What Is a Giclée Print? A Plain Guide for Artists and Collectors

A giclée print is a fine art print made on an inkjet printer. The word is used for digital prints intended as fine art, and today it usually means an archival inkjet print on fine art paper or canvas.¹ Artists sell giclée prints as reproductions of their original paintings, drawings and photographs, and collectors buy them to own work by an artist they love.

This guide covers what the word means, how giclée printing works, how a giclée compares with other kinds of art prints, and what to check before you sell them.

Brakebee is an online art marketplace and selling platform for working artists, with its own print lab in Phoenix. The lab prints giclée alongside gloss, satin and matte aluminum, gloss or matte photo prints and gallery-wrap canvas, in dozens of sizes, and every print is hand-checked before it ships.² Artists list their work once and sell it on the Brakebee marketplace, on their own shop and through add-on channels.³

What does giclée mean?

Giclée is pronounced zhee-KLAY. It is a made-up word based on the French gicleur, the technical term for a jet or nozzle, and the verb gicler, which means to squirt out.¹ So the name describes the process itself, with tiny jets of ink sprayed onto paper.

Where the word came from

The term was coined around 1990 to 1991 by Jack Duganne, a printmaker at Nash Editions.¹ The studio was making fine art prints on a modified Iris printer, a large-format, high-resolution inkjet printer first built for prepress proofing, and Duganne wanted a name that set those prints apart from the ordinary commercial Iris proofs of the time.¹ The word has since spread to mean almost any fine art inkjet print, usually archival, and artists, galleries and print shops all use it.¹

How giclée printing works

A giclée starts with a high-quality digital file of the artwork, made by scanning or photographing the original. Our guide on how to make prints of your art walks through that capture step.

The file is then printed on a large-format inkjet printer. Wikipedia lists Canon, Epson and HP among the makers of these printers, which build on the standard cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks with additional color cartridges.¹ In professional fine art printing, pigment-based inks are generally preferred over dye-based inks because they resist fading much better.¹ Pigment inks generally last longest on matching paper types, and cotton rag paper is one of the common choices.⁴

Because each print is made from the digital file, a giclée edition needs no printing plates. Artists can print one at a time as orders come in, with no large print run to store.¹

Giclée vs other art prints

"Art print" is a broad term, and a giclée is one kind of art print. Here is how it compares with the other kinds artists most often sell:

Giclée / Fine art inkjet printing, usually with pigment inks / Fine art paper or canvas / Reproductions of paintings, drawings and photographs

Gallery-wrap canvas / Printed on canvas, then stretched around a frame / Canvas / A painterly look that hangs without a frame

Aluminum metal print / Image printed onto an aluminum panel / Gloss, satin or matte aluminum / Vivid color and a modern finish

Photo print / Printed on photographic paper / Gloss or matte photo paper / Photography and graphic work

Offset lithograph / Printed on a press from plates, the whole run at once / Paper / Large runs of one image]

Offset lithography was the traditional process for art reproductions, and the full job has to be set up and printed in one go.¹ A giclée can be printed one copy at a time. A lithograph made by the artist directly on a stone or plate is an original print, which is a different thing from a photographic reproduction of a painting.⁵

Are giclée prints archival?

Archival prints are made to last, and the result depends on the ink and paper together. Pigment inks on a matching fine art paper are generally the longest-lasting inkjet combination.^1,4 When you sell giclée prints, ask your printer which inks and papers they use and describe them accurately in your listings. Framing behind UV-filtering glass and hanging away from direct sun also help any print last.

Are giclée prints worth anything?

A giclée is a reproduction, so its value comes from the artist, the quality of the print and how many exist. A limited edition has a fixed number of prints, with no more made later, and is usually signed and numbered by the artist, while an open edition has no fixed count.⁵ If you plan to sell a fixed number, read our guide to limited edition prints before you start.

How artists sell giclée prints

Once your file is ready, you have three common ways to get giclée prints to collectors, and Brakebee supports all three:

• **Print on demand from the Phoenix lab.** A print is made only after a collector pays, then the lab packs and ships it, usually within hours to a day.²
• **Ship it yourself.** Order a print run of your own files from the same lab when you need stock for a show, then pack and ship orders from your studio with Brakebee shipping labels.³
• **Use a third-party fulfillment partner.** If you already work with a giclée printer or fulfillment partner, you can route orders to them.

To compare giclée with other surfaces, see metal prints for artists. For choosing a lab, see our guide to pro photo labs, and for listings and channels, read how to sell prints of your art online.

Try a print of your work

¹ Source: "Giclée," Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giclée, accessed 10/17/2026.

² Source: Brakebee Print on Demand page, brakebee.com/print-on-demand, as published on 10/17/2026.

³ Source: Brakebee for Artists and Makers page, brakebee.com/makers, as published on 10/17/2026.

⁴ Source: "Print permanence," Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_permanence, accessed 10/17/2026.

⁵ Source: "Edition (printmaking)," Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edition_(printmaking), accessed 10/17/2026.