Digital reprinting is a well-developed method of fine art replication.
There are many reasons why a person would invest money in fine art prints. The consumer put off by the price of original work can afford prints more easily, especially if the art is printed on paper instead of more expensive backings, making it possible to collect more work. The artist who makes prints of her work will be able to sell the same piece many times, making it possible to return more profit and even to keep the original work if desired. There are five categories of fine art reproduction methods: digital printing, photography, photo-offset printing, serigraph (silk screen) printing and continuous-tone lithography. The appropriate method to use is best decided after learning a little bit about how the different printing mechanisms work and what can be expected from the product of each.
Digital Printing
Digital printing has several branches. Giclee prints, Digitografs, Repligraphs, UltraStable prints, EverColor Luminage prints and Artagraph prints are a few of the most frequently used. All of the variations are based on the same basic technology. While other printing methods are developed around films or plates, digital printing uses a scan of the work and then a computer to transfer digital files to the printing press. This process is fast and has little waste in terms of test papers and chemicals, and depending on the process, inks and paper or canvas used, the results can last up to 500 years.
Types of Digital Prints
Giclee (Gee'clay) printing is especially popular for reproducing watercolor paintings because the light-fast vegetable-based dyes used have a similar look. In giclee printing, the original image is scanned on a drum scanner either directly or a transparency is made of the piece and then scanned. The ink is sprayed on the paper or canvas similar to the way an inkjet printer works. In fact, "giclee" is a French word meaning to spray or squirt. The inks will stay true for up to 25 years if kept out of the sun, but it's best to get prints made with a protective UV coating.
Digitografs are best suited for reproducing oil paintings. The canvas is printed on an 8-color printer with oil-based acid free inks, resulting in prints that are durable, waterproof and fade resistent. Digitografs can be printed with darker colors than giclees and can be printed larger. A maximum giclee is 34 inches by 46 inches, and Digitographs can be up to 44 by 94 inches).
Repligraphs are printed on canvas with dyes. Slides or negatives are used to make the prints, so they can't be changed on the computer. In this method, polymer films are dyed with cyan, yellow and magenta and then fused into the canvas. This is another technology best suited for replicating oils; they are as durable as Digitografs and can be made up to 46 by 98 inches.
UltraStable prints and EverColor Pigment Transfer Prints are extremely light-fast and may last more than 500 years before colors start to fade, compared to the 10 to 20 years that is the typical lifespan of most dye-based prints. Light-sensitive layers of pure pigments are individually developed and then printed on archival watercolor paper or a white polyester base. UltraStable InkJet Canvas has the longest display life and widest color reproduction range of any fine art print media.
Artagraph is a complex 3D process that duplicates the color and surface texture of the original piece by using a laser scanner to copy the colors of the original painting onto an oil-base film. Technicians then add the brushstrokes in an acrylic mixture that is layered over the film, and a silicone mold is made of the surface texture. A compression oven heats the color film, textured mold and canvas together to create an exact replicate of the original painting. Artagraphs are most appropriately used with paintings that have surface texture, such as acrylic or oils. They are the most exact replication process, but they are also expensive.
Photography
Photographic prints are made by simply taking a photograph of the art and printing it on paper. It is the cheapest process of replication in small quantities, but is also the least desirable in terms of accurately portraying the colors, contrasts and textures of the original art. The paper used is generally inferior to paper used in other methods, and because the colors have such a tendency to fade, photographic prints are not accepted by most galleries.
Photo-Offset Printing
Photo-offset printing uses filters to separate the original work into black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. The image is then broken into a dot pattern with a halftone screen in a method similar to photo printing for newspapers. Offset printing is primarily used as a cost-effective means of mass producing prints because the outcome has better color than the photographic process, though it is still not the best means of making prints. The halftone dots make it difficult to retain fine detail from the original work, and because of this offset prints are often avoided by galleries and buyers. It is adequate for replicating pastels and watercolors, but tends to flatten acrylic and oil paintings.
Serigraph (Silk Screen) Printing
Serigraph printing is similar to photo-offset printing in that it too uses a four-color separation mechanism. Separate silk screens are used for each color, and the color is then printed in layers on the paper. This method has gained in popularity in the past few decades, although it is expensive for small numbers of prints. It is an improvement over photo-offset printing because it allows for more ink to be deposited on the page and, therefore, for some texture can be built up, but because it too breaks the picture down to dots, fine detail is lost in this method as well. Furthermore, some colors are unattainable, and though acrylics and oils are accurately replicated, softer-looking styles such as pastels and watercolors lose some of the subtle gradations of the original.
Continuous-Tone Lithography
Continuous-tone lithography is similar to stone lithography, in which art is hand drawn by an artist on marble or limestone and then printed one color at a time on the paper. Continuous-tone lithography uses photographs of the art that are then separated into colors. The color separations are transposed to photosensitive lithographic plates, which are individually printed. This method can reproduce far more tones than either photo-offset or serigraph prints. Because it does not rely on halftone or screen dots, fine detail is accurately replicated from acrylics, oils, pastels and watercolors. The prints can be run off on rag paper, canvas, plastic and other surfaces, and the outcome are the highest quality prints available.
