About Giclee Printing


Giclee (pronounced Gee’clay) is a French term meaning to spray or squirt. The term “giclee print” connotes an elevation in printmaking technology. Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality on 100% cotton rag 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. These modern technology printers are capable of producing incredibly detailed prints. 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 quality of the giclee print rivals traditional printing processes and is commonly found in museums, art galleries, and photographic galleries.

Giclee prints are advantageous to artists who do not find it feasible to mass produce their work, but want to reproduce their art as needed. Once an image is digitally archived, additional reproductions can be made. 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 does. 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.