For artists looking to have giclee reproductions made of their work, there are many things to consider and to be wary of. This hub aims to clear up many of the misconceptions about the process and also what you should really be looking for in a quality giclee printing service. There are plenty of people out there who will readily take your money, but not all of them will necessarily deliver what you are hoping and indeed paying for.

What Do You Need To Make A Quality Giclee Print?

It cannot be stressed enough that it does not matter how good the person or the printing equipment is if the original image is not of sufficiently high quality. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and working with anything but very high resolution scans or digital photographs will result in sub standard end results. Just because an image looks fine on your computer monitor does not mean it will produce a truly high quality print.

When you decide that you want to produce some giclee prints, you are going to have to get hold of a high resolution image first. If you have a quality digital SLR capable of shooting in RAW format and are a reasonably competent photographer, you can probably do this yourself. Alternatively you may know someone who has the equipment and will do you a favor.

When taking the photographs for your reproductions you should use a tripod to ensure a sharp and focused image and preferably take three shots in natural light, one underexposed, one at the correct exposure and one over exposed. The images should also include the GretagMcBeth color chart if possible. If all this is Greek to you, you already need the services of someone else. The pictures should be in RAW format as this will make it much easier for the printer to correct any white balance errors using image editing software specifically designed to cope with large RAW format files. RAW files are not compressed and can be quite large, at least several megabytes of data. (These are not the same as JPEG files, even high quality JPEG's from modern digital SLR's).

If the photography is beyond you, or you would feel happier having a professional do it for you, it is obviously going to cost you. How much will probably vary wildly so it's worth shopping around. Some printing firms may even offer the service of either photographing or scanning your image with a professional high resolution scanner. Either way, you will have to consider the cost of getting that all important image as a separate charge unless the printer you choose can do everything in house.

Finding A Printer Who Can Do The Job

This really can be a minefield for artists. Before setting up our own printing business we went through the steps that will no doubt be familiar to many artists.

Here are just some of the things you are going to need to think about when assessing the ability of a printing company to handle your valuable artwork.

You may well decide to research printing services online and may study a large number of websites. Most of these will summarize what they will require from you to enable them to do the work, their prices and their terms. On the face of it this is a good thing, but the problem remains that you only really have their own self promotion to judge them by.

If you can find other customers who can vouch for the services of a particular company, all the better. Consider also that by choosing a firm who are greatly geographically distant from you will add to your costs and probably mean certain limitations on the control and input you may have on the whole process. It will also take more time to complete the project.

Make sure that any printer insists on a very high quality scan or digital photograph. Those that don't will not do your work justice, even if they assure you that a JPEG image from your point and shoot 4 megapixel camera will be fine. It won't. If they are offering to create the image themselves in house, make sure that you know and understand how they are going to do it, and how much it will add to the price of the job. Remember too that if you are going to have to ship the original work to them and get it back again, it is probably going add even more to your investment.

Next, you have to consider whether a printer is going to accord your art the sensibility and attention it deserves. This may sound a little of an imprecise concern but if you have labored over an original painting you will know exactly how you feel about it. The printer, having not invested the time and creativity in the work is unlikely to share those feelings. However, you really want to find someone who is used to working with artists and understands their emotional as well as commercial requirements.

Often, the larger the firm, the harder this is going to be. Will your beloved painting be just another job carried out by numerous staff members who print everything from business cards to flyers that end up on car windshields? Having invested emotions, time and money in this venture, it is important for you to feel that your job is going to get the attention to detail it deserves. The danger with using a company that is a jack of all trades is that your job becomes "just another print run". If you can find a specialist, you will probably be happier with the experience, although that is rather a generalization. You will have to judge for yourself how a company seem to view you and your printing job.

When deciding on the media for your prints there will be several factors to consider including prices, sizes and your intended market.

Canvas

A giclee on canvas will normally be the most expensive option. A good printer will use nothing but the best quality acid free, waterproof, archival quality canvas so always ask before you place your order. You should also check that the canvas print will be sealed using either a spray on or hand applied quality sealant. This particularly important if you are intending to hand finish any of your prints when it is essential that the print be sealed before the application of any more paint. Again, you should expect an experienced and genuine giclee print producer to do this as a matter of course.

Will you want the canvas stretched or will you be doing the stretching yourself? Not all printers will be willing or able to stretch canvas and those that do will obviously include additional charges. It will also affect the cost of delivery both from the printer to you and again should you have to ship the prints to customers.

If you are able to stretch canvas yourself it will save you money. Check also what kind of wrap or border the printers will put on the canvas to facilitate its stretching onto stretcher bars as you don't want to be losing an inch or more off of the image itself.

Textured or Smooth Fine Art Paper

When it comes to paper we print most of our own giclees on acid free archival quality textured paper as we find it gives the most impressive results and a very high quality feel. Some work however will look better on smooth paper. Most of the artists with whom we work are working in acrylic or oils and texture is an important aspect of the paintings which we find is better represented on textured paper.

Check with your printing printing firm exactly what they will be using.

Our most popular sizes for giclees on paper range from 7x5, 12x9 and 20x16. We can provide these matted or simply in their raw forn depending on a customer's wishes but most commonly we are asked to mat/mount them.

I have actually seen prints labeled as giclees that were reproductions of watercolors printed on a lithographic printer on card so thin and flimsy it was barely more than paper. The quality was very poor and I know because I purchased one just so I could pull it apart and look at it. This was after someone made comparisons to our prices and quality and I wanted to illustrate the differences in no uncertain terms.

I am just reinforcing the point that just because someone claims it is a giclee does not necessarily make it so.

Photographic Paper

This will probably be available but is not a good choice for paintings and is most commonly used by fine art photographers. As an artist you would be best advised to stick with canvas or archival paper. Giclee printers are capable printing on other types of media such as vinyl (most commonly for banners and the like) but for fine art the ones we have covered above are the most relevant.

To ensure accuracy and quality the manufacturer of a giclee print will have to painstakingly create separate color profiles for every type of media, including paper and canvas from different manufacturers and different types of each from the same manufacturer. This is where the use of special software and scanners comes into play and it will have a drastic impact on the finished product.

Anyone who you employ to produce a giclee of your artwork should offer a proofing service. If a printer is not prepared to do so, walk away.

As part of the job the printer will normally budget for producing proofs before the final job is run. This gives the customer a chance to see what they will be getting and to ensure that they are happy with the quality and color matching.

As an artist you should expect to see physical proofs before giving your final go ahead. If you are not local to the printing firm this will obviously take time as the proof images travel between parties. (Do not accept digital proofs sent via email. You may laugh but trust me it has been done before! A digital image on your computer screen is worthless and cannot possibly give you any idea of the quality of the work).

I know that most of our customers, even repeat ones, like to see a sample before we run off the finished article. As most of them are "local", Grand Cayman being only 20 miles long, it is easy for them to meet with us whenever they choose, to go over the proofs with us.

Preparation of the image does involve work and printing the proofs costs time and money too, so a charge is an industry norm. Check the policies of your printer beforehand to see how many proofs and corrections they include in their quoted price. Some will offer proofs and one correction before charging additional fees and others may include more.

One last thing in this section and it is important. Do not be fooled by online printers who claim "fastest, cheapest, highest quality". With fine art prints you cannot have all three.

A properly produced giclee on canvas will take several days from receipt of the digital image files because after printing, the image needs to cure for 48 hours before the sealant can be applied. It takes another 24 hours for the sealed canvas to cure and be ready for stretching. In short, anyone offering a 24 hour turnaround is not producing a reproduction of the "highest" quality. Cheapest will sometimes mean sub standard materials, so remember, "fastest" is irrelevant, "cheapest" in relation to what?

Minimum Orders

This is a thorny subject and something that from an artist's perspective can male or break a deal. A lot of companies will stipulate either numerical or financial minimums to make prints.

On the one hand, their argument is that in order to price competitively, they need to control the minimum of money they will make themselves. There is probably some truth in this for larger firms to whom your custom is just another order and who are not geared towards smaller jobs.

For the artist it presents a problem if there is a 100 print minimum order and they have no idea if they will even sell 10 of them. This is where you need to match your needs carefully with the willingness or otherwise of the printers to accommodate you.

We were often quoted ridiculous minimum orders by printing firms and many of them just don't seem all that clued up on the fine art market and its specific needs as opposed to those of the local nightclub looking for flyers for their next big event.

Some printers may offer to print only what you need, when you need it, subject to their minimum order requirement. Those that do will still probably want full payment up front although some may be prepared to charge for each separate run as and when you ask them to do them.

It's a cash flow thing really, yours and theirs, so you need to find a good fit for both parties.

Again, a specialist is probably your best bet, even if they are more expensive per unit, they are far more likely to print what you want rather than what they want.

As a small operation, we will do one off prints for our customers whether they are artists, retailers or members of the public. Being small and specialized we do have the ability to be flexible even down to producing a single print which we know will still be profitable for us.

I think that just about covers everything except prices. When looking for quotes you will probably be surprised by the discrepancies from one firm to another. However, remember that someone producing genuine high quality fine art giclees on museum quality archival media has some pretty steep overheads.

Get a good number of quotes - if some stand out as ridiculously cheap against others you have to ask how they can offer the prices they do and where they might be cutting corners. Using the same logic, those that seem to be priced way higher than most could just be being greedy, or they could be offering quality and service that is head and shoulders above the rest.

At least now you have the information to stand yourself in good stead when negotiating the right printing deal for you and your own budget.

I cannot give an accurate indication on the prices you might reasonably expect to pay given all the variables involved for any one printing job in any one region of the globe. This is why it is imperative for you as an artist to shop around and compare notes on a variety of quotes.

Let's just say that if someone offered to do you a stretched canvas giclee measuring 24x18 for twenty five dollars I would be very suspicious. Conversely, if they told you it was going to cost you closer to $300 my suspicions would be of an entirely different nature but just as strong. I have seen both extremes online.

Investing in prints of your work is certainly worthwhile but, as I hope I have illustrated, only if certain parameters are met. If you sell your original artwork online or through Ebay at $25 per painting, giclee printing may not be for you simply because of the costs involved which would probably make the cost of reproductions much higher than your originals, at least if you want to make a profit! As with any business venture you need to do your calculations and know your market and then go out and find a deal that satisfies your requirements.

I will be adding links to some of the best commercial websites below who I consider offer both good information and value for money in terms of price/quality of work.

(Footnote: The artwork featured on this page is protected by copyright law. Parties interested in any of the artists or in "Arteccentrix" original art and high quality reproductions in the Cayman Islands can contact us through our website at ArteccentrixGallery.com

One final thought. There is always the option to produce your own prints. Be prepared to invest a lot of money though because the equipment does not come cheap. (At the time of writing for example, the Epson 9900 Pro costs around $5700 from Amazon and that's just your printer covered).

I recently read a PDF produced by an artist who proudly claimed that they were making their own giclee prints and went on to offer advice to others on how to do it.

Unfortunately, whilst the intentions were good, there was a lot of errors in the document and, quite frankly a lot of nonsense. The author had invested in a $2000 scanner, a $600 printer and a copy of Photoshop. With this setup the report claimed that the technology and methodology of giclee printing is simple enough for anyone to learn.

In the same document the author stated that it was preferable to work with and print from a scan in JPEG format because a compressed file took up less computer memory. (those were the words, they are not mine, I know they meant disk space).

The scanner, the most costly item in the author's inventory, capable of capturing pretty decent high definition scans and wasted by compressing an image for the sake of disk space.

The equipment limited the size of images being reproduced to very modest proportions, but if that is all you need, the hardware listed was probably good enough to produce a reasonable print that looked good unless examined too closely. That quality was probably more limited by the knowledge of the user than anything else.

Photoshop is awesome software but to get the best out of it when preparing images for printing takes time, trial and error.

Working with a JPEG and then editing in PS and saving again, maybe several times over, is degrading this person's image files every time, the compression slowly eroding the quality of each image.

The artist in question had limited knowledge of accurate color matching and image manipulation techniques and certainly didn't have all the equipment to do it all in the optimum manner, so although printing primarily on good quality paper, there was no understanding of color profiling for each individual substrate for best results.

Although mention was made of the hardware's ability to print on canvas, there was nothing about finishing the final print properly and sealing it, nor how to use a wrap or the time needed for the print to cure properly. There was the bold claim that the artist could finish a painting in the morning and have a high quality giclee hanging on a gallery wall by the afternoon. For a print on paper it may indeed be possible to bang one out that fast, but not if the printer cares as much about the reproduction as the artist should about the original.

I'm sounding maybe overly critical here but when people make these statements and claims that are incomplete, it just spreads the misconceptions and mistakes to a wider audience.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing as the saying goes. I agree that anyone can learn how to produce a giclee, there's no great mystery to it but you need to learn from an expert, not an amateur, if you are going to do any artwork real justice.