The Giclee Process
Defining Giclee
Since its inception in the late 1980's, Giclee has been defined in many ways. At Archival Arts, Giclee is a specific process for creating high-quality prints of artwork. Archival Arts uses the term "giclee" specifically for the process of reproducing a physical work of art, with museum quality, on archival media. We do not consider prints derived from a digital photograph or digital art to be giclee. These prints would be called "archival pigment prints" or simply digital prints.
Capture
Giclee requires a capture of the original art on a professional quality camera or scanner. The capture is the most important part of the process and must be performed with extremely high resolution to ensure the best quality.
Unfortunately smart phones, consumer grade scanners, point and shoot cameras, and even most professional SLR cameras do not offer the clarity needed to create a museum quality print. The best giclee studios employ cameras that capture 80 to 100 megapixels of information. It is important that the capture system has the best quality lens to ensure razor-sharp detail. Bright, soft, color-balanced lighting is also critical to reproducing colors accurately.
Color Correction
Even the best digital capture systems either exaggerate or desaturate colors. An expert eye is needed to make corrections to the digital file so every print matches the original as close as possible. Since giclee prints contain a limited number of inks, it is not possible to reproduce the full gamut of paint colors. For this reason we ask for flexibility on the final color.
Proofing
Giclee prints are not valid without the approval of the artist. (Many online art gallery sites art too large to offer proofing. This disqualifies their prints as a true giclee!). All of our captures are proofed at 8x10 size on the media of your choice. Proof prints are only meant for color approval. Upon picking up your original to see your proof, we have usually printed at least two or three proofs to get the color as close to your original as possible.
Artists are given the final approved proof for their records. We do not recommend selling proofs because this is your copy to compare to your prints. Once the proofs are approved, we archive your files for convenience and provide you with your files on a USB drive. You can provide us with a drive, or obtain one from us.
Printing
When the proof is approved, you have the choice of printing your giclee prints on watercolor paper or canvas media. These medias are archival and have been tested with our archival inks to last a lifetime. Watercolor prints do not need to be treated, however, matting and framing under glass with UV protection is recommended. Canvas prints sprayed with our varnish are UV protected and can be displayed without glass. We recommend framing canvas prints to protect the edges from chipping. Gallery-wrapped canvases may occasionally need to be touched up on the edges with archival ink.
Certificate of Authenticity
A certificate of authenticity is offered for prints captured from an original on our Fuji GFX system and printed on archival media. Certificates detail the camera used to capture the file, the inks and media used to create the prints, and information related to the original and the print. (The artist fills in specific info about the print and original.) Certificates are not provided for prints under 8.5x11.
Now your prints are giclee!
