Fine Art Giclee Printing

What is Giclee printing?

Expertly-printed Giclée fine art prints from your original art, photos, or digital files
on premium artist-quality Stretchable Canvas and Fine Art Papers!

Museum-quality Canvas & Fine Art Watercolor Prints
In giclee printing, no screen or other mechanical devices are used and therefore there is no visible dot screen pattern. The image has all the tonalities and hues of the original painting. Giclee (pronounced zhee’klay) is a French term meaning to spray or squirt, which is how an inkjet printer works. However, it is not the same as a standard desktop inkjet printer, and is of a much higher caliber.

Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various museum-quality substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction. Giclee 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, Canon & Hewlett-Packard. These modern technology printers are capable of producing incredibly detailed prints for both the fine art and photographic markets. Giclee 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: Giclee printing can be 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 giclee 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.

Do Giclee printers use ordinary printers inks?
No. They use special light-fast inks, which will remain true for up to 125 years. The way the image is scanned is different also. The original is scanned directly on a drum scanner which can scan flexible images up to 500 x 700 mm.

If the image is larger, or cannot be taken off the stretcher frames, then a large format transparency must be taken of the piece, and this is then scanned.

What kind of fine art paper is used for Giclee printing?
The Color Group produces Giclee prints on a wide variety of museum-quality, acid-free fine art papers and artisit's canvas. We have many to choose from including Matte and Gloss Hi-Textured Cotton Canvas, Arches® Smooth and Textured Watercolor Fine Art paper and Premium Lustre Photo papers. Our color experts will ensure that your Giclee prints match the original artwork as close possible, not only in colour, but also in texture.

How much do Giclee prints cost?
One of the advantages of Giclee printing is that you can order as many or as few as you wish. Please click here for pricing.

How do I place an order?
For a competitive quote please email sales@thecolorgroup.com or visit our Online Quote Request page. To place an order for Giclee Fine Art Prints, please upload your image files via out Job Upload page and simply enter you project information in the job desciption area. Image file formats such as Tiff, JPG and PDF are all perfectly acceptable. For best results we recommend your image resolution be in the neighborhood of 300 dpi/ppi and not below 180 dpi/ppi.

With our new Canon 60”, 12-ink system, we are delivering unprecedented quality. Color matching RIP technology coupled with unbelievably fine detail gives us the ability to match your originals like nothing you have ever seen. Newly developed,
12-color pigment ink system designed to expand the color reproduction range by providing an extremely wide CMYK / RGB color gamut for vivid accurate colors and fine precise details. This RGB expanded 7 color space utilizes red, green & blue ink cartridges in addition to the standard process inks to produce brilliant colors to more accurately match a broader spectrum of colors. Additionally, two levels of gray provide a perfectly neutral monotone output that surpasses expectations.

Also, the utilization of automatic switching between regular black and matte black eliminates the wasted ink and time spent swapping out ink tanks.
The combinations of these 12 inks produce exquisite results.
(Maximum printable width is 59.75 ”)