subject: As Good As The Original [print this page] In the world of art, a Giclee is a digital print copy of an original painting. The word has its origin from the French language and means a spray or a squirt of liquid. Since it does not make use of a screen or any other form of mechanical printing, you will not see the dot matrix visual effect. The effect you get is smooth and very tonal in nature making it a close copy of the original.
Earlier when fine art had to be reproduced, it was done on a master plate that was known as the matrix. These were used to make a specific number of copies of the original work. Once the copies were made the matrix was destroyed by the artist and that is how a limited series of an original masterpiece was created. In fact it is from such traditional forms of duplication that other art forms such as etching, lithography as well as linocut have come about.
Giclee printing is the next step in printing technology. An image is first created with the help of high-resolution digital scans. These are printed with archival quality inks that are placed on different substrates like canvas, fine art paper or even photo paper. The kind of color accuracy that you get is unbeatable. Giclee printing is generally done with a professional 8-Colour to 12-Colour ink-jet printer. There are several brands of printers that are capable of this and are in great demand in the photographic market. There is a clear difference between Giclee prints and Iris prints which first came about in the 70s and were done with 4-Colour ink-jet prints.
There are several advantages to Giclee printing. Several artists do not find it really reasonable to make multiple copies of their paintings and thats where Giclees come into play. Art can be reproduced when needed and on demand. Once you have a digital archive of the image, reproducing it as a Giclee is an easy job and can be done at a reasonable cost. You can easily save yourself the massive upfront cost of mass production of an art work. The quality of the archived files does not deteriorate in any manner. Another great advantage to Giclees is that it can easily be reproduced to any size that the client demands, giving the artist an added flexibility to their art.
The quality that you get from a Giclee print easily outdoes a regular silver halide and gelatin printing means that are used. Therefore, it is often used in museums as well as art galleries and photo exhibitions.
