What is a Giclée print?

[robc]

I think its a prime example of what I have just said. It's meaningless unless you are using it to specify the inkset used, which you haven't.

Photographers seem to have a problem with what they are producing and how.
Its a friggin inkjet print and the customer will understand that.
If you have a problem with the customer knowing that your image is an inkjet print then you need to ask yourself what you are about. And as long as photographers continue to dress up their work in meaningless terms their work will continue to be held in suspicion.

[tim atherton]

I think its a prime example of what I have just said. It's meaningless unless you are using it to specify the inkset used, which you haven't.

Photographers seem to have a problem with what they are producing and how.
Its a friggin inkjet print and the customer will understand that.
If you have a problem with the customer knowing that your image is an inkjet print then you need to ask yourself what you are about. And as long as photographers continue to dress up their work in meaningless terms their work will continue to be held in suspicion.

Presumably then photography will always be "under suspicion"...

what with our Daguerreotypes; Dye diffusion transfer prints, Chromogenic dye transfer prints; argyrotypes, Van Dykes, Woodburytypes, Ziatypes; oleobroms, solarplates, satistaprints and goodness knows what else

BTW - who exactly is it who regards photography as suspect?


(as I've noted elsewhere the only major problem with "inkjet" is its outdated link in too many minds with the poor and limited technology of its early days, which bear no resemblance to the products of today - rather like Ciba/Ilfochrome in reverse - where in the early days the process was established as the best thing since sliced bread - and even though it turned out not to be quite so, those early days and mythical qualities remain fixed in many minds)

Oh - and add Cibachrome/Ilfochrome to the above list. What's the difference between calling something an Ilfochrome or an Ultrachrome in terms of descriptors?

[tim atherton]

What do you think of the term "Ultrachrome Print"? Sort of analogous to silver gelatin print, I think, but more commercial. I guess you would have to put a little trademark symbol by it.

Jon Shiu
Elk, California

do people selling Ilfochrome prints put a little trademark symbol on their descriptions?

[robc]

So tell me what is the problem with calling your inkjet print an inkjet print?

What is the purpose of not calling it an inkjet print when you have pruchased an inkjet printer and printed it on that inkjet printer?

Why would you not want to call it an inkjet print?

[Sideshow Bob]

I've sold a lot of inkjet prints over the past few years and if customers ask (which is seldom), I say they are inkjet prints and explain how I print them and, IMO, the benefits of this type of print.

Gale

[roteague]

(as I've noted elsewhere the only major problem with "inkjet" is its outdated link in too many minds with the poor and limited technology of its early days,

Which is exactly the reason that people dress up their ink jet prints with a "fancy" name to disguise their origins. It isn't about the technology, how the technology has changed, or even how good the technology is. It's about motive; the motive being to convince people that a print isn't what it really is. They do this because they know that the majority of people don't consider "ink jet" to be fine art, where they do consider "silver" (or other types of prints) as fine art. Computer technology isn't considered fine art; it is something in your office or your living room - to many people.

[tim atherton]

So tell me what is the problem with calling your inkjet print an inkjet print?

What is the purpose of not calling it an inkjet print when you have pruchased an inkjet printer and printed it on that inkjet printer?

Why would you not want to call it an inkjet print?

For many, quite simply because enough people (and seen expressed more than a few times) still associate "inkjet" with the technology of 10 or so years ago - with primative machines, poor inks and poor papers - where a cheap print could indeed fade in a few weeks.

Even though the technology and materials have changed almost beyond to the point where modern colour inkjet prints, for example will probably far outlast a modern "wet" C-Print or Ilfochrome

(In addition how many mainstream photographic processes are named after the technology that produces them rather than the materials/processes used?)

Personally I'm fine with Ink Print - if it's good enough for John Szarkowski, it's good enough for me.

Finally, why don't users of Ilfochrome materials call their works Silver Dye Bleach Prints?

[roteague]

Finally, why don't users of Ilfochrome materials call their works Silver Dye Bleach Prints?

Because the term Ilfochrome has decades of history in the minds of fine art print collectors and other photography lovers. You can't say the same thing about ink jet prints.

[tim atherton]

Which is exactly the reason that people dress up their ink jet prints with a "fancy" name to disguise their origins. It isn't about the technology, how the technology has changed, or even how good the technology is. It's about motive; the motive being to convince people that a print isn't what it really is.

Simply incorrect in my experience

They do this because they know that the majority of people don't consider "ink jet" to be fine art, where they do consider "silver" (or other types of prints) as fine art. Computer technology isn't considered fine art; it is something in your office or your living room - to many people.

Again essentially incorrect ("most people" aren't usually the arbiters of what is or isn't art - in which case, Kincaid and his Giclees really are the pinnacle of fine art) - the Met, MoMA, Tate, National Gallery of Canada, SFMoMA and just about institution you can think of has no problem considering inkjet prints as fine art. And if people base their understanding of whether something is "fine art" or not based on the materials, they apparently have little understanding of art to begin with - so the point is really moot.

[tim atherton]

Because the term Ilfochrome has decades of history in the minds of fine art print collectors and other photography lovers. You can't say the same thing about ink jet prints.

So if something is newer than say - a decade - it can't be art? good argument - doh!

(BTW - lots of those Ilfochrome collectors are finding out, much to their consternation, that the materials didn't offer up all that was promised)