What is a Giclée Art Print?

If you want to reproduce your artwork, photography or illustrations to art gallery standard, a Giclée Fine Art Print is the product for you.

But what is a Giclée printing exactly?

At Printed.com, we offer a range of print solutions to suit your needs and budget. Our standard digital printing options use a four-colour process, and we print products like Postcards and Posters based on these four colours.

Moving over to a different machine, we print your Giclée Art Prints on a printer that uses a twelve-colour process. This way we can closely match your artwork or photography colours (with no loss of vibrancy). Meaning we can reproduce your designs and illustrations so perfectly, you’ll be second-guessing yourself on which one is the OG.

What’s the difference between Giclée Prints and regular prints?

A standard digital print will be produced on an inkjet printer using the four-colour method we mentioned above. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) are utilised in the form of tiny dots, to build your artwork.

When you print using a Giclée method, more ink colours are used, which means that you can get greater colour accuracy. Giclée Prints are often printed onto specialist paper stocks which avoid degradation and yellowing, ensuring that they stay crisp and bright for years to come.

At Printed.com, we source our Giclée Print paper stocks from experts, Hahnemühle. You can choose from their Photo Rag Pearl, Baryta FB, Bamboo and German Etching paper for your print.

Hahnemühle Photo Rag Pearl

This is a smooth, natural white photo paper. It has a unique pearl-coating for a low surface shine and is 100% cotton, giving it excellent age resistance. If you’re printing black and white photography, make this your paper of choice.

Hahnemühle German Etching

Hahnemühle German Etching paper is a natural white, uncoated paper with a texture much like Tintoretto Gesso (if you know, you know). Its tactile surface means it’s a popular option for illustrative Art Prints.

Hahnemühle Bamboo

The most eco-friendly of the lot is our Bamboo stock. A natural paper with a slight surface texture and a subtle pearl sheen woven through, made from 90% bamboo fibres and 10% cotton.

Hahnemühle Baryta FB

Hahnemühle Baryta FB is a robust, thick paper with a super smooth, glossy finish. It is a fibre-based paper coated with baryta (a mineral that’s similar to clay) for increased image definition. So choose this paper if you’re a lover of bright colours!

Top tip: when setting up your artwork for Giclée, your file type should be a TIFF or JPEG. Also ensure your colour mode is set to RGB so we can produce the best colour intensity for your artwork.

Why not get a feel for our Giclée Fine Art Print papers yourself?