French for “sprayed ink,” giclées are a sophisticated printmaking process. Giclées were originally produced on an IRIS ink-jet printer, capable of producing millions of colors using continuous-tone technology. Today the technology has improved greatly and the machines capable of producing these high quality works have also grown to include machines produced by Epson and others. Giclées are often made from photographic images of paintings in order to produce high quality, permanent reproductions. The extra-fine image resolution possible in this printing process permits retention of a high degree of fine detail from the original image, rendering deeply saturated colors with broad ranges of tonal values. Giclée printing has many advantages over other printmaking methods. Since each piece is individually produced one reproduction can be created at a time if desired, therefore the artist is not obligated to finish an edition. It is possible to order prints as needed without large up-front costs and storage problems associated with other printing methods. Please see our step-by-step guide to producing a giclée print.

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