Giclee Printing and Scanning

Introduction.

The term ‘Giclee’ is rather strange, you can buy a giclee print but you can’t purchase a Giclee printer! Giclee was first used by an American print maker, Jack Duganne, who wanted a name for the prints they were producing on a modified pre-press proofing inkjet printer. Giclee is derived from the French word gicleur, which means nozzle (the verb form of gicler means ‘to squirt)’. Today inkjet printers used for Giclee prints, manufactured by Canon, HP and Epson, are sold as ‘wide format inkjet printers for graphic arts’, a bit long winded – so the term Giclee has stuck.

Modern Giclee prints have evolved considerably since those early days. Today the term is used to describe a print that has been produced by inkjet but using archival quality materials (excellent light fastness) with pigment based inks and high grade papers. The printer will usually have 8 or 12 inks (as opposed to 4 or 6 for most home inkjet printers). We use a Canon wide format printer that uses 12 inks, this enables us to print images with a wider range of colours (known as gamut) and smooth graduations. Behind the scenes is colour – management, our equipment (monitors, scanners and printers) are regularly calibrated and prints are made using custom ICC profiles (how the digital RGB colours are converted to the printed colours).

How long does it take to scan and print artwork?

We usually ask that artists leave the artwork with us in order to ensure that the accuracy of the scan can be fully checked, and any adjustments made. The time taken varies as it depends on the size of the piece and how much post-scanning work is required.

Ordering prints can take up to three working days and up to seven for stretched frame canvas prints.

If you have a deadline to work to, please let us know and we will do the best we can to help.

What is Lightfastness?

Basically how long a print will last, when framed under glass, before the colours of the print or the shade of the paper have a noticeable change. The print and paper are exposed to light, against a series of standards (known as the Blue Wool Scale) numbered 1 to 8. The lowest (quickest to change) is No.1, the maximum (most resistant) is No.8. The Guild of Fine Art specifies a Blue Wool Scale rating of 6 or more which is around 85 years for full colour work.

Copyright

Under current UK Law, the artist retains all copyright until 70 years after death. A more detailed explanation can be found on the UK Copyright Service fact sheet P-01. To protect your work when posting images on your web or social media sites, it is recommended that you only use small, low resolution JPEG images, to which you can add a water-mark to further protect your work.

If you have purchased an original painting you do not have the rights to that image, the artist does. You can photograph the artwork for insurance purposes but you cannot sell, distribute or copy the image without permission from the artist.

If you are selling artwork oversea it is important to check the copyright laws for that country. In the USA, for example, you do not have automatic copyright protection.

Print on demand

We offer a print on demand service, a digital copy artwork is held by JAK Fine Art Printing (off-line), so that prints can be produced when you need them. Files are stored for a minimum of 12 months, if we have not received any new work or orders after this time the files will be deleted. We do not have a minimum order requirement and we can ship prints direct to your customers.

Payment

Payment can be made by cheque, made payable to JAK Fine Art Printing, cash (if you are collecting prints from us) or card. All card transactions are handled by Paypal so we do not have access to, or information about, your bank / building society account details. For custom size print orders we will invoice you via Paypal – you do not need a Paypal account for this, just follow the instructions on the Paypal invoice.

JAK Fine Art printing is not VAT registered so we do not add 20% to the invoice