All prints sold on this site (Canvas and 300 GSM fine art paper) are Giclées.
Giclée is a technology for fine art or photograph reproduction using a high-quality inkjet printer to make individual copies. It is a printing technique that captures the essence of the paintbrush markings on the paper. In other words, the prints look like a painting.
In 2003, Epson came out with their first pigmented ink printer and with advances in paper, canvas, and canvas varnish, the name Giclée now applies to any high resolution archival print on canvas or thick fine art paper from Epson, Canon, HP, and Roland printers.
Prints on poster paper at Costco are not considered Giclées. Prints on Metal, Cloth, or Nylon are also not Giclées.
If you special order a canvas giclees, these do differ from the majority of other companies because of the thickness of the coating- 6+ coats and are waterproof, and won't crack or fade. Other printers either don't use varnish, or spray 1 thin coat that will crack or fade in the near future.
HISTORY
Giclée is a french term which means "spray" or "squirt". (Pronounce it is Gee-Clay- or according to the dictionary /ZHēˈklā/)
Back in the late 1980's an Israeli company invented the IRIS 3047 printer. This printer was for the printing press industry so they could see a rough printout before printing their 4 color process on their presses- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Do you remember Crosby, Stills & Nash? Nash was a photographer and bought an IRIS 3047 to print his photos on fine art paper in 1989. The results were spectacular and lots of companies started buying the IRIS 3047 for fine art reproduction. In 1995 it would cost about $120,000 for the IRIS 3047. This printer had 4 distinct nozzles that sprayed 1 million dots per second ALL the time. Some ink droplets hit the paper/canvas while most went down the drain. So, literally, while in operation, 4 million ink droplets were being sprayed continuously. Only prints from the IRIS 3047 were called a Giclée throughout the 1990's.