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Gicleé Printing
The Definition : Gicleé (zhee-klay)
- The French word "giclée" is a feminine noun that
means a spray or a spurt of liquid. The word may have been derived from
the French verb "gicler" meaning "to squirt". The Term : The term "gicleé print"
connotes an elevation in printmaking technology.
Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed
with archival quality inks onto various substrates
including canvas, fine art, and photobase paper. The
gicleé printing process
provides better color accuracy than other means of
reproduction.
The Process : Gicleé prints are
created typically using professional 8-Color to
12-Color ink-jet printers. Among the manufacturers of these printers are
vanguards such as Epson, MacDermid Colorspan, &
Hewlett-Packard. These modern technology printers are
capable of producing incredibly detailed prints for
both the fine art and photographic markets. Gicleé prints are sometimes
mistakenly referred to as Iris prints, which are
4-Color ink-jet prints from a printer pioneered in the late 1970s by Iris
Graphics.
The Advantages : Gicleé prints are
advantageous to artists who do not find it feasible
to mass produce their work, but want to reproduce their art as
needed, or on-demand. Once an image is digitally
archived, additional reproductions can be made with minimal effort and
reasonable cost. The prohibitive up-front cost of
mass production for an edition is eliminated. Archived files will not
deteriorate in quality as negatives and film
inherently do. Another tremendous advantage of
gicleé printing is that
digital images can be reproduced to almost any size
and onto various media, giving the artist the ability to customize
prints for a specific client.
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