Details regarding many issues surrounding digital photos and printing
Giclee-- This is a French word. Someone was looking for a name that would distinguish high quality art prints from the prints most anyone can make with any inkjet printer today. And Fine Art Prints are to ordinary inkjet printing as a Yugo is to a Porsche. They both share basic technologies but the end result and the materials are quite a bit different. Otherwise Giclee is basically a borrowed term. Given that we use the best materials and printing, we can say that we use the Giclee-process. (Breathing Color tells me that the term "giclee" dates from the IRIS printer days that used a spraying-like process.)
Archival-there is no authoritative body to specify what is Archival in the world of fine art printing. As a result most anyone can use the word as they wish. Basic requirements should be that the print is on Canvas or 100% cotton rag paper preferably with minimal optical brighteners. The ink used should be one with a predicted long life. Usually this means a pigmented ink such as those used today by Epson and HP in their printers for photographic and graphic arts. These inks are not available for ordinary inkjet printers. If not protected by glazing, the print should be varnished. Historically, pigments have been durable in artist's paints but dyes have not. (Note: more and more photo printers available to the consumer are using long-lived inks.)
Archival framing is museum quality and few framers are prepared to frame and mat this way. The British definition is quite specific and would not allow some more recent advances in materials that are long-lived and that many in the US would call "archival." Conservation framing can be done by many framers and is the level of quality we do. The mat board and backer boards commonly used by frame shops are not conservation grade. Dry-mounting, wet mounting, and lamination are generally not conservation grade since the art work cannot readily be separated from the backer without remnants of adhesive remaining. Our prints are mounted on acid-free backer or mat board with mylar strips or the print is hinged. The print itself has no glue or tape attached to it but floats on the backer held in place by the Mylar strips or the hinge. We use conservation grade mat board.
Gallery Wrap-- When stretching a canvas, the stretchers can be somewhat smaller than the print so that the print wraps around the stretcher. The result is a print that makes a right angle at the edge of the stretcher and comes around to the back of the stretcher bar. In other words the print covers the stretcher bars.
The problem is that unless the print is square you will lose more off the long side of the print than the short side. Gallery wrap in effect "crops" the picture one and half inches on each side for a total of 3 inches in each dimension but in order to get 3" in shorter dimension you have take proportionally more from the longer dimension. If key elements of the picture are on the edges, gallery wrap detracts from the picture. However, there are two solutions to that problem: painting the edges of the prints that do not wrap well or printing a reflection of the edges of the print to use as the wrap. For the most part we prefer painting the sides in such a fashion that the picture blends into an abstraction. This takes a lot more work, but the effect is usually much more pleasing.
Limited Editions-almost without exception, we only print editions limited to 30 or 40 total prints. Currently we are supplying a certificate of authenticity that describes the print including the number in the edition and the total number of the edition. Large pieces we may limit to 10. We are not nor do we want to be in the business of commercial printing. We do reserve the right to print small quantities of posters derived from prints but that do not by any means duplicate the print itself anymore than the traditional posters often printed by galleries for shows and so forth duplicate the original work of art.
Our Equipment- Until recently we used exclusively Canon equipment. We have two Canon camera bodies--1ds Mark III, and a 5D. We have lenses from 1000 mm (500mm with 2x extender) down to 24mm. Recently we were able to acquire a medium format digital camera--Mamiya AFD with a Phase One P45+ back. This will allow us to shoot larger panoramas without the need to stitch two rows. Most of our work is done with fixed focal length lenses with the exception of events like roundups and some nature pictures. We do have several zooms from a 24 to 70 mm up to a 100 to 400mm. Panoramas are generally done with shift-tilt lenses with the exception of panoramas from a distance which we shoot with the appropriate telephoto ranging from 1000mm to the 100-400mm zoom. We use approximately a dozen different lenses on a regular basis. Currently we have 5 lenses for the Mamiya in lengths from 28mm to 300mm.
We use an Epson 4800 to print smaller pieces and an HP Z3100 44" printer for larger pieces. Both employ pigmented inks that are quite durable.
Any framing or matting that you find on the original print is ours. At the moment we do everything ourselves-taking pictures, photo processing, printing, stretching if on canvas, matting and framing, and any coating. It is our desire to have control over the entire process from the taking of the picture to the print as it goes to an individual.
Materials-we use conservation grade materials or better in the process of framing and matting. For all of our larger pieces, we use museum grade acrylic for glazing which is UV blocking. With some exceptions all photographic paper is 100% cotton rag. Currently, canvas and Varnish come from Breathing Color who manufacture all of their own products and sell directly to printers. In other words, none of their products are rebranded.
As of July 1, 2008, we have been adding an additional protective coat to canvas pieces--Polymer varnish With UVLS from Golden, a leading producer of acrylic paints and coatings www.goldenpaints.com.
In any case, we are currently supplying a certificate of authenticity with each piece that describes the materials used in that piece.
Nothing will last forever; however, we are currently using high-quality, durable printing materials that should last a long-time if given reasonable care. Manufacturers are extremely aware of the problems associated with traditional color photography. To our knowledge, there are no photographic papers for color that have stood up to the accelerated aging tests applied to current "giclee" printing. Current estimates from accelerated aging tests are 100 to 200 years before noticeable deterioration in color for prints on paper, properly glazed. Properly varnished canvas should have a similar life-span. Current printing processes certainly should be much more durable than any photographic color printing of the past. Aging tests should be considered as relative indicators of longevity not guarantees. See the following two paragraphs.
Pigmented inks have a history of durability. These are the types of inks that have been used in traditional fine-art printing. Dye-based inks can be durable when combined with the proper papers. Until HP came out with their own pigmented inks they argued that their dye-based inks combined with their papers were equal to any other process. However, when HP introduced their new line of printers, they also introduced new pigmented inks. Of some interest is that in accelerated-aging tests, these inks were the most durable.
As some idea of the relative durability of inks, WIR testing has reported accelerated aging tests for a number of 4x6 printers aimed at consumers. Accelerated aging estimates ranged from 200 plus years for HP Vivera inks to 4 months with a cartridge refilled with Office Depot inks. See this reference
White things and Clear things can Yellow. Manufacturers of papers and coatings are acutely aware of this issue. Only time will tell who has been honest and who hasn't. Breathing Color is a small company that specializes in inkjet media. The durability of this company entirely depends upon the quality of their products. We use their varnish which is the Varnish used by the high-quality fine art printer Bair.
Sizes-we can print about any size you would like to have on Canvas. Traditional paper prints are limited by the size of matt board--40 x 60 inches. (Expert framers can mat larger pieces than we can.) 40 x 60 matt board can enclose approximately a 35 x 55 print (two and a half inches of matt on each side of the print.)
On Canvas the largest practical small dimension is 40" using 44" canvas. We can get stretcher bars of about any length, but 120" is a practical limitation. New Mexico's primary source of art materials carries regular heavy-duty stretcher bars up to 84", but they can be had up to 120" by special order.
Is that what it really looks (looked) like?? No, Cameras and the human eye don't see the same way. No Photograph has ever been what the eye sees. Up until about WWII, all photography was grey scale of some kind that is black and white (with some exceptions, see, for example see Wikipedia). Some people still consider real photography to be a process that is black and white. People see in color. Still photography freezes the subject in time. Vision is a continuous process much more akin to video than to photography. If you examine any picture of any event, it will not be what you can or could have seen. The camera catches the event that you cannot ordinarily see so that you can see it. Look at any still photograph of part of a sporting event. You cannot see what the camera caught.
In addition, photography is two dimensional. We see the real world in three dimensions. What is interesting is that the brain can process a two dimensional photograph such that it seems to represent three dimensions.
So what do we see? What does the camera see? Camera use can be constricted to a representational space that is as close to what a person might see as possible for objects that don't move or change much in time. Buildings, statues, and objects for sale are examples of things that a photograph might capture in a rather narrow representational space. But most things are constantly changing. The camera captures a moment that we cannot see as a rule and represents it in such a way that we can see it.
The actual "thing" represented to the eye for the brain to process and represent in its own way (which is to some extent unique to the individual or we would all wear identical clothes, live in identical houses, walk on identical carpeting, etc.) has its own reality separate from other realities. So we don't actually "see" anything; what we see is a highly processed representation of a "thing" based upon the reflection and absorption of a very narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In the end a photograph is something you may or may not want to see, may or may like, may or may not "understand" and so forth. In the realm of "fine art", photography can be as variable in what it presents to the eye as any art form. For the viewer or the owner, the issue becomes one of personal "taste." And that sounds like a cop-out. But the bottom line is whether you like it or not. And you may like it for any reason , for any dimension of the human emotional or intellectual experience. Like music. And how different can be one's like of music. Once upon a time, I set up the background music for a waiting room. I chose 25 classical CD's from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Music that I found very pleasing, nothing "modern" or atonal. The two ladies who worked for me, almost immediately asked me to please turn off that "awful"music. For them classical music was almost unbearably awful. It was a real "ahah" experience for me. I could understand that they might not like it, but that they found it unbearably awful rather stunned me.
The only thing reprehensible in the deal is the tendency of some people to hold firmly that how they see things is the way everyone else "should" see things.
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Summary: 1. The print must be on either a properly prepared canvas usually poly/cotton or on 100% cotton rag paper. 2. The printer should be a professional photographic printer using pigmented ink. Today that will usually be an HP printer or an Epson printer. 3. If matted, the mat should be conservation grade or better. In general the print should not be glued to the backer, but should be hinged or floated. 4. If on Canvas, the canvas should be coated with a proper Veneer specifically for that purpose and not something from the arts and crafts world such as Krylon. We use a Coating by Breathing Color specifically designed for canvas, particularly their canvas. 5. As of July, 2008, we are also coating canvas prints with a proper Varnish that painters usually apply as the final coat of a painting on Canvas. This seals the first coating and allows for conservation cleaning in the future should that ever be necessary. 6. If the artist does not clearly specify the materials being used and to what standard they adhere, beware of the quality of the printing process regardless of how wonderful the picture may look. 7. Also be aware that some artists appear to be printing on canvas and selling it uncoated and unstretched. 8. We do not sell unstretched canvas. We do not trust unknown parties mounting our work since we have no control over the quality of the work and cannot estimate the longevity of the piece. Every canvas piece we sell you can hang as it is without any other work. So it is a final piece. 9. We print very small editions, one piece at a time. For the most part each print is unique in small ways and could be considered one of one, particularly the prints that we tint with glazes. 10. We see a lot of work on thin stretcher bars. We use heavy-duty bars for the most part even on smaller pieces although smaller pieces may be on medium-duty bars that are still quite a bit heavier than the thin bars we often see. 11. Our pricing for finished pieces is often lower than prices for smaller unfinished pieces. For unfinished pieces, additional costs may nearly equal the entire price of one of our items, aside from the fact that you will have a very hard time finding someone to finish a piece the way we do. We usually paint the sides of pieces so that the picture fades into an abstraction on the sides. This allows the piece to be hung without a frame. AND our pieces are properly coated to protect the underlying print. We also back pieces we ship with acid-free foam backing board. This reduces the flexing of the canvas and provides protection for the back side of the piece. We are one of the few printers who do this (if anyone else in the digital photo world does it).