drum on the printer. The computer controlled printer sprays very tiny droplets of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks at the paper with exacting precision.
Four million drops per second are applied to the substrate from the color streams of high-pressure inks. Each droplet of ink is about the size of a red blood cell. Multiple droplets are overlaid to create a beautiful continuous tone reproduction, rather than the coarser dot pattern associated with offset lithographs.
Old Town Editions uses printers manufactured by IRIS Graphics of Bedford, Massachusetts, a leading supplier of the ink-jet printers used in the graphic arts industry. IRIS images debuted as a fine arts reproduction medium about six years ago. Previously, IRIS printers had been used in the graphics arts field for proofing and commercial design projects. The idea of an ink being sprayed on a paper or canvas is such that any ink jet printer might be used to make a "Giclée print" but most art dealers assume today that a Giclée print has been made on an IRIS printer. Properly made IRIS prints are beautiful and superior to other ink jet prints in both image permanence and tonal quality.
What kind of archival qualities do these Giclee prints have?
My printer, Old Town Editions uses a “high stability” ink set on archival watercolor paper. In tests conducted with a standardized set of fading criteria by Wilhelm Imaging Research, 70 years of continuous daily display will pass before noticeable fading occurs. This is state of the art technology.
Visit www.Wilhelm-Research.com for more information on these archival standards.
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