Before you begin having your work printed, here are a few phrases or words that you need to know, so you better understand what you are asking for, or what your printer is asking for.

Print/giclee/digital print: These all mean the same thing to most printers. The word that most often gets misunderstood is “giclee”. Giclee is a French word that means, “to spray”. It has come to associated with a higher level of quality of print, but, if you are dealing with a printer who specializes in reproducing artwork, there shouldn’t be substandard quality prints of any kind from them. If you ask for a print, and then say you also want giclees made, that can be a little confusing. Giclee is also often misused to mean prints of artwork on canvas rather than on paper. Digital print is a more modern version of “giclee” and is often used these days to, once again, imply to the collector that there is a higher degree of quality. But, really, all prints are digital prints, in that they have to be processed by a computer, and then printed by a machine. So, when asking for prints, just use one word (whichever most appeals to you), and then say what media you would want them printed on (such as “textured fine art paper giclees, or canvas prints, or luster photo paper digital prints.)

PPI/DPI: This is pixels per inch and dots per inch. Pixels per inch refers to how many little dots of color are used to make up the digital image, and dots per inch are how many dots per inch of color the printer is laying down on the media. Ideally, if you are setting up files for your printer, you should have between 200-400 PPI as your file setting, and your printer should be printing at between 600-1,200 dots per inch.

Media types: The most commonly used are canvas, paper, photo paper, metalics, baryta and fabric.

Canvas should be either cotton/poly blend or all cotton for best quality, and should be a relatively heavy weight canvas. Pure poly canvas feels very unnatural and plastic like, and is usually very thin.

Papers will be either textured or smooth, and will also vary in weight and thickness. You should ask your printer to see what options they have available for you.

Photo papers usually come in matte finish (no sheen at all), luster (low sheen), semi gloss (more sheen), and gloss (which has a LOT of sheen). The more sheen, the more light is reflected, which can make it hard to view from certain angles at times.

Metallics are all the new rage, and are usually either papers with a very thin layer of metallic material under the gloss, or are actual pieces of metal that have been treated to hold the inks from printing. They have a unique look, and they will require a special set of mounting hardware.

Baryta is a photo paper that feels much thicker than normal photo paper, and has a deep richness in it’s color, due to a thin layer of clay embedded under the surface of the paper.

Fabric can be printed on, as long as the machine has the correct ink set. Most wide format printers these days use water based pigmented inks, and these do not normally hold up very well to washings or water.

The single most important thing about your media type is you want to make sure that all materials used (paper/canvas, inks, overcoating spray, etc.) are archival/museum grade. This is a certification that the materials used to create your prints are stress tested to last for 100 years without color shifting or fading. Not using archival materials could end up with your saving a few dollars today, but not having happy clients a few years down the road when the print they bought no longer looks like it should.

Next blog post: What is a stretched/gallery wrapped canvas, what is embellishing, and how do I know what size my original image can be printed at?