Redwine Art Gallery
giclee printmaking
Giclee Printmaking For Artists - Photographers
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Intro
The term "giclee" has evolved over the past few years into meaning different things to different people. From what I have learned, a giclee is a photographic, museum quality, fine art print reproduction of an original work of art, printed on quality paper or canvas using a high resolution, high end inkjet printer plotter with pigment or dye based "archival" inks, normally signed and numbered limited editions." Click on the links above for more specific info.
I know that's a long definition, but it's the best I can do in so few words. The inkjet machine printing technology has been evolving amazingly fast in the last decade.
In "art", the rules are always changing, some try to downgrade ink jet prints, but to me, a guy who's been into printmaking for so long, I'm amazed at how they look. It's great to be able to make my own prints, I don't have to pay someone else to do it for me. I only wish this technology was available back in the 70's, when it cost a small fortune to have qualitty reproduction prints made. The quality is amazing, that's all there is to it. What I've seen other artists do with digital painting is absolutly amazing art work to me, I have no idea how they do it. Photoshop is an infinite tool for creating visual art images, if you try to learn it you'll know what I mean.
Many of my recent prints are original giclee prints, they were conceived, created, and printed digitally, the first print is an original, something that never existed before, if I make other prints they are reproductions of that first original, at least that's the way I see it.
Giclee prints are continuous tone, photographic quality prints. On matte papers, the inks are comparable to silkscreen inks, vivid intense colors. I used to airbrush a lot, giclee prints are the result of inks being sprayed onto the paper or canvas, the ink jet printer sprays the inks on in microscopic dots, the end result is pretty much the same as an airbrushed painting, in a way. The dots are printed a lot smaller than the naked human eye can see, thus the continuous tone result.
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8/20/ 2007 I haven't done much printing for a while now. I just did some research on it the other night. It seems the technology is getting even better. Twelve ink color machines and new inks. There's a lot more information out there now on how to do your own prints, yet the general process described below is still the same.
11/07/07 I've been getting a lot of hits on this page, so I'm thinking I should try to help all of you who are searching in vain for some simple answers on how to make your own giclee prints. The truth is, it's not that simple at first, especially if you're new to the computer. I'm going to try to explain what I've learned through research and by doing it. I don't consider myself to be a computer graphics expert, but through the process of learning everything I could about it, I have learned how to make some amazing prints on my own desktop hardware. I'm convinced that anyone can do it if they have the tools and desire. For me, the learning curve was majorly difficult, I'm going to add more links to this page that will explain in more detail what I've learned about the process, software, work flow, hardware, etc.
The technology to be able to print high resolution photographic quality print reproductions with seven color pigment based archival inks on a high end desktop PC inkjet plotter printer is a very recent development. Within the last couple of years, all of the major inkjet manufacturers have begun to realize the huge market of photographers, artists, and printmakers wanting to make their own museum quality prints. They have spent millions on research and development, rapidly improving on the fade resistance and longevity of their inks and more user friendly, higher resolution inkjet printing machines able to print on larger paper sizes at faster speeds. These high end desktop printers are still pretty expensive, but the costs are coming down. The real costs are in the inks, papers, and other equipment and software needed to produce giclee prints. Of all the desktop inkjet manufacturers, Epson has come out on top with it's new Stylus Photo 2200. Right now, it is the best state of the art inkjet desktop printer with their "over 100 year archival" Ultra Chrome inks. It prints up to 13"X44", and the wide color gamut of the inks produce the best looking prints I have ever seen. All of my edition prints are printed on this machine, using only Epson Ultra Chrome inks.
Giclee printing has evolved into the creative artist's choice of all printing methods, because of the incredible quality of continuous tone high resolution, micro printing technology, brilliant archival inks, and quality papers. Quality over quantity is what it's all about. The individual dot sizes are smaller than the unaided human eye can see, allowing photographic quality continuous tone. The inks are as brilliant and deep as silkscreen inks, with amazing color gamut's. Not very long ago, most fine art museum quality art reproductions were mass produced lithographs, printed in large editions. If you look close at a typical lithographed magazine ad print, and compare it to lithographed limited edition prints, you can see the same visible individual screen separation dots , not pretty. Giclee prints have the same or better ink and paper quality as other original printmaking methods. Giclee has now become another form of accepted fine art original printing techniques. When I create a new, one of a kind image on my computer, and then go through the tedious process of preparing to print, soft proofing, and finally printing, signing,and numbering,etc., I am creating original prints, just like traditional etching, serigraphy, mono prints, block & wood printing, etc. Photographers now use digital darkrooms, no more chemicals and red lights, and their individual giclee fine art prints are original prints. Art evolves, transforming itself into new definitions.
The first time I saw the word "giclee"(gee-clay), I didn't have a clue about it's meaning or how it would change my life. Sometime back in the late 90's, I saw an ad in an artist's magazine aimed at artist's who wanted the best reproduction high quality "Iris giclee" print editions made. As far as I knew, the best editions were printed on giant presses using the lithographic process. And I knew that it was pretty expensive to have prints made of just one painting. To have prints made of many different paintings would have cost a fortune. I sent for their brochure and learned that their giclee prints were very expensive per print and that a stiff fee was charged to photograph the original painting and to do the pre-press color corrections and preparation for printing. Because the prints could be "printed on demand", an artist could order very small editions. They really didn't say much about the print process, like it was their very own "trade secret", and their definition of giclee was pretty vague (something like " a French word meaning 'to spray or burst'"). It was an interesting brochure, but it still didn't seem to be very practical for an artist to pay a lot for a print and then have to try to sell it for even more.
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The Process of Giclee Printmaking
I decided to try to figure out what giclee printing was and whether or not I would be able to learn the process and afford the costs of whatever equipment was needed. Towards the end of 2000, I finally bought a computer and began to seriously research the subject on the web. Over the last few years I have learned quite a bit about the process. I learned that "Iris giclee printer" was a very expensive pre press proofing inkjet plotter printing machine, made by the Iris Centax company, and that they cost over $40,000. I have also learned that the inks would fade and needed to have a clear protective coating to protect from UV light damage. The machine was designed to print the best possible reproduction of a painting, matching the colors as closely as possible to the original art, and could also print on canvas. Cost wise, it was way out of my league.
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I soon realized that I would have to buy the best 35 MM film scanner that I could afford, Nikon's Super Coolscan LS 4000 ED, and the best digital imaging software program, Photoshop, for color correction and repair of my old slide photographs of all the paintings I had done over the years. Thousands of hours later, here I am.........
Up till now, the difficult part has been learning how to use everything, and then the tedious job of using everything to archive my art and optimize for printing and HTML applications. The learning curve is pretty overwhelming and very steep on this subject. From photo copying to scanning,digital imaging software, pre press preparations, web design, and original giclee printmaking techniques. There is a lot to learn. To make a print look as good as or better than the original art is not an easy thing to do, even with the best equipment. I'm learning something new about Photoshop and digital imaging every time I work with an image and make a print. The hardest part has now become setting up this website. Building this website has been the hardest thing I have ever done, a major undertaking, I've been working on it since October of 2002, with so much more to do......
Recently I have bought a Pentax 67II medium format camera with some nice lenses. To be able to scan 6x7 medium format film, I bought a Nikon Coolscan 9000 scanner, top of the line state of the art medium format film scanner. Big investment, but necessary for larger prints. The larger medium format film captures more pixel color information data and allows for higher resolution photographic quality continuous tone giclee prints in sizes up to 20x30 or larger. The camera and film scanner will be much better for what I am doing here, Better photo copy of my originals and better fine art photography. Check out my "Links" page for more info.
A Beginner's Guide to Giclee Printmaking
If you are as brain dead as I was about basic computer literacy, word processing, and digital graphics fundamentals, I can understand where you're coming from. I still think I only understand the bare minimums to be able to make giclee prints. There's a lot more to it than my comprehension can understand, especially when you get into large format printing, monitor callibration, custom printing profiles for certain papers and monitors, rastor image processing, etc.
I'm going to try to explain the nescessary basics that I had to learn to get a grasp on how to do it. If you're confused about anything here, go to the search engines for more info. I'm going to do my best to explain things as simply as I can for those of you who are as clueless as I was in the beginning. I want to help artists and photographers to at least get an understanding of the basic process.
Printing giclees is not a cheap hobby to get into, but if you're planning on doing a lot of printing, it makes more sense to be able to do it yourself, rather than paying someone. If you're a photographer, it makes sense to have the knowedge and equipment to do your own printing, this is the new darkroom.
To make your own giclee prints you'll need some tools: a computer, film or flatbed scanner, monitor, graphics software, high resolution ink jet printer, archival inks, quality ink jet paper, and a film or digital camera.
You'll also need lots of money and time, to buy the tools and then to figure out how to use them, it can be a big investment in both. So far, I've spent way more time and money on this venture than I've made on sales, a huge loss in money and effort for little or no gain. I believe there are other artists out there that make a lot of money by selling their prints. If you feel like you really want to make your own prints, I say go for it, you won't know where it will lead you unless you let it.
You will need to do a lot of research, to read and understand how to use all the tools, to spend countless hours scanning, filing, titling, organizing, printing proofs, experimenting. By doing it, you will eventually learn what works for you.
Hardware & Software Needed
Intro
Before you go out here and spend money on hardware and software, do a lot of research, try to buy the best you can afford. The size of the prints you would like to be able to make determines the equipment you'll need. From what i've read and experienced, Nikon makes the best film scanners, Epson makes some of the best flatbed scanners and definitly their high resolution photographic quality ink jet printers, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are considered by pros to be the best graphics software, the sky is the limit as far as camera equipment goes, if you can afford 20 mgpxl digital or a medium format film camera and scanner it doesn't get much better for doing larger poster sized prints, but 35mm film or 10mgpxl digital is very good for medium sized prints around 8x10 to 11x14 image size.
Computers
As far as computers go, most college trained professional graphic artists use Macs, but the PC does just as well for most others. I couldn't afford a Mac, so I've learned the process on a PC. For graphics work, the more memory, processor speed, and hard drive speed and capacity, the better and faster everything will work, I have a Pentium 4 processor that works fast enough, I guess, but a new duo or quad processor would be much faster I'm sure, the newest graphics cards must make a difference in processing speed also, I'm still using XP, I don't know yet if Windows Vista makes things any faster than XP, already becoming another operating system of the past.
Ink Jet Photo Printers
Do the research on the newest printers, if you can afford it, get one that will print up to the size you'll want, read artist's and photographer's reviews, get one that uses individual ink color cartridges and prints high resolution photo quality.
If you're reproducing art or creating new original art giclees, you'll want the inks to be as permanent and fade resistant as possible, for the finest prints the paper should be high quality, and the printer should be able to blow you away with the results.
If you just want to do small prints, there are lots of excellent photo printers to choose from for doing greeting cards up to 8x10 sized printing. This is the most affordable way to get into learning digital printing, it's a lot cheaper to experiment on smaller paper and using less ink. Usually before I make a larger print, I'll print small proofs first,
make any corrections needed, then commit to printing large.
I've been doing all my prints on an Epson 2200 13x19 Photo ink jet printer, considered a large format desktop printer, it is really the smallest of the large format printers. It produces amazing giclee prints. I was hoping that by selling lots of these prints, I'd be able to afford getting into doing larger format giclee prints, but that hasn't happened yet.
If you're interested in doing larger poster sized prints, be prepared to spend a lot of money, or maybe just take a class and use their equipment first. The large format ink jet printers are getting a little more affordable now, Epson has a 24" wide printer now for around $2500, I think. I just saw an Epson 3800 17" wide printer on Craigslist for $900, I paid around $600 for my Epson 2200 13x19 photo printer, but I think you can find them used or new for less now, so it is getting a little more afffordale recently for someone to get into making their own giclee prints, but the ink jet papers and archival inks are still going to be expensive.
I've read that for doing large format printing, like 30x40 and bigger, it helps to have a RIP (a Rastor Image Processor), because the image data files are so huge, I think the RIP will do the programed crunching of enormous data files and stream in the image print data while the printing is in progress, thus speeding up the process. To be honest, I know very little about large format printing, it's what I would like to be able to do, I've researched it, but still haven't been able to experiment with it yet.
The good thing is you can get great used equipment now, hardware that was considered state of the art two years ago, and still very capable of producing great high quality prints. There are more affordable and even free graphics programs that will get the job done, if you don't have to do a lot of detailed photo retouching or color correcting, that's all you need really for basic pre press work. An older computer and hardware will get the job done as long as everything is compatable, some newer hardware will not work on some older processors, and vice vera. If you start doing the research, you'll learn more about what products are out there. For older hardware and software, you may need to get updated drivers and firmware downloads from the manufacturers, to be compatable on the newer operating systems availble now.
Scanners
When you're trying to make a high quality photographic print, the amount of data you can get from the original film, flatbed scan, or digital camera determines the quality and size range of the print.
You want to be able to get as much information as possible in the scan file.There are all kinds of scanners out there, again depending on what you want to be able to do and how much you can spend.
Big time giclee printers are using large format flatbed scanners and drum scanners to reproduce large paintings, some still use medium format film or digital cameras to capture the image, For 35mm slide and negative films, get a film scanner, the desktop flatbeds won't collect enough information to make decent prints.
If you're working with letter sized original artwork, then the desktop flatbed scanners are great.
If you're just going to be printing artwork created in a digital paint program like Illustrator, you don't need a scanner to make your giclee prints.
Generally the highest priced film scanners are better because of the optics system and lense quailty. I'm using a Nikon Super Cool Scan 4000 ED to do 35mm film scanning, it's the next best thing to a drum scanner.
With 35mm film, and a high resolution image file of around 50mb, you can usually print up to around 8x10 size, more or less, if you try to print a lot bigger, to image quality goes down as the size goes up.
For medium and larger prints, you'll need a lot more information. With medium format film, a file of 150mb and bigger is needed to print around 16x20, larger prints require even more massive amounts of information. I haven't done large giclee printing yet, check out my "Links" page for more info on this.
If you're just going to need a few scans, it might be a lot cheaper and easier to pay for the scans somewhere.
Cameras
For reproducing your artwork using the giclee printing method, you need the best image file you can get. Size matters with cameras as far as printing goes. The pros still use large format film cameras and process cameras for duplication work, some of them are huge. The best cameras have the best optics systems and multiple precision lense options, the best images are usually taken with the best equipment.
A high end 10-12 mgpxl digital camera is pretty much as good as a high end 35mm film camera and film scanner for printing up to around 8x10, but a 20mgpxl would come closer to the film scan quality. For medium sized prints, at least a 20mgpxl or more camera, or a medium format film camera with a medium format film scanner. For larger prints, huge mgpxl flatbed scanners, or large format film cameras and drum scanners are used.
Most of my giclee prints were created from 35mm slide film photographs of original artworks, then scanned in my Nikon Super Cool Scan 4000 ED. I'm not making large prints, when I do, I'll be photographing the originals with my medium format Pentax 67ll film camera, then scanning the slide film on a Nikon Super Cool Scan 9000 ED medium format scanner. I might just take originals in to have them scaned on a large flatbed scanner next time.
If you're just interested in taking pictures and making new artwork out of the original image data file, it probably doesn't matter what kind of camera or scanner you use, as long as you're happy with the end results. With a simple cell phone camera image and Photoshop software, you could come up with an amazing work of art, and then make a giclee print of it.
You don't need a camera if you just want to print giclees of computer generated digital paintings, graphics, or photographic images you already have on file.
I have a Nikon 5mgpxl camera, I use it for jpeg. web photos, snapshots, and print art, but not for giclee reproduction prints of paintings. If I could afford a 20mgpxl, I'd have one.
Computer Graphics Software
Most computers already come with graphics programs for basic CGI painting, working with photos, and scans. For most needs, these programs are all you need to start making prints. If you're an artist - photographer, you will eventually want a more powerful program with almost unlimited options and possibilities. In no way am I an expert in Photoshop, I've figured out how to use it for what I need, making giclee prints from photos and files of my originals,
I was working with a lot of old 35mm film slides and negatives to put this site together, many original photos were damaged or needed color correcting, I had to clean up the scratches, adjust colors, image size, contrast, dpi, file formats, sometimes filters, and sharpness, before I could make a decent print.
Adobe Photoshop is still considered to be the best by most, it's what I use. There are many free tutorial websites on using Photoshop. I'm still using Photoshop 7, but will upgrade eventually I'm sure.
There are other more affordable graphics programs available, do the research, I've read that they're just as capable of producing good image files for printing and web publishing. The ink jet printers, digital cameras, and scanners also come with good basic graphics programs.
If you're seriously going to get into making your own giclee prints, you might as well invest in the best graphics software you can afford, the learning curve can be difficult in the individual programs, you might as well start out learning on what you'll probably and eventually be using to make your giclee prints.
Computer Graphics & Printing Basics
Photography & Scanning For Printing
For printing high quality giclees, you want the best photograph and scan you can get. As I've said before, get the best equipment you can afford, the better the lense and optics system, the better your original master scan file will be.
If you're using a digital camera or scanner, set it at higest quality (largest data file size), for the higest quality prints, the larger the master file, the more you'll have to work with when it comes time to print.
If your original film photograph is out of focus, there's usually not a lot you can do to fix it in Photoshop. If your original film photograph is too far over or underexposed, there's usually not a lot you can do with it in Photoshop, but slightly overexposed is better than slightly underexposed.
Slide film, or positive film, is said to be the best for original film scanning, but I've had great results with negative films as well. Film types can matter a lot, depending on lighting conditons and personal preferences.
Many artists-photographers using digital darkrooms now say they shoot everything with color film, even if their intended prints will be greyscale, B+W photography, they're easily converted in Photoshop. The best cameras with the best lenses take the best photos. If you want to print larger, you'll need a medium format, or larger, camera and scanner, or pay someone to do it for you.
When you're scanning, you want to scan for the largest size that you intend print. If you're scanning 35mm, that's up to around 10x12, if you're scanning medium format film, that's up to around 20x30. If you're scanning an original on a flatbed scanner, scan up to 100% actual size.
A large image file can be cropped or reduced down to a smaller size without affecting the image quality much, but if you start with a small image file and enlarge it, the image will degrade more and more as the image is blown up. If you were to print an image off the web, the print would be low quality because of the small image file. A typical 8x10 jpeg image file on the web may be around 30-50 kb, while the same sized photo print file should be around 50-80 mb, there's a huge difference in file sizes.
You'll have to read and understand the photo and scan software that comes with your equipment to be able to use it correctly, and related more research will help.
Computer Basics
If you want to make giclee prints, first you'll have to know how to use your computer. If you're new to the computer, believe me, I know where you're coming from. I started learning in 2000, and I still don't have a clue about much of it, it's an ongoing learning thing. You're going to have to learn some computer stuff like basic word processing, using the mouse, using different programs, viewing images, saving files, web browsing, searching, etc.
There's already plenty of info out there on computer literacy, you'll just have to buckle down and do the research, read instruction manuals, study web tutorials, check out websites, over and over, until you understand, call support, learn by doing, take classes if you can.
The new computers and operating systems are increasingly becoming more user friendly, the manufacturers will walk you through all of this stuff if you study their tutorials. You don't have to be a genius to use a computer, you just have to know how to use it.
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