Giclée FAQ
Giclée Advantages: Pigment Digital Prints
Our definition of digital pigment printmaking (giclée): The use of professional grade large format printers with pigment inks and archival acid free canvas and papers for photo or art reproduction work with the intention of long preservation.
Did you know Giclée printing offers a much wider color gamut than traditional presses?
There is a wider variety of papers such as canvas and watercolor than press as giclée printing is not as fussy with substrates. The substrates used for giclée printing are from the finest paper and canvas manufacturers such as
- Harman
- Sihl
- Crane Museo
- Breathing Colors
- Hahnemühle.
Different sizes can be printed on demand to accommodate your needs.
While the latest giclée printers use 6 or more colors, traditional printing is 4 colors. Traditional 4 color printing is not sufficient for the requirement of art reproduction and photography work. The gamut (Range of colors reproduced) is higher with giclées. Manufacturers added extra pigments such as light cyan, light magenta, red, green and blue to increase chromatic rendition. Regarding pigments, we only use HP Vivera Pigment inks for printing. This is an essential component to insure lasting reproductions. Every printer has different characteristics: A measure of DPI (dots per inch) is often overrated as the only measure of quality. There are 300 DPI professional machines capable of rendering artwork of a much higher quality than a consumer level printer rated at 600 or 1,200 DPI. Ultimately, even with all the math and gamut graphs available, the true test is to observe a giclée next to the original. Use a loupe if one is available to discern any dot pattern.
Typically it is very hard for printers to reproduce all colors as saturation increases. As we go toward the edges saturation and brilliance increase and mechanical reproduction fails. Giclée printing can capture more colors. Even a 4 color Giclée printer has a better gamut than offset lithographs due to the brilliance of the pigments used. Our 8 and 12-ink HP Vivera pigment color printers go beyond by adding up to 4 levels of black, light magenta, light cyan and R-G-B to the mix. Keep in mind that there is a limit to the gamut of giclées as well; through careful scanning and precise color correction we can produce prints with great depth.
For more information, please visit the What is a giclée page. In addition, we included a brief discussion about what makes giclée printing a great medium and why you should choose giclée for limited editions and embellished unique work.
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