What is a Giclee?

A giclee (zhee-CLAY), is an individually produced, high-resolution, high-fidelity, high tech reproduction done on a special large format printer onto inkjet canvas, inkjet fine art paper, or watercolor paper. Giclees are produced from digital scans of existing artwork. Also, since many artists now paint only digitally, there was no "original" that can be hung on a wall. Giclees solve that problem, while creating a whole new vibrant medium for art.

The Giclee is quickly becoming the new standard in the fine art industry, and is widely embraced for its astonishing quality by major museums, galleries, publishers and artists. A Giclee Print is quite simply the closest replication of an original artwork that is currently possible.

Giclees can be printed on any number of media, from inkjet canvas to watercolor paper to vinyl, to transparent acetates. Giclees are superior to traditional lithography in nearly every way. The colors are brighter, last longer, and are so high-resolution that they are virtually 'continuous tone', rather than tiny dots. The range, or "gamut" of color for giclees is far beyond that of lithography, and details are crisper.

Since giclee printers can use media in rolls, large print sizes are available, limited only by the length and width of the roll. Billboard sizes are possible. Giclees are typically sold by the square inch or square foot.

In giclee printing, no screen or other mechanical devices are used and therefore there is no visible dot screen pattern. The image has all the tonalities and hues of the original painting. Giclee is a French term meaning to spray or squirt, which is how an inkjet printer works. However, it is not the same as a standard desktop inkjet printer, and is much larger. Giclee prints are a little over a metre wide and are often affectionately referred to as a “knitting machine” as they look very similar.


One advantage that digital printing offers to the fine artist and fine art publisher is that the edition can be printed on demand. Giclée images reproduced from your original paintings, watercolours or drawings are recorded as a digital file and can be produced whenever required.

An archived copy of your image file can be kept for you to call off single or multiple copies at any time, this enables you to avoid the high cost and risk of producing a complete giclee print edition all at once.