The on-demand nature of digital fine art printing, combined with the ability to make a print indistinguishable from it’s original has turned the art world upside down. The art publishing industry loves it… and fears it.
They love it because in the 90’s it single handedly saved a lot of people’s bacon and saved the collapsing art reproduction market publishers struggle in. The on-demand nature of Giclée (the trade name for high quality, digital fine art printing) allowed for an explosion of new images and new artists into a stagnant market. Suddenly, every group, every culture, had it’s own art. Golf for golfers’; seascapes for coastal communities; marine art for the environmentally sensitive. The edition size could be small and focused. The publisher could take the same investment cost and spread it over many more, potentially profitable, images. The market was abloom with fresh new art and new art buyers. Publishers could get their product out without going broke. That was a good thing and it still is. So where’s the rub… they fade.
Well, they did and they still could fade, but no longer have to. It’s been a long, hard road, with lots of painful mistakes to develop an industry out of a large format printing machine. We use particular products and procedures, but it works. Here’s what we know and how we sell it.
First of all, there’s now a general standard defining and trade marking the top quality Giclee, called Tru Giclée. According to the Giclée Printers Association, based in Orange County, California (www.gpa.bz), a Tru Giclée represents “The highest quality digital art reproduction available to this culture at this time”. They have outlined nine principles or tests, which define a Tru Giclee. The three most distinguishing qualities are:
The ability to exactly match the original. They really mean it. No loss of anything. No evidence of the technology, such as grain, dots, banding, spits. An exact match as viewed through the eyes of the artist. This is not just a technological feat, but for a fine artist, a requirement. They have painted exactly what they intended, and simply won’t tolerate a printers rendition or interpretation.
The ability to print each piece exactly the same throughout the edition. This means not only does each piece within a run have to be the same, but when the re-order comes in six months later, it must also be the same.
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