What is Giclee Printing

With the advancement of printing technology, one does not have to painstakingly paint a photorealistic image on a piece of canvas for weeks or even months at a time. Instead, he can simply print it. This technique is called giclée printing. This is a process wherein fine art prints and photographs are printed on a piece of canvas from a digital source using an inkjet printer. This is somewhat similar, albeit in a much smaller scale, to the industrial Iris proofs, which are large scale prints used in billboards, streamers, and stands.

Giclée printing was introduced in the late 1980s. Using fade-resistant inks and specialised inkjet printers, artists can make high-quality reproductions of original two-dimensional artwork, photographs, or computer-generated art using a variety of substrates including canvas, vinyl, or photo paper. With giclée printing, they can print and sell their art individually according to the demand, making the process more economical than four-colour offset lithography, which is traditionally used for reproductions. In addition, in conjunction with a generic graphics editing software, the technique also allows artists to alter the images quickly and easily before they are printed.

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