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About giclée prints

The Definition : Giclée (zhee-klay) - The French word "giclée" is a feminine noun that means a spray or a spurt of liquid. 
The word may have been derived from the French verb "gicler" meaning "to squirt".


The Term : The term  "giclée print" connotes an elevation in printmaking technology.

Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates
including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper.
The giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction.


The ProcessGiclée Fine Art Limited Editions produced by outNbout visualImaging are created on the Epson printer
using their award winning Ultrachrome K3 Inks.

Printed on Fine Art Papers designed for museum quality archival prints and reproductions.
Giclee prints are sometimes 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 : Giclée prints are 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.


The Quality : The quality of the giclée print rivals traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes
and is commonly found in museums, art galleries, and photographic galleries.


The Market : Numerous examples of gicl´e prints can be found in New York City at the Metropolitan
Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Chelsea Galleries.

Recent auctions of giclée prints have fetched $10,800 for Annie Leibovitz, $9,600 for Chuck Close, and $22,800
for Wolfgang Tillmans (April 23/24 2004, Photographs, New York, Phillips de Pury & Company.)