Gicleé - Description

Developed in Germany and France during the mid-1980's, giclee (pronounced zhee-clay) is an advanced fine art reproduction method. The process creates copies so close to the original art that some artists actually have difficulty telling them apart.

Giclees have advantages over traditional reproduction methods such as lithographs and seriographs. Printers can match colors that previously they could only get close to in the four-color lithographic process. By digitizing the original image, a printer can go into the file and esentially isolate areas that may need color correction, without affecting other areas of the image.

Resolution is also much better with giclees. At up to 1,800 dots per inch (the measure of detail of a print), giclees have the highest resolution available in prints today. The smalller the dots and the more closely spaced, the better reproductive quality. A giclee is esentially a continuous-tone print, showing every color and tonal nuance.

Contributed from an article by Heather Lampe from Wildlife Art