What Is a Giclée Print?

Recent advancements in printing technology have resulted in a reproduction process with incredible resolution. An "Iris Print" or "Giclée" (pronounced jeek-lay) is as rewarding visually as it is technically amazing. For brilliant, exquisite color and razor sharp detail it is unsurpassed. This type of art reproduction is quickly becoming the new standard in the art industry, and is widely embraced for its quality by major museums, galleries, publishers and artists. A giclée print is simply the closest duplication of an original artwork that is humanly, mechanically or technically possible.

To explain briefly, the giclée printmaking process involves a particular printer, the IRIS 3047, which has been modified for the precision of fine art printing. From each of four nozzles, more than a million droplets of ink the size of a human red blood cell are sprayed on a canvas or watercolor paper spinning on a drum at a speed of up to 150 feet per second!

The resulting print has no perceptible dot pattern, an endless array of richly saturated color, and every nuance of the original image. Permanence is a concern to artists and collectors. Giclée Printing art is very stable, giving fade & color shift resistance of better than 25 years for average indoor light conditions. When museum quality lighting is used, this time span increases up to 200 years.