Produce museum-quality prints with inkjets

Giclée is a French term meaning "spray of ink." In today's digital art world, the word refers to museum-quality fine art prints produced using continuous-tone inkjet printers on media such as watercolor paper and canvas. Giclée prints compete directly with serigraphs, traditional art prints created using a silk-screening technique. Digital artwork can be output directly to the large-format printer while conventionally created artwork must be scanned first. Once the color is finalized through an extensive proofing process, new prints can be generated at any time at a relatively low cost.

The field is growing so fast that in the spring of 1997, a new trade organization, the International Association of Fine Art Digital Printmakers (IAFADP), was created to support giclée printmakers. According to its mission statement, "The function of the group will be to educate the industry while driving research on issues such as the stability of digital prints." Sponsored by Iris Graphics, the group has several other corporate members, including American Ink Jet and Arches Paper, and smaller business and individual members. A European chapter was founded in 1998, and both groups often appear at trade shows to demonstrate the art and craft of giclée printing.

Beyond the print
High resolution, gorgeous color and the fact that they're printed on unorthodox substrates (not just matte and coated paper) distinguish fine art prints &am the quick inkjet proofs most designers have become used to. Artists are experimenting with all kinds of uses for giclée prints, ranging from on-demand production of unaltered prints to elaborate combinations of media applied to prints. Edward Gordon, an artist based in Ports-mouth, NH, is selling giclée prints of his conventionally created paintings. "The overall response by galleries has been good," Gordon says. "They're embracing my giclées and putting them up front and selling them. The dealers get as excited about giclées as I do. The prints are brighter, stronger and richer - much more like originals. The dealers who had reservations based on fading were afraid because of test results they had seen on prints made with industrial design inks."

California's Nash Editions is a traditional fine art printmaking studio that uses digital imaging and output devices to produce limited edition prints. Ten years ago, founders Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills, Nash R Young fame) and Mac Holbert began creating digital art based on Nash's photography and started looking for a way to transfer their onscreen images to paper. After settling on an Iris printer, they modified the machine to make it easier to print on materials other than Iris media. They now use an Iris 3047 printer with an experimental high-intensity variant of the Lyson Fine Art ink set. Known as the country's premier giclée studio, Nash Editions produces prints for photographers Peter Ralston, Robert Heinecken and David Hockney, among other artists.

Printmaker and webmaster Charles Wolfe, who's been with Nash Editions since 1994, says the company's Iris will print on "anything you can wrap around the drum and that will absorb ink." To date, that includes everything from aluminum foil to rice paper to leather, with about 95% of its jobs printed on watercolor paper. David Byrne (of the band Talking Heads) brought in the aluminum-foil project while another artist provides pre-painted canvases with an unpainted "knockout" space where the Iris image is printed. That way her artwork can incorporate a brilliant cobalt blue color that the Iris can't manage, as well as an image of, for example, a shining red pomegranate - red being a color the Iris handles well.

Behind the scenes
The best-known giclée prints are those created on printers from Iris Graphics - in fact, in some circles, Iris print is used as a synonym for giclée. The Iris line consists of large-format inkjet printers that use a variable dot size to achieve the illusion of a continuous-tone image. While the technical resolution of an Iris print is only 300dpi, its perceived resolution is in the range of 1,500 to 1,800dpi. Iris printers aren't cheap, which isn't surprising considering their talents. For example, the Iris Realist FX 5015 runs about $35,000. This is for a printer that can print on pretty much any substrate but only on cut sheets 35.5 x 47.25 inches.

Other printer manufacturers are joining Iris in this market, including ColorSpan, which has announced the Giclée PrintMaker, a slightly modified version of its popular eight-color inkjet DesignWinder. Specifically designed for fine art prints, it will ship later this year at a price of $34,995.

Inkjet prints aren't the only way to go, though. Tektronix is promoting its Phaser 600 for fine art and poster production - and with a $10,000 base price tag, it's within the reach of many artists and smaller shops. The Phaser 600 uses a solid ink, wax-based solution that allows the use of almost any substrate because the ink does not saturate the stock but sits on the paper surface. There's also no drying time involved.

Another option is Cymbolic Sciences' LightJet 5000, a photographic wide-format printer that outputs onto all photographic material (backlit and reflective) up to 50 inches wide. Running about $200,000, this printer is beyond the reach of many service bureaus and print shops - and certainly individuals - but its image quality is very high and prints should last as long as traditional photographs.

California artist Richard Noble uses a NovaJet Pro 36-inch color inkjet from Encad; it costs about $15,000. His art is created digitally using a graphics tablet with MetaCreations Painter and Adobe Photoshop and output directly to the Nova Jet for sale as limited-edition prints. He likes to use the Encad Graphic Outdoor (GO) ink set, which he prints on canvas or watercolor paper. "How I work to create my limited editions varies from the old ways because everything is digital until the final printout," Noble says. "However, the same drawing disciplines are required, as well as an understanding of traditional media."

Up front with ink
Which inks to use is a sticky point when it comes to giclée prints; since the inks carry the image, customers aren't happy when they start to fade. Early claims that giclée prints would last as long as conventional watercolors have long since been debunked, but new ink formulae keep coming out with improved longevity and lightfastness. That's one area the IAFADP is working in - pushing research and testing on different ink sets to gain hard information on how long they'll last when used with various substrates. Another IAFADP function is to set standards both for which ink sets should be used and for disclosure to customers of longevity information.

Acknowledging that the inks they use may be less permanent than other sets, Nash Editions' owners point out that they prefer to strive for the utmost color fidelity, rather than sacrifice accurate color for the sake of longevity. Wolfe says the company is now working with a new set of inks. How long will prints made with these inks last? "Right now the preliminary results are telling us about 50 years," Wolfe says. "We were all very happy to see this." Besides the attraction of increased light resistance, one advantage of the new ink set is that its black component is less thick and "soupy" than the ink Nash was using before, so it doesn't clog printer nozzles as often.

Inside color
A lot of work goes into each image before it's printed, but Nash Editions does not use a software color management solution. Wolfe explains, "A bunch of subtleties make up the final product," and a computer can't understand those subtleties. "The most important thing about Nash Editions is that we're all artists. We found that it's easier to take artists that know nothing about the computer and educate them, because they've already got the...visual judgment." Nash's printmakers work with each artist and hand-tweak each image in Photoshop to prepare it for printing. "It's about the artist's vision," Wolfe concludes.

Other giclée printmakers, however, are moving to color management software to improve the quality of their output by getting the most out of the various ink sets they're using. Artists who work in their own studios are also able to use color management software to mimic giclée output on their own smaller color printers. This gives them a better idea of what their final results will be without paying for intermediate giclée proofs before their work is done.

The combination of this new technology, advances in printer design, and constant testing and quality control is a powerful one. The giclée industry is undoubtedly on its way up, moving from a novelty to a strong force in the design and art worlds

MEDIA MATTERS