Giclée ( ) describes digital prints intended as

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

and produced by

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of printer (computing), computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper or plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range f ...

s. The term is a

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

, ultimately derived from the French word ''gicleur,'' coined in 1991 by

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique ...

Jack Duganne. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on a modified

Iris printer An Iris printer is a large-format color inkjet printer designed for prepress proofing. It was introduced in 1985 by Iris Graphics, originally of Stoneham, Massachusetts, and is currently manufactured by the Graphic Communications Group of Eastman K ...

in a process invented in the late 1980s. It has since been used widely to mean any fine-art printing, usually archival, printed by inkjet. It is often used by artists, galleries, and print shops for their high quality printing, but is also used generically for art printing of any quality.

Origins

The word ''giclée'' was adopted by Jack Duganne around 1990. He was a printmaker working at Nash Editions. He wanted a name for the new type of prints they were producing on a modified

, a

large-format Large format photography refers to any imaging format of or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the or size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger th ...

high-resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...

industrial

prepress proofing A contract proof usually serves as an agreement between customer and printer (publishing), printer and as a color reference guide for adjusting the press (machine), press before the final press run. Most contract proofs are a prepress proof. The ...

inkjet printer on which the paper receiving the ink is attached to a rotating drum. The printer was adapted for fine-art printing. Duganne wanted a word that would differentiate such prints from regular commercial Iris prints then used as proofs in the commercial printing industry.

Etymology

''Giclée'' is based on the French word ''gicleur'', the French technical term for a jet or a nozzle, and the associated verb ''gicler'' (to squirt out). ''Une giclée'' (noun) means a spurt of some liquid.Johnson, Harald, Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition, Thomson Course Technology - 2005, Chapter 1 The French

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

form ''gicler'' means to spray, spout, or squirt. Duganne settled on the

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

''giclée''.

Current usage

In addition to its original association with Iris prints, the word ''giclée'' has come to be loosely associated with other types of

inkjet printing Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper or plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

including processes that use dyes or fade-resistant, archival inks (

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

-based), and archival substrates primarily produced on

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, commonly known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan, t ...

, HP and other large-format printers. These printers use the

CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...

(Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) color process as a base with additional color cartridges for smoother gradient transitions (such as light

magenta Magenta () is a purple-red color. On color wheels of the RGB color model, RGB (additive) and subtractive color, CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between blue and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in colo ...

, light

cyan Cyan () is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 500 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue. In the subtractive color system, or CMYK c ...

, light and very light gray), up to 12 different inks in top model printers (orange, green, violet (Epson); red, green, blue (HP); 11+ Chroma Optimizer clearcoat(Canon)) to achieve larger color

gamut In color reproduction and colorimetry, a gamut, or color gamut , is a convex set containing the colors that can be accurately represented, i.e. reproduced by an output device (e.g. printer or display) or measured by an input device (e.g. cam ...

.Vandsburger, Judith
"8-Color Printing: What’s Hype and What’s Real?"
signindustry.com A wide variety of substrates on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper,

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

paper, cotton

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...

, pre-coated canvas, or textured vinyl.

Applications

Artists generally use inkjet printing to make reproductions of their original two-dimensional artwork, photographs, or

computer-generated art Algorithmic art or algorithm art is art, mostly visual art, in which the design is generated by an algorithm. Algorithmic artists are sometimes called algorists. Algorithmic art is created in the form of digital paintings and sculptures, inte ...

. Professionally produced inkjet prints are much more expensive on a per-print basis than the four-color

offset lithography Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on ...

process traditionally used for such reproductions. A large-format inkjet print can cost more than ten times that of a four-color offset litho print of the same image in a run of 1,000, not including scanning and

color correction Color correction is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography, and other disciplines, which uses color gels, or filters, to alter the overall color of the light. Typically the light color is measured on a scale k ...

. Four-color offset lithographic presses have the disadvantage of the full job having to be set up and produced all at once in a mass edition. With inkjet printing the artist does not have to pay for the expensive printing plate setup or the marketing and storage needed for large four-color offset print runs. This allows the artist to follow a just-in-time business model in which inkjet printing can be an economical option, since art can be printed and sold individually in accordance with demand. Inkjet printing has the added advantage of allowing artists to take total control of the production of their images, including the final color correction and the substrates being used. As a result, numerous individual artists own and operate their own printers.

References

External links