At 12 Stone Art, we offer the highest quality giclées available anywhere. We use only the finest pigment inks and fine art printing materials from HP and Hahnemühle for brilliant long-lasting prints with exceptional color, contrast and detail. Each giclée is custom printed to your exact specifications. During your order you may select the size and printing material that you prefer, and we will custom print your artwork. We're so certain that you'll love the quality of your 12 Stone artwork that we offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee on every print.
A giclée (pronounced "zhee-CLAY") is a high-resolution art reproduction, individually printed on super high quality large format inkjet printers. These printers are not your typical desktop inkjet, but are manufactured specifically for digital fine art printing.
Traditional lithography uses tiny dots of four colors — cyan, magenta, yellow and black — to fool the eye into seeing various hues and shades. Colors are "created" by printing different size dots of these four colors. Giclees are superior to traditional lithography in nearly every way. The colors are brighter, last longer, and are so high-resolution that they are virtually 'continuous tone', rather than tiny dots. The range, or "gamut" of color for giclées is far beyond that of lithography, and details are crisper.
Not all giclées are created equal. Our state-of-the-art printing system uses twelve specially-matched inks to provide the most vibrant and realistic color, sharper edges and more even coverage. Each print is finished with a gloss enhancer to lock in the color and provide even gloss across the entire printed surface. We use only the finest archival fine art papers and canvas from HP and Hahnemühle for long-lasting collector prints with exceptional beauty and lightfastness.
Our 12-ink printing process allows us to reproduce hues and shades that can't be duplicated in traditional offset printing and lithography. True reds and greens are difficult if not impossible to achieve with only four inks. We use four different inks just for black. This allows for much more even coverage, eliminating the little dots that are commonly seen in lighter areas of an inkjet print. We also apply a gloss enhancer to create a more even gloss and more durable finish.
The pigment-based inks we use combined with the quality archival papers and canvases have been rated for image permanence and lightfastness for over 200 years by Wilhelm Imaging Research. Continue reading if you're interested in the details of their test.
Display life predictions are derived from accelerated glass-filtered and bare-bulb fluorescent light fading tests conducted at 75 degrees Fahrenheit and 60 percent relative humidity, based on a standard indoor display condition of 450 lux for 12 hours per day. The spectral power distribution of the fluorescent lamps used in these tests meets the requirements set forth in ANSI Standard IT9.9 and ISO Standard 18909. Due to variability in illumination conditions in homes and offices, images will last longer when displayed under lower light levels. Likewise, display life will be shortened when displayed under illumination that is more intense than 450 lux.