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Author Topic: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?  (Read 28804 times)

jbn

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« on: April 01, 2010, 07:18:52 pm »

Hi everyone, I'm curious on the general consensus here among photographers and printers.  I often see quality Epson/Canon/HP inkjet prints sold in galleries under several different "mediums," from "Giclée" to "Archival Inkjet" to "Pigment."  I've always consider Giclée to be a little presumptuous, but some photographers are insistent on it term.  I've always considered that more appropriate for reproductions of painting, etc...  At the same time, simply saying "Inkjet" does not describe the great lengths we go to for archival based printing and the tedious color matching process.  What do you use?
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Josh-H

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2010, 08:06:30 pm »

Personally I am using 'Digital Fine Art Pigment on Paper Prints' - But I dont think one description is necessarily better than another. I think its a case of pick your poison and just stick with it for consistency.
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Wayne Fox

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2010, 09:17:41 pm »

I think there was a pretty long thread about this a year or two ago ... might be able to turn up something with some time with the search function.  I gave it a couple of shots and couldn't get anything, so getting the right key words to find the topic might be challenging.
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Gary Brown

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« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2010, 09:56:14 pm »

Here's an old thread that gives some opinions on that question, although it doesn't seem to reach a consensus: Do digital photographers have a new artform?

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davi russo

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2010, 10:23:41 pm »

i am using
Medium:    Digital Photography • Pigmented Archival Inkjet Print
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enduser

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2010, 02:26:53 am »

Galleries I know simply say "Pigment ink on (canvas, paper or whatever the medium is)".  Some just say "Ink on Canvas".  Think of other art forms, which say things like, Oil on Board, Watercolor on Paper etc.

Simplicity is the key.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2010, 02:28:39 am by enduser »
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2010, 10:39:26 am »

At a juried show I was in recently I checked to see what others were saying. There were a couple of "Giclees", some "digital prints", and some "inkjet prints" as well as a few that expanded at great length listing printer model, paper, and inkset. The word "archival" occurred a few times.

The photographs that struck me as being of the highest aesthetic quality (including my own, of course) all said simply "pigment on paper." I think that gives the most essential information and is both simple and elegant, IMHO.

-Eric

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Paul Roark

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2010, 11:52:41 am »

"Carbon pigment print" -- but then I don't use anything but 100% carbon pigments for black and white.  See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
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dbell

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2010, 12:52:24 pm »

I prefer to label them "archival inkjet prints." The same prints (same venue, same prices) sell better when I call them "archival pigment prints."  I refuse to label them "giclee prints" simply because most of my audience will have no idea what that means.

i think there's a lot of value in the architectural concept of truth in materials. Just as modernist photographers had to finally reject pictorialism and embrace the photographic medium for what it is, I see no reason to try to cloak inkjet prints in language designed to obfuscate their origin. Inkjet printers are amazing tools for producing images. There's no reason not to acknowledge that and show the public what they're capable of in good hands.

I've encountered group-show curators who sidestep the whole problem by labeling all the inkjet prints "digital photographs," regardless of how the artists label their submissions. The inaccuracy annoys me no end. For example, is an image captured on film, scanned and printed on an inkjet still a "digital photograph?"

Just my $.02


--
Daniel Bell
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Pete Berry

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2010, 01:37:17 pm »

"Archival Pigment Print" communicates it most simply (and elegantly) to me. "Archival" seems essential, characterizing both ink and media. To fully describe, I suppose you could throw in "inkjet", but I think many of us would cringe a bit at the thought of potential buyers having visions of their all-in-one pop into consciousness as they read it, rather than the archival pigment printers we use, which happen to have inkjet delivery. Sort of like specifying the tool(s) of oil pigment delivery in an oil painting - "brush and pallette knife" or "spatters from paint poured from ladder on human form"!
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buckshot

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2010, 02:31:35 pm »

As Dick Sullivan states in his 'Book of Modern Carbon Printing':

Today you may hear people who are apparently totally ignorant of the history of photography referring to digital prints as "carbon prints". These are not real carbon prints, but rather mechanical prints, made from inks that are carbon based, and printed out of an inkjet printer. Sometimes these same inkjet prints are referred to as "pigment prints", which historically, especially in Eastern Europe, was the preferred name for carbon prints. The great Czech photographer Josef Sudek called his carbon prints "pigmente" prints. There is currently a very annoying trend, annoying at least, to the photographically literate, of renaming inkjet prints. People are using terms like giclee, piezography, Cone, pigment, carbon, and so on to describe inkjet prints, and are also appropriating two names that have a long and revered history: "pigment" and "carbon".
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Rob Reiter

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2010, 02:32:13 pm »

I've referred to them as giclée prints but now am transitioning over to Archival Pigment Print. In my promotional material I use both terms, often with parentheses:  Pigment printing (giclée.) It's about the same issue as "photographic printing" vs. "gelatin silver print."

As much fun as we've had over the years with the sniggering asides about the word "giclée", I'm still glad that gained popularity over another term floated at the same time-"digiprint."
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bill t.

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2010, 02:35:43 pm »

Quote from: dbell
I prefer to label them "archival inkjet prints." The same prints (same venue, same prices) sell better when I call them "archival pigment prints."  I refuse to label them "giclee prints" simply because most of my audience will have no idea what that means.
I've been seeing "Epson Pigment Print" and "Canon Pigment Print" in some of my local galleries.  So I guess just about every possibility has been covered somewhere.  And yes "giclee" is just too outré, and makes my Quebecois pals shake their heads.
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Ryan Grayley

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2010, 02:59:51 pm »

Epson France would have us believe that Digigraphie is European wide.

http://www.digigraphie.com/uk/digigraphie-...ained/index.htm

However I have yet to see the term much embraced outside of France...
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Pete Berry

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« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2010, 08:43:30 pm »

Quote from: buckshot
As Dick Sullivan states in his 'Book of Modern Carbon Printing':

Today you may hear people who are apparently totally ignorant of the history of photography referring to digital prints as "carbon prints". These are not real carbon prints, but rather mechanical prints, made from inks that are carbon based, and printed out of an inkjet printer. Sometimes these same inkjet prints are referred to as "pigment prints", which historically, especially in Eastern Europe, was the preferred name for carbon prints. The great Czech photographer Josef Sudek called his carbon prints "pigmente" prints. There is currently a very annoying trend, annoying at least, to the photographically literate, of renaming inkjet prints. People are using terms like giclee, piezography, Cone, pigment, carbon, and so on to describe inkjet prints, and are also appropriating two names that have a long and revered history: "pigment" and "carbon".


Now wait a minute here, Buckshot - I think you're scattering birdshot here! Because "pigment print" was the preferred name historically in Eastern Europe for carbon prints, "pigment" is forever off-limits in a name identifying prints made with inkjet ink containing.......pigments? "Inkjet Print" is, of course, a totally generic term that includes the far more more common dye-based ink prints we avoid at great cost - very great cost at times!

I'll defend "Archival Pigment Print" as it identifies the characteristics of both ink and medium. What we need is a better name for our printers to separate them from the common dye-based inkjets.....Hey, think I've got it!:

"And, sir, how did you print this exquisite work?"  "Ah, madam, I thought you would never ask! It is from my newest generation "machine a giclee"....... Oh, dear me, I see you blushing - those French and their slang - I had forgotten your mention of how my print reminded you of your Junior year abroad in Paris! In plain English, then, my pigment printer - a fantastic machine whose details I am only beginning to comprehend, and would never think to bore you with."

Pete
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uaiomex

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« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2010, 09:39:20 pm »

"Archival digital print". It both describes how it was made and the quality of the materials involved. Bonus, no conflict of interests.
Eduardo
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bill t.

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« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2010, 11:37:42 pm »

I think we need to create a word suggesting that our digital prints are graphic representations of photons.  Like maybe "photograph."
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buckshot

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« Reply #17 on: April 02, 2010, 11:40:54 pm »

Quote from: Pete Berry
Now wait a minute here, Buckshot - I think you're scattering birdshot here! Because "pigment print" was the preferred name historically in Eastern Europe for carbon prints, "pigment" is forever off-limits in a name identifying prints made with inkjet ink containing.......pigments? "Inkjet Print" is, of course, a totally generic term that includes the far more more common dye-based ink prints we avoid at great cost - very great cost at times!

I'll defend "Archival Pigment Print" as it identifies the characteristics of both ink and medium. What we need is a better name for our printers to separate them from the common dye-based inkjets.....Hey, think I've got it!:

"And, sir, how did you print this exquisite work?"  "Ah, madam, I thought you would never ask! It is from my newest generation "machine a giclee"....... Oh, dear me, I see you blushing - those French and their slang - I had forgotten your mention of how my print reminded you of your Junior year abroad in Paris! In plain English, then, my pigment printer - a fantastic machine whose details I am only beginning to comprehend, and would never think to bore you with."

Pete

In a photographic context, 'pigment' is already a well established term related to a specific printing process. The marketing departments of Epson, Canon, HP etc. all know this, and thus choose to use it in order to add some sort of pedigree to their products. 'Archival pigment print' sounds so much better than 'digital image on paper produced using inks that contain some pigments held in a water and glycol solution' don't you think? Jeezo, it's almost like people are embarrassed to acknowledge that their images were printed by a machine spraying colored inks on paper - surely not?
« Last Edit: April 02, 2010, 11:56:14 pm by buckshot »
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Josh-H

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What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
« Reply #18 on: April 03, 2010, 01:46:19 am »

Quote from: bill t.
I think we need to create a word suggesting that our digital prints are graphic representations of photons.  Like maybe "photograph."

LOL - you made me spit my coffee all over my keyboard with that one!
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NikoJorj

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« Reply #19 on: April 03, 2010, 03:44:58 am »

For the previous thread, see http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=39196 - I still like the "Pig on Paper" one.
Or, if you really have to be serious, "pigment print on [whatever media]".

We don't see many painters adding the brand of their pencils in the artwork's label, do we?
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