FAQs
about giclées:

Q1: Is it possible with today's technology to print a 100% reproduction of the original painting?
Q2: Why do you use highly priced equipment instead of a much cheaper flat-bed scanner or a regular camera?
Q3: Is there any science behind the production of giclees?
Q4: How does a buyer of one of your giclées know that the print is authorized by the artist?

Q1: Is it possible with today's technology to print a 100% reproduction of the original painting?
Clear and short answer: No. Even with the world's most advanced equipment it is not possible today to make a 100% copy of the original.
That is the reason why printer producing companies like Epson and HP and Roland and others bring out new printer models and inks every other year.
MaaleaPress is not a copy shop. We do individual work on all of our scans and prints.
The art of printing giclées is in getting as close as possible.
For those readers who are disappointed now here is a good thing to do: Go to a shop where TV sets are sold. Usually you will find a huge wall there where different TV sets are displayed. Checkout those that play the same program. You will notice that the colors on different brands will render completely differently - although all the TV sets receive precisely the same color informations (expressed in numbers). Each year the ICC (International Color Consortium) spends millions of dollars to solve that "problem". And there is no solution in sight. One reasons is that color is a very subjective interpretation of visual inputs - made up in the mind. The eyes get wave lengths, the mind adds color. The same with the camera or scanner. These devices only get different gray values filtered through a red, a green and a blue filter and broken down into numbers. The color is then added while rendering the photo/scan on the monitor. If you like to try it out for yourself, just load a photo in Photoshop in different color models: open one window and set it to RGB, open another window with the same file and open it in sRGB, or Lab or CMYK or any other colo gamut available in Photoshop. With each change of color gamut you will find a slightly different color rendering on the monitor.
Although some companies on the web claim they make a 100% reproduction, some even say they can do it without proofing (?), a 100% reproduction is clearly not possible!
There are a lot of reasons for that. The most obvious reason is that the original painting is done with a nearly unlimited number of colors based on oil, acrylic, watercolor or others.
But the printer has only three colors plus black (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). As our scans are simply world-class we get pretty close to the original, sometimes even better, but even better also means it is not 100% like the original, it is only an interpretation. Even with the best color management (the flow of the color into the camera/scanner, from there to the monitor and from there to the printer) there always is quite some manual work to do while doing the color adaptation (color correction). Color correction is the work on the image as it is represented on the monitor and compared and matched to the original. We go from natural light (the original) to an artificial color gamut (RGB, Lab, sRGB or other color gamuts) which is represented in square pixels in the camera/scanner and monitor, and from there we go to the CMYK color gamut on the printer which is represented by round dots and printed in pigmented inks. No way to match the colors 100%. We go from reflective light (on the original) to translucent light (on the monitor) and from there to reflective light on the print. There always is a loss of color details going from one color gamut to another and there also is a different perception of colors in reflective light(original and print) compared to translucent light (monitor) where the color correction is done. The art of the lab technician is to get as close to the original as possible. With photos it is a different approach. Working on a photo the lab technician does not have an original to compare to and match.The job of the lab gechnician with a photo is to get the photo balanced out in itself.
Another reason for color shifts is the light condition. We all know that colors render differently in the morning, than they do at noon or late afternoon. In the lab the technician works with artificial light. At MaaleaPress we use light sources with the new industry standard of 6,300 K. And beyond that oil paints, acrylic paints, watercolor paints reflect light differently than the inks of an ink-jet printer. In the case of having a hard time understanding that, just give the following thought some time:
Would it be possible for a master painter to copy a painting using only three colors plus black, ink jet paints consisting of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black?
The answer is a clean no. Our machines do a better job than a master painter would be able to do. But still we can only get close.

Q2: If there is no 100% match, why do you use highly priced equipment to produce giclées instead of a much cheaper flat-bed scanner or a regular camera?
There is an old wisdom: Garbage in, garbage out. In the context of fine art reproduction this means that one will not get an excellent result with a mediocre scanning device. Excellence here means getting extremely close to the original. It means reproducing the "soul" of the original. And for this purpose it is extremely essential to use state-of-the-art equipment like we do with the Cruse-Fine-Art-Synchron-Table with 1.1 Giga-Pixels in 24-bit mode. Before we do a scan at MaaleaPress, we analyze the original and use the result in the way we do the scan. For example we find out which direction the light takes in the original and then we follow that light with the scanner. On a giclée print from an original with texture either from the substrate (canvas, paper) or thick paint, we get nice shadows in the print. That effect makes it nearly impossible for the eye to tell the difference between the original and the giclée. This effect cannot be done with any other scanning technology. The Cruse scanner not only has an incredibly high number of pixels (1.1 Giga-Pixels) but also has options for the experienced scan master to produce never before seen giclées. The fundament of making an excellent giclée is in an excellent scan.

Q3: Is there any science behind the production of giclées?
An awful lot of science is behind the production of giclées. The development of cameras/scanners is completely based on science (mechanics, optics, electricity and so on), computers are exclusivley based on science and printing devices too. And still with all that science in the background, there always is at least 10% of the process that has to be done manually (color correction). And that is based on experience with the equipment, color perception and intuition. So science AND experience make an excellent giclée.

Q4: How does a buyer of one of your giclées know that the print is authorized by the artist?
Each of our giclées comes with a certificate that is manually signed by the artist. This certificate of authenticity comes with an exact description of the scanner, the date of the print, the printing device, the inks used,the substrate, the edition and so on. When we get an order for a print (print on demand), we inform the artist. The artist signs the certificate and the giclée is shipped to the customer.