What is the difference between Giclée prints and standard prints or art posters you may find elsewhere? 

A Giclée is a high quality digital print of an image resulting in an as-close-to-original art piece. These can sometimes be indistinguishable from original artworks. Giclées can often be found in museum collections and can be quite valuable. In the process of printing Giclées ink is spurted onto printing surface, such as our canvas or archival acid free cotton rag paper, using archival inks which are more stable and have better colour longevity than other inks. 

Offset lithography is used mainly for commercial media such as flyers, magazines, brochures and mass produced prints or art posters. Commercial prints from an offset press will show mechanical rows of dot patterns from the ink color separations. You will see similar dot patterns in newspapers and comics, however with lithographs the dots are smaller and can be seen with slight magnification. 

There are several other differences between our Giclée fine art prints and lithograph prints: 

• Printing Processes: We use acid free paper and fade resistant inks. Our commercial printer specializes in fine art printing and is set up to produce Giclée prints without having to clean presses and change inks for our smaller run of fine art prints. 

• Number of Ink Colours: The difference between Giclée inkjet printing and lithography is that the Giclée inkjet press uses eight to twelve, whereas lithography uses only four colours. The higher number of colours used in Giclée printing means that variations even in subtle shades and hues can be created resulting in rich, dense colours. 

• Types of Printing Surfaces: Offset printing presses can only use thinner paper stock, whereas canvases and heavier rag papers can be used in Giclée ink-jet printers. 

• Volume: With offset lithography, large volumes of one image are run through the press all in one printing, whereas Giclée prints can be printed on demand, one at a time.  This is of major importance to us as is eliminates storage issues and inventory keeping. 

• Longevity: Even with acid free paper and fade resistant inks, lithographs will last about 30 years if they are protected from direct sunlight. With Giclée prints the lifespan can range from 70 to 200 years, depending on the printing surface and pigment inks used and providing they are not exposed to direct sunlight. 

An offset lithograph is an economical way to purchase an art print of decent quality. While Giclée prints are more expensive to print and are sold at a higher price, they offer an impeccable, museum quality investment that will last for generations.