Other Types of Printing Are Available
In my first post I explained exactly what Giclée printing is, here I’ll go through the alternatives for printing your artwork, I’ll explain what they are and their pros and cons when compared to each other and Giclée printing.
Inkjet
Inkjet printers have been around for a long time, the technology was first explored in the 1950′s and then developed during the 1970′s by a trio of familiar names; Epson, HP and Canon.
Inkjet works by dropping tiny amounts of coloured ink — usually dye based rather than pigment based — on to paper, it’s very similar to Giclée in its process and is the precursor to its more refined relation.
Most home inkjet printers are set up for A4 sheets of paper, larger printers are available and they’ll carry A3 sheets allowing for larger prints. As professional printers improve, the knock on to home printers is felt; some manufacturer’s dye based inks — when combined with quality acid free papers — will last close to the pigment based inks found in Giclée prints. Colour representation is improving too, many inkjet printers will combine 4, 6 or even more coloured inks to achieve wide colour gamuts.
The obvious pros to Inkjet are cost, entry level printers are very inexpensive and most are very simple to set up and use at home.
The cons are the inconsistent quality across the market, to achieve a high quality print from an inkjet, you should look to a printer from the professional range of printers from established companies such as Epson and Canon. If you’re going to be printing yourself from home, you’ll also need an understanding of print and the software needed to produce the best results from your images.
Offset Lithograph
Lithograph and especially Offset Lithograph is the most popular type of printing in the world, it’s used for printing a huge range of different media including posters, magazines, brochures, stationery, and books.
Lithograph is a technology that has been around for centuries; plates with ink “stamp” on the paper to produce a reproduction, offset was developed in the late 19th century and differs with ink first being transferred to rollers before coming into contact with the paper. This allows for a more consistent print across a large print run.
Offset Lithograph is the cheapest form of printing available — per print — however, set up costs are high. The plates have to be especially created for a print run, so Offset Lithograph isn’t suitable for small print runs of artwork, you’ll need to produce 100% of your edition if you want to get the benefits of this print technology. Having the entire print run produced in one go does have its advantages; you’ll get consistent colour and quality across a large number of prints and you’ll receive the prints very quickly, the process is much faster than Giclée or Inkjet.
Digital C-Type
C-Type printing is based on traditional photographic methods with a process based on a chemical reaction from light sensitive paper. Digital C-Type uses RGB lasers or LEDs to expose light to the paper, this produces a latent image that when developed with a conventional silver-based photographic chemical reaction, the print is revealed.
The technology is rare though, equipment isn’t widely available and so only a few print studios have a Digital C-Type setup.
Especially suited for photography, due to the process, there aren’t too many advantages over other print techniques. Some people will say that Digital C-Type prints have a continuous colour and tone, which is true when compared with ink based prints under a microscope, however the very high resolutions of Giclée printers will certainly give you a “look” of continuous colour and print.
Digital C-Type prints can be a little less expensive and like a large Offset Lithographic print run, Digital C-Type prints are quicker to produce. Ink based printing has the advantage though over Digital C-Type in paper selection (unless you want really glossy prints), colour gamut and print quality — especially the longevity of a print, pigment based prints will last a lot longer than Digital C-Type prints.
Sources
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_printing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromogenic_color_print
metro-print.co.uk/faqs/different-paper-types/what-is-a-digital-c-type
breathingcolor.com/blog/guide-to-digital-printing-part-1/