Giclee vs Silk Screen vs Letterpress .....which is preferred?

I would love some insight on these 3 types of printing. I purchase mostly silk screened prints and am wondering about various other forms and the materials printed on. So please, enlighten me with your knowledge.

I got no idea
But I like the feel of letterpress

Depends on the look you want. I personally hate giclee prints, I feel ripped as it's basically I high end ink jet print. Letterpress is awesome because of the variations in the tooth of the print. But, and I'm biased, I LOVE screen printing in most cases. The prints just feel alive, especially hand printed work, each print has it's own personality. But that's just my opinion. I've done some letterpress work and it's fun to do but very easy to loose a finger.

Here is a pic of the C&P I worked on, this bitch weight in at just under 1 ton. This press is over 100 years old, that's when printers had some real chops!

Which printing method you choose depends on the type of artwork you want to print.

Screen printing is excellent for limited-color graphic prints with hard edges and without gradients or subtle color transition. Also since you generally pay by ink color you can often get a series of one or two color posters or cards made up very cheaply. Also screen printing is generally faster, so if you want a lot of something printed but cannot afford to go offset, and it meets the requirements (hard-edges shapes, no gradients, limited color) screen printing is the way to go.

Giclee is excellent for reproducing photographic images that make use of thousands or millions of colors. If you have a piece of artwork that you want reproduced that makes use of gradients, transparency, subtle color variation etc you want to go with Giclee. The downside is that it tends to be expensive to get stuff professionally printed on a digital press, and the cost of a digital press is prohibitive to people looking to reproduce their own work. The press we have at my job for running proofs is a middle of the road HP Designjet and cost us $11,000. To print a 24x36" poster on generic matte paper with no overcoat costs about $7 in ink and paper costs alone. But it prints really really beautifully, you can barely see the individual color dots even with a loop.

Thanks for the tips, keep 'em coming. What about lithographs?

I screen print gradients all the time, just sayin.

What are you trying to accomplish Mendez?

ASPrintingPress wrote:I screen print gradients all the time, just sayin.

What are you trying to accomplish Mendez?

Halftones are fake gradients

split fountains are real gradients

I don't understand how halftones are fake gradients? Even when you look at offset close enough it's still halftones.

I trying to justify prices on reproduced art printed on various mediums (wood, canvas, etc). Also, would like to know what exactly I'm buying. Thanks again.

ASPrintingPress wrote:I don't understand how halftones are fake gradients? Even when you look at offset close enough it's still halftones.

True dat, but offset can get much much finer dots than screen printing can. Offset can also lay down transparent dots with other transparent dots over them to achieve color blending. While you can do the same with screen printing it is a much much harder process.

Giclee produces dots so fine that you can barely see them even with strong magnification. Also Giclee can smoothly transition from one color to another, and do so with very fine detail as well as large areas with similar high quality and exact reproduction between copies.

Split fountain does make true color gradiations. But your gradients all end up going the same way unless you make different screens for each gradient. It can add a lot of complexity, time and cost to reproducing artwork. Also you never get two prints that are exactly the same in terms of how the gradient runs. Not a bad thing but not quite as good if you want as exact a reproduction as possible.

Don't get me wrong, I love screen prints. I have dozens of posters by Beater, Dan McCarthy, Fairey and even a few Ferg originals. But there are some effects that giclee can do for you that screen printing can't, just like screen printing can give you some effects that giclee just can't quite reproduce. Both have their uses.

Mendez: Giclee and Silkscreen can both reliably print on fabric and canvas. However if you really want to print on wood that is more than say 1/8th on an inch thick, you probably need to lean towards screen printing. I don't know any digital offset press that doesn't cost over $25k that will print on thick substrates like plywood. Though if you have $30-40 grand or more to spend I can point you at a machine or two that will print on almost any surface you want (even rounded surfaces )

I'm only bustin balls.

Printing on wood = screen printing

This guys is really good at it and does some amazing printing on wood.

http://www.kenntwofour.com/

As an artist who got his MFA in printmaking (fine art printing), and has worked in the field for ages,
I felt I could toss out a few cents on this topic...
First- the prices of reproduced art (prints) have started to rise with the computers growing ability,
to allow artist to use it as the sole tool to create original works of art.
Giclee is the name given to most computer generated prints- and good ones are not cheap to make.

Let me also warn you that -not all Giclee prints are created equally.
The term is used to cover a variety of actual printing machines and techniques.
If you are investing in Giclee prints you need to (at the very least) make sure that the ink
used has been tested and proven archival, and that the paper/canvas etc., it's printed on
is 100% acid free (like cotton rag) - if not the print will fade (some in less than a year),
and acid will yellow and eat right through paper.

While Giclee prints were viewed with a lot of skepticism when they first came out,
(as being legitimate "Fine Art prints" in the traditional sense),
over time with improved techniques and computer advances Giclee have become an accepted
fine art medium widely collected by major art museums (such as the Met in NYC).

Most printing techniques (if your a good printmaker) can be made to look like one that it is not
ie: silkscreen like an etching, etching like a litho etc., so any medium for collecting is fair game.
The biggest rules to remember are-was the piece made using quality materials and techniques?
and do I really like this piece of art, NEVER buy art as an investment
(unless you have the big bucks and that's your business).
A work of Art is meant to be enjoyed and worth only what you think it should cost,
to bring you the enjoyment and satisfaction that it does.

(thanks for that link- the work is inspiring