Giclée — revealing the mystery

Wondering what is a giclée? Or how you pronounce it? I have, since hearing about them four years ago at a local art walk in North Park, San Diego. Giclée, pronounced zhee-clay, is the process of making fine art prints from a high resolution digital source using an inkjet printer. The term has been used since 1990 and now denotes any fine art print created with the high-quality inkjet process using fade-resistant archival inks. The printers utilize the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK) color process. The four color process allows for increased resolution quality & color gamut and allows for smoother gradient transitions, which means high quality prints closer to the originals.

The difference between lithographs and giclées is the process in making the prints. Lithographs are prints that utilizes plates to transfer inked images onto the printing surface. Lithographs offer the advantage with high-volume print jobs because the plates retain its high quality and effectiveness throughout the print jobs. This equates to creating runs of prints at large volumes. Giclées offer the opportunity to print at an as-need basis. Both processes produce high quality images.

My art prints use the giclée process produced by the wonderful artists at Hidden Treasures Art Gallery in McMinnville, Oregon. At Hidden Treasures, they use Ultra Chrome K3 inks using the Epson 3800 or the Epson 9600. Epson's K3 inks is their latest in pigment technology offering high density pigments "for an extremely wide color gamut", as stated by Epson. The K3 inks and a UV spray guarantees 250 years of fade resistance under normal lighting conditions. The proof is in the print quality. Hidden Treasures prints on various materials, such as mat, gloss, semi-gloss, semi-mat, watercolor and canvas. Sandi Colvin uses her artistic photographic eye and experience to create the digital images for your experiential pleasure. I have enjoyed working with Sandi and Jennifer to present you high quality giclées of my masterpieces. Sandi and Jennifer at Hidden Treasures Art Gallery will happily support any printing and framing needs you may have.