Giclee is a French word that means “to spray”.

This is the name of the technology of obtaining copies from works of painting that are outwardly indistinguishable from the original. For the first time, it was used by French art museums to create copies of paintings. The word Giclee was proposed in 1991 by the printer Jack Duganne to denote the technology, since industrial inkjet printers specially modified for these tasks were used for printing. This gave quality unattainable in traditional printing. Then such printers cost several hundred thousand dollars.

Currently, Giclee is printed using conventional large-format photo printers, and the difference between Giclee and “just inkjet printing” is in the obligatory end-to-end color calibration of the monitor and printer, which ensures the exact match between the colors of the original and the copy. Another feature of Giclee is the use of special materials for printing. For example, copies of oil paintings are not printed on paper, but on a special canvas. And copies of watercolors - on special watercolor paper.

The term Author's Giclee means that the printing of the imprint takes place under the personal control of the artist, the author of the painting, who puts his signature on the finished imprint, confirming his authorship. Also, a feature of the Author's Giclee is a limited edition and numbering of each printed copy, which makes each copy of the giclee unique.

Since the ink for Giclee has a composition identical to the composition of watercolor paint, and printing is done on the same paper on which the watercolors are drawn, sometimes it is possible to distinguish the print from the original only with the help of a microscope.