Archival Pigment (Giclée) Printing

2263 Fifth St. Berkeley, CA 94710     (510) 649-8111   rob@lightrumors.com See Contact Us link for map

Hours currently are 10-3 weekdays.

 

What is a giclée print? It’s frequently referred to these days as an archival pigment print because that is a more descriptive term. Pigment ink printed on acid free cotton rag or alpha cellulose paper is the most versatile commonly available printing being done today. It is significantly longer lasting than prints on color photographic paper and the choices of papers that can used is far greater. Over the years I have offered digital printing services, I have grown to love the wonderful papers-matte, semi-gloss, luster, textured watercolor style, creamy smooth, bright white, natural white papers painters and other artists have always loved. These also hearken back to photography’s beginning days, when all paper was hand coated. In the last few years, paper manufacturers have brought us new surfaces that resemble traditional darkroom material, with the look of air dried glossy fiber based paper that many of us learned to love as we watched black and white images appear in the developer tray under red safe lights.

Our current paper stock is described on the Papers page. It may not always be 100% up-to-date because I'm always looking at new papers, such as the Japanese offerings we've just started carrying.

I enjoy sharing these discoveries with clients and stock more choices of paper than just about any other printing studio you can find. I’m happy to help you pick a favorite and can send you samples of any or all of them if you request them. Further down this page you’ll find a link to another page describing the current offerings, but new ones may be in testing at any time. If you have a favorite I don’t offer, call and tell me and I may be open to buying a roll to do your print order on.

We have also printed jobs on a variety of specialty materials that we may not always stock but can special order . The cost might be slightly higher for some of these, so call to learn more. While these materials are commonly used by artists in reproductions of original work and as a basis to further exploration of creating mixed-media originals, photographers, too, are learning to break the bonds of “ya’ want that on glossy or matte?” thinking that’s so, well, twentieth century.

Most inkjet papers papers come on 44” wide rolls (printable width of 43.6”) and on our Prices page you will find some standard sizes derived from this, such as 8.5x11, 17x22 and 34x44. Keep in mind that these are just suggestions and the flexibility of roll paper means I can handle any particular size that fits on the roll, up to about 150” long, and will price odd sizes accordingly, given some constraints in efficient use of the 44” width, i.e., a print 40” wide is priced as if it’s 44”, because I can’t use the 4” strip that would be left over. Again, call if you have any questions. We also offer special pricing sometimes on papers as described  in the newsletter.

Artists looking to make prints of their originals can bring them in for the photography and file preparation necessary prior to printing. The one-time charge for this work is usually $75 and will include at least one 5x7 proof before the final printing.

All of our printing is done from within Adobe Photoshop® and we can print any Photoshop readable file. If you work in programs like InDesign®, please export your files in PDF format .

If you would like to submit printer ready files, follow these simple directions and remember, if you gang you pictures up on a larger page, you can reap substantial savings over the price of individually submitted files for the prints. The charge will be by page size, not the number of pictures you have on a page. But if you want us to trim them for you, they must be laid out with parallel edges to run through the paper cutter. If not, they will be returned uncut. If you want borders around images, they must be included as well as trim lines. Add borders through Photoshop’s Canvas Size command, then select the entire canvas, go to the Edit menu and add a one pixel stroke of a medium gray down the center line so I know where to cut.

Leave your working space profile embedded in the image when you save it. You can download printer/paper profiles from our Downloads page for soft proofing in Photoshop, but do not imbed these in the printing files. Files should be no more than 300 ppi resolution and can be 8 or 16 bit. When ganging images onto larger printing files, there is no price advantage for going larger than 34x44. In other words, if the total of your ganged images would fill a 68x44 sheet, send them as two 34x44 files. Makes paper handling a lot easier.

If all this is geek to you, I’m happy to work with unprepared digital camera files and film scans, but they will be priced individually and I’ll need to know your border requirements. There is no charge for minor exposure/color adjustments, but spotting and selective image work usually runs $25-40 and the corrected file will be returned to you on a CD for future printing.

For final page sizes of 17x22 or larger, a 5x7 proof print is included in the print price, if you wish to see one first.

Our stock of fine art printing papers is extensive reflects the wonderful options available today