Giclee Printing Glossary of Terms

There are many technical terms that any artist should become familiar with when working with a giclee printer. Here are some helpful definitions in alphabetical order.

Adobe RGB (1998) - a universally accepted color space used by most giclee printers. Has a much broader color gamut than sRGB.

CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow, black -- colors usually associated with process colors for offset printing -- not giclee printing.

Color gamut: Referring to the breadth of colors available in a color space.

Color Profile: The settings used by giclee printers to match the paper/cavas type to the print output for the best results. Profiles are either provided by the printer manufacturer, RIP software companies or custom-made.

Color space: The color spectrum that is available in a particular file. sRGB is a limited color space with a smaller color gamut (range) than Adobe RGB (1998). Typically, images from digital cameras are in sRGB. Also, images on the Internet only display in sRGB.

Drum scan - a high quality scanner used to convert film images to digital information.

Fine art papers - papers that are made from 100% cotton and are acid and lignin free.

Flatbed scan - increasingly becoming the preferred method of scanning film and certain types of original art

Large format camera - a high quality camera for capturing original artwork. Typically beginning with a 2 1/4 square format up to an 8x10 format. Digital versions can contain up to 422 Megapixels.

Monitor calibration - an process used to adjust a computer monitor to more accurately depict the color output of printed piece.

Pigmented inks - inks that are used in the giclee printing process that offer superior archival qualities over dye inks. Depending upon the ink and paper or canvas combination, prints should last from 60 years to over 100 years without fading under normal lighting conditions.

RIP - Raster Image Processor

Substrates: Types of papers and/or canvas used for making giclee prints.