A Giclée print is a high quality archival inkjet print. The word Giclée (pronounced ‘Jee-Klay’ with a soft J), comes from the French verb gicler meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray". We use the latest best-in-class Epson Sure Color P9000 printers, capable of producing print resolutions up to 1440 by 2880 DPI. Print resolution

Giclée printers have a higher dot per square inch resolution than normal inkjet printers, allowing you to do justice to high quality image files to produce finer, less pixelated prints than you could with a home inkjet printer. Here at theprintspace we use the latest use best-in-class Epson Sure Color P9000 printers, capable of producing print resolutions up to 1440 by 2880 DPI.

Colour range

Like your home inkjet printer, professional Giclée printers use the CMYK colour process, except that they feature a multiple ink cartridge, 8 channel printhead based on the CMYK colour model, adding light magenta, light cyan and 3 levels of black. In combination with theprintspace’s in-house colour profiles (which you can download here), our true Giclée prints deliver unrivalled colour accuracy with superior black & whites, exceptional colour gamut and sublimely smooth gradient transitions.

Archival quality

Giclée printers use a higher quality of fade-resistant, archival, pigment-based inks. When applied to high quality archival substrates, like, for example, the Hahnemühle cotton-based, acid free Rag papers we use at theprintspace, this results in an unbeatable archival lifespan of up to 200 years.

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Color range

Unlike C-types, which are continuous tone, chemical process prints, where colours are produced by a chemical reaction, the colours on Giclées inkjet prints are produced by applying pure pigment inks directly to the paper. As a result, you can achieve a wider range of colours (known as the gamut) with an inkjet process, especially the purer colours at the extreme end of the spectrum. So, if you have an image with bright punchy colours, and having those colours really stand out is an important part of the effect you’re trying to achieve, then you might want to choose Giclée over C-type. On the other hand, C-types handle images with gradual tonal changes better (like human skin tones, for example), so the choice of print type really depends on your image

True black & white

Professional Giclées use 3 different tones of black and grey ink cartridge. Because these inks can be applied to the paper in pure form (without any colour noise from the other colour cartridges), files prepared in Adobe RGB Grayscale can produce exceptionally clean, colour-cast-free black & white Giclée prints. To find out more about how to get the perfect black & white print, check out our comprehensive Black & White Printing Guide.

Wide choice of print papers

The second reason you might choose Giclée over C-type is the wider choice of paper types. We’ve hand-picked 7 best-in-class printing papers, from photographic substrates to heavy cotton based textured papers, popular with illustrators due to the artily effect of the finished print. See the next article for a guide on how to choose the right paper for your image.

We recommend that you frame and use a mount (passepartout) on the images. We do that for you.