After converting an image to giclee canvas, printmakers have the option of enhancing them. Canvas is a very protean material, and can be enhanced in multiple ways. The most widely used way to enhance a giclee print is by applying paint to the print to give it character and an authentic look. Acrylic and oil paints are the two most prevalent paints used to embellish the print. Be sure to use water resistant canvas in order to avoid ink separation, and remember to wait until the original print is done drying before applying any paint. Giclee should always be treated with a varnish after printing to avoid aging and yellowing. There are varnishes specifically manufactured for giclee that are able to fulfill this job. Coating can be applied to giclee art prints with a manual roller, spray gun or special coating machine. The style of application is up to the printmaker to choose. However, it is recommended that high volume coating be accomplished using a coating machine to prevent time-consuming labor and complicated errors. Once the varnish has been applied to the giclee print, the printmaker can apply paint or gel to improve the look and feel of the canvas. There are multiple water-based gels available that dry on translucent. These gels may be easier for the user to apply than actual paint, and give the prints a beautiful finish. Another favored technique that can be applied is the adding of acrylic paint to these gels and then applying them directly onto the canvas. This creates a pellucid mixture that is ideal for improving light areas of the print where the colors can be observed through the gel. Also note that enhancing giclee prints is not limited to colored prints, as black and white prints can be embellished by utilizing these techniques as well.
If you are interested in making canvas prints from your photos, then you should consider using . Loosely translated from French, the word giclee means a spray or a spurt of liquid. These prints may connote such the elevation in print making technology and canvas pictures produced this way can be seen generated from smart resolution digital scans of a still photo or directly from a digital photo and printed as well with highest quality inks onto different mediums or substances. The most common of these mediums, and what we will concentrate on here, is canvas, but the others are photo-based and fine art paper. These prints are created typically using professional 8-color to 12-color ink-jet printers today, but the process started a long while ago in 1989 and various methods have been used on and off since then. One of the major advantages of making canvas prints over photos using this method is that this process produces better accuracy colors than any other tool of reproduction and so they are of very high quality.
Another advantage of giclee prints is that the technology has spread all over the world and the major printing companies such as Epson, MacDermid Colorspan, & Hewlett-Packard have created printing solutions just for these prints and this has helped in reducing costs due to the high competition. The companies doing this work are also many and this has also led to reduced costs.
Another advantage of making using this method is that because you are not interested in mass production of your work, these prints will work well for you because they are usually on-demand. Even if you decide that you want more than one copy, a digitally archived image can be reproduced with minimum effort and at reduced cost, this image does not deteriorate in quality as film, and negatives do with time. Mass production is very expensive because of the upfront costs. Another advantage of canvas prints over photos using this method is that digital images can be reproduced to any size that you may wish, your only restriction were cost and personal preferences. For those interested in selling these canvas pictures for a profit, you can test market your art before committing to large production runs using this method.
With this method, you do not need a set for color separation, which was very time consuming in other methods. Giclee prints also allow you to adjust color, contrast, brightness and color saturation and this ensures that the final product is as good as the original image if not better. You get the option of editing off such things as shadows, blemishes and bad lighting from the original photo and so the final product may actually end up being better than the original.
An important advantage of this method is the time taken to do the work. Since only printing is done, the time from submission of photo to delivery at home can be as little as four days. Another advantage is that this art form is starting to attract art investors and who knows ? maybe your work will be a collector's item one day.
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