But for paintings and art photography with lots of color and details, any flaw will be an eyesore. You might not notice these imperfections in printed documents with just text. Or maybe there was some wet ink left and you accidentally streaked or smudged it while handling it. Unfortunately, in a few weeks, your printout will see some wear and tear from sunlight and room humidity. You hang the photo on a wall and call it a day. Not wanting to spend money or wait, you use your home printer instead of ordering professional prints. You really like it so you decide to print it. So what’s with all the fuss about fancy inks, printers, and paper? Well, imagine you take a nice photo while traveling with your family. This type of paper or canvas ensures that your prints won’t degrade like regular paper. Archival paper is known for its outstanding durability because it’s acid-free. Giclée prints are made with archival paper or canvas. Great! But without the right base, the results might be a letdown.

Let’s say you can get your hands on top-tier printing technology and pigment inks. Giclée prints require archival quality, with a 100% acid-free base. Pigment inks, unlike dye inks, are UV-resistant and stronger when prints are handled. This deterioration is prevented by using pigment-based instead of dye-based inks. Giclée prints are also known for their longer lifespan-they’re resistant to smudging, sun, or humidity damage. To produce giclée prints, the printer must be a wide-format inkjet printer. For giclée printing, you don’t use a standard desktop inkjet printer. Giclée prints require inkjet printers and pigment-based inks only.Īnother factor that separates giclées from digital prints: the type of printers and ink.

The more DPI, the higher your image resolution-the print will be sharper and more detailed, even up close. Similar to how when you zoom in on a photo and start seeing little pixels. What’s DPI? It’s the density of the many little dots that make up your print. To start, the resolution level is measured by dots per inch (DPI). For giclée prints, your image resolution has to be a minimum of 300 DPI.

Giclee