Gicleé or inkjet prints?
People (well photographers), love this subject. It gets them really hot under the collar. Gicleé (pronounced zhee-klay), defines a print process generated from high resolution digital images, printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The gicleé printing process is traditionally associated with the copying of original artworks, although many people now use the term to describe the printing process alone. It provides better color accuracy than many older reproduction methods as they are created using typically 8 (or more) colour ink-jet printers. Caveat: This is all for nothing without a proper colour managed system in place to guarantee accurate reproduction and consistency. With this in mind, the latest printers are capable of producing incredibly detailed prints for both the fine art and photographic markets and therefore produce 'Gicleé' quality results. For more information, try visiting:
http://www.novaspace.com/AUTO/Giclee.html
What does Archival mean?
Having studied this topic in some depth in my previous work, I can confirm that this is a complex and often controversial area of study! Complex, because the lifetime of a print is dependent on many factors. These include the quality of the inks and substrate used, how the print is displayed, the amount of exposure to light and the wavelength it is exposed to, whether or not the print is glass covered, and the type of glass used and environmental factors, such as humidity and temperature. With so many variables, it would be foolish to attempt to give a 'guaranteed' lifespan or lightfastness of prints, although many people do. In real terms, and this applies to any painting, photograph or digital print, if you want your print not to fade, avoid prolonged exposure to very bright light, especially sources high in UV (eg. direct sunlight). The results of ink fastness tests rely on 'accelerated' exposure to light and are not guaranteed.
If you would like more information on the technicalities behind this subject, please visit http://www.wilhelm-research.com/index.html , but beware, it doesn't make good bedtime reading.
What is the Blue Shift Gallery guarantee?
I use only the highest quality original manufacturers' long life inks and papers, and not 3rd party suppliers. My digital inputs and outputs are professionally colour managed and regularly tested to ensure colour stability and consistency. Under 'normal' conditions, your prints will last a very long time!
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