Giclée Facts

Giclée
French meaning “a spraying of ink”

Giclée (pronounced “zhee-clay”) offers one of the highest degrees of accuracy and richness of colors.

Integrating many of the best features of originals and lithographs, Giclées are digitally imaged prints of original artwork on canvas or archival paper.

Fine art printing has become even more precise with the advent of the revolutionary Giclée printing process. In the Giclée process, a fine stream of ink is sprayed onto archival art paper or canvas. Exact calculation of hue, value and density direct the ink from four nozzles. This produces a combination of 512 chromatic changes (with over three million colors possible of highly saturated, non-toxic water-based ink). Since no screens are used in Giclée printing, the prints have a higher resolution than lithographs and the dynamic color range is greater than serigraphy.

Giclée print making provides a luminosity and brilliance that represent the artist’s original work better than any reproduction technique available today. Offset lithography (commercial printing) is limited to the four-color process and is normally printed on 80/100 pound coated stock paper. This does not give the same quality of a Giclée print.

How to Care for Giclée Prints and Canvases
Gicléecanvases and prints should be treated like any other work of art. Prints should be protected from moisture and extreme exposure to direct sunlight. When framing Giclée prints, we highly recommend using a conservation glass that filters at least 97% of the UV rays.