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What Makes a Great Giclee
By
Fabio Braghi
One of the
most common questions asked is how to
produce the best possible giclee. A giclee
is a high fidelity print made with inkjets
using pigmented inks. Although it is a
fairly simple and short inquiry, the answer
is complex. I will try to split it in three
parts:
File quality
Native
resolution needs to be a minimum of 150 ppi
for art papers and 200 for resin coated.
When I say native, I mean before any kind of
interpolation. Interpolation of files over
200% is harmful. Also, digitally created
files (such as files from digital cameras
and computer graphics raster programs)
interpolate better. Vector files are
resolution independent: an Illustrator file
can be printed as large as you wish. It
needs to be rasterized at the wanted
resolution for the size of the final print.
Make sure
your files are color balanced and no
crossover is present. Crossover occurs when
complementary colors are present and not
wanted in an image. Also, it is very
important there is no clipping in highlights
and shadows. You can easily see any issues
by running a histogram in Photoshop. Last
but not least, is the image sharp?
Hardware and
software
A giclee must
be made with a high quality printer. Right
now I would not consider anything else but a
pro Epson, Roland, Colorspan or Iris. HP and
Canon have a few interesting products in the
pipeline.
Make sure you
use professional editing software such as
Photoshop. Also a RIP is a must in a
production environment. If you are producing
low volumes, the regular drivers supplied
for free with all printers will do.
Inks and
substrates
This is the
most complex item. As for inks, it goes
without saying that pigments should be used.
Dyes are mostly organic compounds and as
such they break down. Dyes have a wider
color gamut but are unsuitable for long
lasting prints.
The papers
are another huge factor. Make sure you buy
archival, acid free substrates. OBA free
materials are preferred. OBA stands for
optical brighteners and OBA papers tend to
yellow and possibly break down over time. It
is imperative you coat OBA papers with UV
protecting compounds.
Coating is
another issue. At this time liquid or spray
coatings are the standard. Do not use
laminate sheets as they crack and shift to
yellow in months or at best a few years.
Copyright
2006 Fabio Braghi
Fabio Braghi
is the owner and printmaker of a
Fine art giclee print company.
Article
Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fabio_Braghi
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