What is Giclée or Fine-art printing?

What is fine art/giclee printing?

Fine art prints are often printed from digital files using archival quality inks and onto acid free fine art paper. In VG-Lab, we call it giclée printing or fine art printing.

Not all inkjet are the same?

Differ from regular inkjet printing technique, fine art printing require much more about quality control and media selection. The factor is largely depend on how skillful and knowledgable the master printer is.

When looking for a print that will last for decades or even more than a century, then alway choose a paper that is acid free. It is the acid content in many papers that makes them turn yellow, brittle & crack over time. Papers are acid free, will ensure that your print will look as good in many years time as it did the day it was printed.

Lots of papers to choose from

The are many paper options to choose from, there are few reputable brands such as Hahnemuhle, Awagami or ILFORD etc.

There are 2 basic paper types:

1 – Photo papers: As the name suggested, Photo paper often has glossy finish. It’s optimized to print with Photo Black INK.

2 – Matte papers: Similar to watercolor and other fine art papers. It’s optimized to print with Matte Black INK.

General speaking, fine art prints are often considered as high longevity, compared to digital C-print or other printing technique.

To simplify the process of picking the right media for your works, we have come up with our 4-step how to choose the right media: – Step 1: Glossy for matte finish. – Step 2: Thick or thin. – Step 3: How long it can last for? – Step 4: Consider budget. You can learn more about the process in the link below:

Wide gamut printing

The printers used for fine art printing are high end machines usually with 8 or 12 ink colourants and therefore have a very large colour gamut. These colours when mixed together are able to produce millions of different colours. They have a colour range than is much larger than your typical large format printer.