One of the most common questions that we get asked is what is the difference between a C-type and a giclee print.
Here are 4 handy tips to help you understand the difference between these 2 printing techniques.
1 C-type vs Giclee
Digital C type printing is a laser process and the printers are also often known as light jets or lambdas. At arts social club we print on a commuter printer, which uses papers that are light sensitive containing silver crystals overlapped and suspended in emulsion that are exposed, develop and fixed to produce a photographic image.
Meanwhile, Giclee or inkjet printing is a dry process where the ink is sprayed directly onto a paper from another and a halftone pattern.
2 Digital C-type
Digital c type printing employs traditional C-type papers which are modified for digital exposure allowing the photographer to accurately record the color makeup of your image. At Arts Social Club we print on Fuji Crystal archive Matte
3 Color, Tone and Contrast
C types have much more subtlety in tone than giclee prints. For example, a square inch of a C-type print folds over 16 million colors. Whereas a giclee holds 256. Higher maximum densities can all be achieved with a C-type printing allowing you to reach deeper richer blacks and more dynamic range and high light to shadow.
Giclee fine art textured papers can be used to give a fine art field to and the ability to reach very saturated colors is also something traditional printing methods cannot reach. Giclees are often used by illustrators and Artists in art reproduction as they accurately represent the original medium such as German Etching with sampling and watercolour.
4 Archival Quality