What is Giclée and Why Does It Matter?

Giclée is pronounced “jee-clay” from the French, meaning “to spray.”  Currently giclée printing is the highest quality form of art reproduction available to us. To print a giclée, we start with a high-resolution digital photograph or scanned image of at least 300 dpi. We are fortunate to have available to us, professional photography along with expert giclee printing from our own local award-winning photographer who won the 2016 Audubon Grand Prize out of 7,000 submitted images. We would not offer giclée prints if they were not top quality. We can attest that these are the best we have ever seen and offer unparalleled color matching, clarity and quality.

Next, for all prints over 13x19 we use a high-quality, ink jet printer that will print at least 600 dpi (300 dpi is fine if printing small) and “spray” the best archival pigment ink colors available – usually about 10 colors - onto special archival paper or canvas. A traditional ink jet printer has only 4 CMYK ink colors which are dyes not pigments.  Dye ink fades over time, but pigment ink will last for generations if kept out of the sun and in a stable environment. (All artwork fades in the sun!)

At the Carrie Goller Gallery, archival quality giclée prints are available from several of our artist’s original works. Our museum grade archival giclée reproductions are available in various sizes; up to 36” in width to limitless length (depending on the image ratio). These giclées are printed on acid free, high- quality, archival paper or gallery wrapped canvas.