What is a Giclee?
A Giclee is a high-quality print. It's pronounced “zhee-clay”. Printed on archival-quality paper, my giclees are prints of my original watercolors, graphite drawings, colored pencil art work, and pen & inks.
What is the benefit of giclee prints? The beauty of a giclee print is that each reproduction is as true to the original as possible, and a lot of that has to do with the 12 colors of the printer. Printers with 12 colors are better suited to accurately recreate the original look of the image. In a Limited Edition Printing, each giclee printed from the original is identical to the original art work and may be offered at a more reasonable price than the original art work.
To create a giclee print, a 12 color inkjet printer squirts special pigments (not dyes) onto archival quality material – watercolor paper, 100% cotton paper, linen rag, or canvas. Because of the pigments and quality print medium, giclee prints demonstrate longevity with fade-resistant colors.
The process of creating a giclee is as follows:
Step 1. The original is digitally photographed and scanned and converted into pixels. Pixels are the building blocks for any digital print. They are also what you see on a computer display. The capture process determines the number of pixels (resolution) and the color palette (gamut). These are the most important considerations in achieving the best possible print.
Step 2. The digital capture is adjusted to match the original artwork for color, detail, and size in a program, such as Adobe Photoshop, an image editor. For critical color judgement on the computer monitor, calibration software is used.
Step 3. A proof is printed to visually assess the work done in step 2.
Step 4. If the artist approves the proof, we proceed to step 5. If not, the process is repeated. The typical cycle of proofs is three passes. If an original is large and the color match is critical, a swatch may be printed first.
Step 5. The digital file is finalized and printed as an Archival Inkjet Print (Giclee) on a surface of the artist’s choice, e.g., canvas, watercolor paper, photorag, etc. The digital file is then saved.