Giclee Printing Services

What is Giclee Printing?

The word giclee comes from the French ‘gicler’, meaning ‘to squirt’.  It refers to the use of inkjet technology to produce fine art prints that are produced to a particular standard.  Prints produced in this way can be expected to last many years.  Accelerated tests indicate that 75+ years can be expected and quite possibly a lot longer.

There is no strict standard for giclee printing, however, the Fine Art Trade Guild do specify a standard for archival Fine Art prints.  That standard requires paper to be at least 250gsm in weight and with a low acidity level (pH7 to pH10).   When such paper is combined with modern pigment inks in top-end inkjet printers the result is a very high quality print that you can be confident will last.  This is the process that I use.

Most current Fine Art inkjet papers comply with this standard, especially those produced specifically for this purpose by the likes of Hahnumhle and Permajet.  A good range of papers is now available giving you the opportunity to produce prints that properly reflect your vision.

What do we offer?

For our Giclee Printing Services we offer a variety of papers from a variety of manufacturers.  You can be sure that we will have a paper available that will suit your work.  The majority of papers that we use fulfill the requirements for archival prints.  Some, most noticeably gloss and semi-gloss papers, do not.  These papers are rarely suitable for Fine Art work, but where they are you can still be confident that they will give good longevity, but probably not as long as the Fine Art papers.

We use Epson printers with UltraChrome K3 pigment inks.  We have custom profiles for all paper/ink combinations which ensures that the individual idiosyncrasies of each paper are fully accounted for, resulting in predictable and consistent prints across a whole edition even if the first and last are printed many months apart.

Giclee printing is as much an art as it is a science.  We have many years experience of printing, both for ourselves and for other artists.  We understand both the technical side and the emotive side.  As artists we speak your language, we understand what it is that you want and won’t baffle you with science.

What next?

If you’d like to explore getting prints of your work then give us a call or drop us an email, we’re more than happy to chat through the options and the process.  If you’re close enough (ST10 2AY) you’re welcome to pop round to the studio for a chat or to see the process in action for yourself.

We’re happy for you to take advantage of any part of the process….whether you just need high quality digital files, or just need prints, or if you’d like your work copied, printed, mounted and bagged ready for sale.

Files can be uploaded here.

Prints can be collected from the studio or delivered by us if you’re close enough, or posted out if not.  We have great experience in packaging safely for transit and send most work by UPS and have, so far, not had a single problem or complaint.

Original work for copying can be collected, delivered or sent….we are happy to arrange a courier for you if required.