What is a Giclee Print
The word "Giclée" (pronounced "zhee-clay") comes from the French verb "to spray" - and refers to the ink being sprayed onto the paper or canvas at high speed.
The giclée process is rapidly replacing screen printing and lithography and becoming the most popular means of reproducing works of fine art. The print quality is usually outstanding as it offers greater tone and definition. The advance in print technology has resulted in printers which can place tens of million minute drops of ink on canvas or paper every minute. This has been matched by advances in ink with manufacturers offering guarantees on longevity and lightfastness. Instead of the traditional four colour printing most giclée printers use seven or eight colour printing. This permits the use of vibrant saturated colours without any loss of subtlety.
Paper making has also kept pace and an exiting range of textures and finishes are available from several different manufacturers. One of my favourite papers is Hahnemuhle's Fine Art Phot Rag paper. Founded in 1584, Hahnemühle is the oldest German paper mill still producing papers for traditional and digital art. These papers are simply exquisite for ultra-high resolution archival printing. With the right inks and paper (such as I use) giclée prints should be as permanent and last as well or better than those produced by more traditional methods,
Giclée prints are now recognised by the Fine Art Trade Guild who have set standards for the lightfastness of inks and the quality of paper. This has now become a recognised British Standard.
LornaPrints produces high resolution inkjet prints made with pigment-based, archival quality inks on a heavy weight, all-natural-fiber paper that contains no optical brighteners, the Print Permanence Rating for these prints is over 100 years.
Using Hahnemuhle paper and Epson Ultra Chrome pigmented inks this is an impressive way to combine the precision of digital print media with the wonderful grace of genuine artist papers made in a traditional way.
About Hahnemuhle
This German company has been producing paper since 1584 and offers a wide selection of papers to meet the needs of artists, designers, draftsmen, printers and bookbinders. Many consider Hahnemühle papers to be the gold standard against which other papers are compared.
Their popular Photo Rag Paper is extremely age resistant. The smooth surface structure can be used for a variety of applications. This quality is ideal for archival printing of black and white or colour photographs and also art reproductions.
My particular favorite is the 308gsm, smooth, bright white, age resistant paper which has a 100% cotton rag content. The heavier 308 gsm paper provides the weight of an art paper with a smooth calendered surface, which picks up every detail and is especially ideal for archival printing of black and white and colour photographs.
About Epson
The Epson Stylus Photo range of printers continue to set high standards of inkjet printing giving exceptional print quality. Together with their pigment based ink system called UltraChrome, which combines light coloured inks such as light black, light magenta and light cyan, with the traditional cyan, magenta, yellow and black to increase the range of printable colours, and two types of black used for different media types for example Glossy or Matte surfaces, in addition with their new software application called Grey Balancer, guarantees that even the most cynical die-hard photographer will be willing to take a second look.