What is Giclée exactly?

First and foremost...Giclee's are not all alike! Fine art Giclée printing is a meticulous process requiring the latest-generation digital scanning and pigment "ink jet" technologies along with the skill of an artist to create museum quality work. The process calls for highly-specialized equipment, software, materials and techniques to obtain the best accuracy, sharpness, continuous color tone and artistic interpretation available to fine art prints.

What's the difference between ink jet and Giclée?

This is one of the most common questions we're asked. And it's not suprising.

For one thing, the technology that makes Giclee printing (a common term for archival pigment printing or aqueous printing) - possible has evolved very quickly over the past decades. But there's also a lot of confusion among art professionals and their clients about the word “giclée” itself – and what technology it actually describes.

“Giclée” (roughly translated as “little squirt” in French) is the term now used for pigment printing with large format ink jet printers specifically developed to spray water-soluable pigments onto specially coated canvas and a wide variety of papers. These printers are technically very different from the dye or solvent-based ink jet printers common for commercial use.

Part of confusion about the term “giclée” is that it was first casually applied to the fine art reproductions printed with “Iris” inkjet printers developed during ‘90s. But while some people still use the terms “iris” and “giclée” interchangeably, the two types of ink jet printing have distinct differences.The older Iris printing technology is 4-color and still uses dye-based inks like those used for photography. The downside of Iris: these inks are unstable and fall short when it comes to longevity.

The latest Giclée (pigment or aqueous ) 9-color printers have the most advanced print heads with special nozzles designed to spray the latest, quick-drying pigment products. They're capable of producing astonishing high resolution prints that are truly archivable.

And Giclée technology is continuing to improve.