In the world of fine art and photography, quality is paramount. The ability to reproduce intricate details, vivid colors, and a wide tonal range is essential for artists and photographers to convey their vision. This is where Giclee printing, a term often associated with the highest standards in art reproduction, comes into play. In this post, we'll delve into what Giclee printing is and how Photo Innovation Lab utilizes this technique to not only achieve outstanding print quality but also to contribute to a sustainable future.
What is Giclee Printing?
Giclee (pronounced zhee-klay) printing is a term derived from the French word "gicler," which means "to spray." This printing process involves the use of high-quality inkjet printers to produce archival-quality prints with exceptional color accuracy and detail. Giclee printing has become the gold standard in fine art reproduction due to its ability to capture the subtleties of original artworks, photographs, and digital art.
The Photo Innovation Lab Difference
At Photo Innovation Lab, we are passionate about delivering top-notch Giclee prints that meet the demands of our discerning clientele, which includes professional artists, fine-art photographers, art and photography students. Our commitment goes beyond just producing exceptional prints; we are dedicated to using our craft as a platform for climate activism.
Our Giclee Printing Process
Image Preparation: Our journey toward creating remarkable Giclee prints begins with meticulous image preparation. We work closely with our clients to ensure that the digital files are of the highest quality, preserving all the details and nuances of their artworks or photographs.
Printer Selection: Photo Innovation Lab employs state-of-the-art inkjet printers specifically designed for Giclee printing. These printers utilize a wide color gamut and precision technology to reproduce colors and details faithfully.
Ink Selection: One key aspect that sets Giclee printing apart is the use of archival-quality, pigment-based inks. These inks are known for their longevity and resistance to fading, ensuring that your prints will stand the test of time.
Paper Selection: Sustainability is at the core of our business, and that extends to our choice of printing materials. We offer a range of sustainable papers, carefully sourced to minimize their environmental impact. These papers not only provide exceptional print quality but also align with our mission of climate activism.
Color Management Approach to Soft Proofing
Color accuracy is paramount in Giclee printing, as even the slightest variation can impact the final output. At Photo Innovation Lab, we employ a meticulous color management approach to ensure that what you see on your screen is what you get on paper.
Calibration: Our monitors and printers are regularly calibrated to industry standards. This ensures that the colors you see on your computer screen closely match the final printed result.
Soft Proofing: We take soft proofing seriously, our custom ICC profiles allow us to preview how your artwork or photograph will look in print. This step allows for adjustments to be made to color and settings, ensuring the best possible rendition of your work.
Making Giclee Printing Climate-Friendly
As an organization deeply committed to environmental sustainability and climate activism, Photo Innovation Lab takes significant steps to minimize its carbon footprint in the Giclee printing process.
Sustainable Papers: Our selection of sustainable papers isn't just about high-quality printing; it's about supporting eco-friendly practices. We source papers made from recycled materials or from responsibly managed forests.
Climate-Friendly Packaging: In line with our commitment to climate activism, we use climate-friendly packaging for all our printed products. This includes recyclable and biodegradable materials to reduce waste and carbon emissions.
Partnership with One Percent for the Planet: Photo Innovation Lab proudly partners with "One Percent for the Planet," an organization dedicated to funding environmental projects worldwide. A portion of our proceeds goes toward supporting these initiatives, furthering our mission to use art as a platform for climate activism.
Carbon Offset: We take active steps to measure and offset the carbon emissions generated during our printing processes. This ensures that our operations remain carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative.
Giclee printing is an art form in itself, and at Photo Innovation Lab, we take immense pride in mastering this technique to serve our diverse clientele. Our commitment to quality, sustainability, and climate activism is at the heart of everything we do. Through the use of Giclee printing, our meticulous process, and our eco-conscious choices, we aim to empower artists and photographers while making a positive impact on the planet.
When you choose Photo Innovation Lab, you not only get breathtaking Giclee prints but also become a part of our mission to use art as a powerful tool for climate activism. Together, we can create a more sustainable and beautiful world through the power of art and innovation.
]]>Trillium - Trace Hudson ©
On this installment of How To Make Better Prints, I will address a commonly overlooked tool we photographers and artists have at our disposal: The Histogram.
I would say that after image resolution, the Histogram is our second most important tool and we need to take full advantage of it.
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.”
― Ansel Adams
First, a little bit of history. The word “histogram” was first used by the English mathematician Karl Pearson in 1891 and was coined with the intention of linking two words together, “historical” and “diagram”. At its very core, the histogram is a simple graph used to display historical data in the form of bars called bins. Each bin displays how many values represent one particular range. In photography, the histogram’s bins help us visualize the quantity of pixels per color tone available in an image/photograph from black (left) to white (right). Gaps in the histogram represent the absence of values in that specific tonal range.
Ok, so why is it that it’s so important? It’s because we cannot trust our eyes. Our eye/brain combination is trained to make color assumptions based on what we see, so when looking at an image we can only tell colors - or for that matter, shades of gray - apart because we can compare them with one another. What this means is that when we look at our photos through our screen and we spot the darkest point our brain assumes it is black, and that the lightest/whitest part of the image is white.
We cannot place all the blame on our brains. Another key factor that furthers this problem is that when we look at an image on our monitor, tablet or mobile device we are looking at translucent light. Our images literally are being pushed out of our screens by tiny light emitting cells. On the flip side, when looking at our photo prints we see reflected light. Reflected light has a lower intensity than its translucent counterpart making the images we see on screen perform differently when printed on paper.
Now that we know how our eyes see and what the histogram shows, we should be asking ourselves where does this all fit in with our workflow. The answer to this is simple, at the end.
Everything you are doing today, from capturing your image to editing it with Lightroom, Photoshop, Snapseed or your favorite image editing app is great! You should not change any bit of it, but since you want to print your photos you’ll want to add a last step to your workflow:
Do you want to know why Ansel Adam’s images were so great? I mean, yes they are perfectly composed, and balanced, but most of us can make well composed and balanced photographs *for screen*. So, what was his secret? He spent hours dodging and burning, printing and reprinting his photographs until he achieved what he called ‘the performance’. But Ansel did not have at his disposal this wonderful tool we’ve been talking about. He had to work very hard to capture the wide variety of tones available on his prints. Thanks to Mr. Pearson and the wonders of technology, we don’t have to work as hard as he did.
“Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships...”
― Ansel Adams
Let’s say you want to make a photo print of the photograph you took while traveling through Oregon over the summer. You’ve done your fair share of editing and the people you have shared the image with have praised it. It’s perfect *for screen*. But before you send this image to your printer we want you to look at your histogram and answer the two simple questions:
Just by looking at the image we will not know, because of the reasons laid out above… Our eyes will take the darkest and lightest areas of the image and use them to make sense of the rest of the colors, tones and hues in the image. If there is no true black or white we effectively compress the tonal range in the image. On the screen we compensate sometimes by increasing our brightness and contrast, but on paper there is nothing we can do.
The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.
― Ansel Adams
This leads us back to the histogram. Remember this step is exclusive for print, so you may think your edit changed, but this is only because you are increasing the dynamic range of your image by compensating for the brightness on your display.
The first thing we want to do is create a copy of the edited image then start to make for-print adjustments. Clip the blacks just a bit. Enough that you know they are there (looking at the histogram) but not so far that you lose important details in the shadows. Same thing goes with the whites. We want to clip them a bit, stop just before blowing out important highlights. After this initial adjustment you’ll notice that your colors become a bit more vibrant and contrasty. Finally time to soft proof using your printer/paper ICC profile for color calibration and print!
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Photo: Juan Carlos Hernandez, 50mm 1/800s f1.8 ISO 64
Here we are at the top of your workflow and your digital camera or camera-phone will be responsible for capturing and storing images. Since you want to get the most out of your digital files you want to be capturing all your images in RAW format. What does this mean? In layman’s terms a RAW image file is one that hasn’t been processed by your device’s software. The RAW file encompasses all the unaltered data captured by your device's image sensor.
But why is it so important to capture RAW files? The one-word answer to this question is control. Not shooting in RAW has your device use generic algorithms designed to enhance color and sharpen sharpen images as they are captured. This is not bad by any means, but if you did not like the results or want to change you will not be able to while maintaining the highest quality. On top of this, your camera will reprocess your image file and compress it which will make you lose an enormous quantity of valuable pixel data permanently.
Mosts all of today's digital cameras will allow you to capture RAW images. In order to activate the setting go to your user manual and follow the step by step directions on how to set it up. iPhones are a little more complicated since the native camera app will not save images in RAW format. In order to do so download and shoot with one of the following apps: VSCO, Adobe Lightroom CC, Camera+ and some others. Here’s a link to the compiled list available in the AppStore: Desktop Link - Image Editors and Mobile Link - Image Editors.
For Android devices check your phone settings and if your device is using Android 5.0 Lollipop and has the Camera2 API enabled you should be good to go.
Now that you know the basic on what a RAW image is, here are our top 5 reasons why you should start doing this today!
1. Wider Tonal Range
Remember we talked about your images being processed and compressed by your image capturing device? Well, one more thing you will lose in this process is bit-depth meaning that the total number of colors / tones is vastly reduced in order to accommodate a smaller file size. JPEG images are 8-bit or the equivalent of a total 256 color values (2 to the power of 8) but RAW output files in contrast can contain up to 16-bit or the equivalent of 65,536 color values.
If you're keen on learning more hit this link and enjoy! 8, 12, 14 vs 16-Bit Depth: What Do You Really Need?!
2. Retain the Highest Amount of Data
We can't stress it more, compression even at its lowest forces you to lose data. This could be a game changer when it comes to color gradation, image sharpness, noise and printing your photos!
3. Gain Wider Latitude for Edits
So your images are over / under exposed? Shooting in RAW will provide you added flexibility during your edit because of the higher bit-depth.
4. Detail Control
With RAW files you make decision over how sharp or soft you want your images to be. In-camera processing constrains this dramatically as it will sharpen your image and compress it permanently.
5. Select Color Space
We will be writing a separate post on this topic because it is extremely important when printing your digital photos. For now just know that Color Space defines the variety of tones available in an image file. When shooting in RAW you get to decide what color space you want your image to have. This will vary depending on output, for example, all web images are in the sRGB color space which is the smallest of the three main color spaces we will discuss.
In general, unless your camera enables you to, when you capture processed images (JPEGs) your camera by default will assign the sRGB color space to you image. This is particularly true to every image captured with a mobile device.
Larger color spaces like Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB allow to retain and reproduce a wider variety of colors. This is essential when thinking about printing your images and you'll have the best results when you define your Color Space when working on your RAW file. At Photo Innovation Lab we encourage you to send your images on the Adobe RGB color space.
If you have any questions regarding this or any topic, drop us an email to hello@photoinnovationlab.com We would love to hear from you.
]]>On this day and age it is hard to think beyond the digital image, the one we share on our favorite social media channel. Not only that, but most of us only started getting serious about photography because our smartphones allowed us to carry a camera anywhere we went. We quickly learned to use image editing apps like Snapseed, VSCO, Mextures, Filtersorm, or ColorEffects to give our snaps a unique and professional look.
Fast forward a bit and now you have troves of images stored in your hard drive or in the cloud and have realized that some are good enough for printing. Where do we go? How will they look? How much will it cost? On this post we would like to address the Image Resolution question, because it is something we can and should control. So let’s get started!
We’ve talked about resolution a bit on previous posts but to give you a refresher, in its simplest form, “resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image. It is sometimes identified by the width and height of the image as well as the total number of pixels in the image”. Jack / microbus
Now that we clarified that, you may be asking yourself, so where do I find my image resolution? On a mac, right click on your image and select file info and you’ll see a new window open. As you sift through all the information available focus on one term… Dimensions. Learn more at PSPrint
In our case, the image we would like to print is 4288pixels wide x 2848pixels tall. So, how does this relate to printing? Well, its because the optimal resolution for paper prints is 300 pixels per inch or ppi.
Let’s take a look at the following table created by Design215:
As per the chart and with some math you can tell that all they did was to divide the width and height dimensions of the image by 300 in order to get to the largest optimal print size given the amount of pixels in the image. In this example , our 4288x2848px digital image will yield a beautiful 14x9in or smaller print. If we wanted a 16x20, well… we would have to significantly sacrifice our photo print quality.
In conclusion, image resolution plays a huge roll in determining the print quality of our digital images because it speaks to the amount of data or pixels available for printing. For optimal print quality you will want to have at least 300px per inch or 300ppi.
]]>If you’re not printing your photos you’re missing out.
Before we dive into photo print preparation let’s talk a bit about how we see. We live our lives surrounded by reflected light. Our eyes are designed to capture the light that bounces off of things, which is exactly what we capture with our cameras. Something different happens when we view images from any digital device because light is not reflected as in the real world but shined through into our eyes. The truth is that there are just more tones and depth in the colors we see out and about than those available on our screens. Therefore it is only when our images are put on paper that they better represent what is real.
“The negative [digital image] is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.”
– Ansel Adams
Here are three things you need to consider before sending your images to print let that be at home or at professional print lab.
You are only as good as what we see, so you have to start by making sure that what you are seeing is ‘accurate.’ You do so only by calibrating the screen you are using to edit your images ensuring that your monitor or display device is calibrated by matching it to a known standard. So, before even thinking about how to edit your digital images you have to ensure that your display/monitor has been calibrated.
To learn how to calibrate your monitor using your pc’s built-in software or a colorimeter we found this post from Digital Trends to be useful.
Calibrating your monitor should be the first thing you do before retouching any of your images.
Image cropping is a crucial step before submitting images to your photo printer. It should happen after you’ve already edited your digital image. Make sure you save a separate copy of your image so that you always keep the original un-cropped.
When cropping your image to a particular size i.e. 4x6, 8x10, 9x12, etc. you have to think in terms of the aspect ratio of each size. So let’s define it:
Aspect ratio is the relationship between the long and short sides of the photo image.
If your shooting with a D-SLR your images will be in the standard aspect ratio 2:3 that is based on the old 35mm format. So what happens if you want a 16x20 print?
Let’s break this down a bit, it’s not rocket science but requires some attention. Below I’ll list some of the most common print sizes and their equivalent aspect ratio for convenience:
Size |
Aspect Ratio |
16x20 |
4:5 |
11x14 |
11:14 |
9x12 |
3:4 |
8x12 |
2:3 |
5x7 |
5:7 |
4x6 |
2:3 |
As you can see from the table above, if your image is 2:3 and you want a 16x20 print you will have crop your image in order for it to fit the new format 4:5 because the ratio between the different sizes is not the same.
Take a look at the image below to see how each Aspect Ratio compares with each other.
When you submit files to us we will ensure they are in the proper aspect ratio as per your print requirements.
Image resolution describes the amount of pixels per inch (ppi) on any given image. For example, if an image has resolution of 72 pixels per inch, then no matter the size of the image or how many pixels there are, they are spaced in such a way that there are only 72 of them covering an area of one linear inch.
What’s important to note here is that an image can have any resolution you want because it is you who determines how close or far apart you want the pixels to be (if you are sharing on the web 72ppi vs. printing 300ppi). Now that we understand that we have control over the resolution of an image it is imperative that we understand how it relates to image size.
As print size goes up, resolution goes down and vice versa.
If you have an 8x10 image at 300ppi (2400x3000px) and you scale it up to 16x20, you end up with an image resolution of 150ppi because the amount of pixels in the image stayed the same as the size of the image went up. The opposite happens if you have a 16x20 image at 300ppi (4800x6000) and you scale it down to 8x10. You end up with a new image resolution of 600ppi.
The trick here is to resample your image either with dedicated resampling software or with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom or nearly any professional image editing software. Note that any resampling should happen at end of your editing workflow; once you have edited the image to your liking and cropped it to the aspect ratio you’ll be printing at.
To make better photo prints from your digital images you want to keep in mind that what you see on your monitor is not always accurate. Your first step in the editing workflow is then to calibrate your monitor and ensure that what you see on screen will translate to what you’ll see on your print.
You also want to crop your images after you edited them to the aspect ratio relevant to the size you want to print i.e. 4:5 for 16x20, or 2:3 for 8x12.
Lastly, ensure your image has the resolution required for optimal print output and know that you have absolute control over it.
We will be going more in depth on these and more topics on future posts, in the mean time let us know what you would like to read about by shooting us an email to printingtips@printshopapp.com.
]]>How do Ink-Jet, Dye-Sub and Laser photo prints stack up? Read on...
]]>At Photo Innovation Lab, we believe that the one of the best ways to archive our photography is to print it. But that isn’t its only benefit. A photo print can be interacted with, and if printed large enough it could be life-size and deliver an immersive experience you could never achieve on a screen.
On this post we will go over several photo printing processes and why ones are better than the others always keeping permanence and reproduction quality as our guiding principals.
For the most part, as far as photo printing goes, it's entirely about inkjet prints. Some like to use more fancy terms like giclée prints but that does not change the process at all: archival grade pigment ink on photo paper. Inkjet printing is a process by which tiny dots of different color inks are delivered by a printing nozzle in order to recreate an image on to paper or other aqueous receptive substrates.
Photos by Clearly Clement Photography
You may be asking yourselves why inkjet is better than other printing processes. In essence it’s because it uses a wider variety of pigment ink colors and therefore produce a wider tonality. In the case of EPSON® printers, we have Black (Matte and Photo), Light Black, Light Light Black, Magenta, Light Magenta, Cyan, Light Cyan and Yellow, with some newer models adding Orange and Green to the mix.
Inks are specially formulated to preserve color over time and because the process is aqueous and not light-sensitive inkjet prints have the longest display life when compared to other photo printing processes.
Dye sublimation, or dye sub, is also great for photo printing as it delivers prints with a truly continuous-tone. Similar to the one you get in the darkroom. This is simply because it does not use dots of ink in order to reproduce the image. Instead it uses CMYO (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow Overcoating) colored ribbons, not a bunch of ink dots.
The drawback to dye sub is that you have to print on special paper, so you wont have a lot of paper options compared to inkjet printing. It's expensive because each application yields a lot of waste and images won’t be as sharp as the ones produced by an inkjet printer.
Laser prints on the other hand are cheap. Printers are not very expensive and are very cost efficient when it comes to making actual photo prints, but they are not continuous tone. Laser photo prints feel more like a newspaper, where if you look up close you’ll be able see the bigger dot patterns, much larger than that of an inkjet print. Another drawback is the limited color gamut; they just don’t enjoy the versatility in color reproduction available to inkjet printing or dye sub applications. Detail isn't the best either and similar to dye sub you’ll be constrained on the paper selection.
If you want the widest range of colors displayed on your photo pints and want those photographs to last then your best bet is to print with a high-end inkjet printer. At Photo Innovation Lab we offer not just that, we also prepare your files for printing ensuring that your vision is fully captured on the final photo print.
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