Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: jbn on April 01, 2010, 07:18:52 pm

Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: jbn 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?
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Josh-H 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.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Wayne Fox 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.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Gary Brown 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? (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10014)

Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: davi russo on April 01, 2010, 10:23:41 pm
i am using
Medium:    Digital Photography • Pigmented Archival Inkjet Print
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: enduser 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.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes 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

Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Paul Roark 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/ (http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/)  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: dbell 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
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Pete Berry 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"!
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot 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".
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Rob Reiter 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."
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: bill t. 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.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Ryan Grayley 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 (http://www.digigraphie.com/uk/digigraphie-explained/index.htm)

However I have yet to see the term much embraced outside of France...
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Pete Berry 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
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: uaiomex 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
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: bill t. 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."
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot 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?
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Josh-H 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!
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: NikoJorj on April 03, 2010, 03:44:58 am
For the previous thread, see http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=39196 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?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?
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot on April 03, 2010, 10:31:47 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."

Why stop there? Why not call oil paintings, watercolours or paintings in acrylics just 'paintings'. Who cares how they were made?

Of course, I'm joking - and before anyone accuses me of being a luddite, I can assure you I'm not. As the owner of Espon 750/2200/4800 printers I'm happy to reiterate that the technology is truly amazing and the results astonishing. The problem, as this thread highlights, is that there is no established photographic vocabulary to define prints made this way, instead it's being stolen from already established processes. How long before we see inkjet prints described as 'photo gravures' or 'albumen' prints. Crazy? Not really - I've seen a few examples of images marketed as 'digital platinum prints' (i.e prints made on an inkjet printer with similar colouring to platinum prints, not actual Pt/Pd prints made from a digital negative). Who cares if it's wrong, it sounds good and if no one tells the buyer what harm is done? In fact, let's just erase the past, all those old photographic processes simply get in the way, they're an inconvenience. We want to use the terms they coined. It's not fair! Not fair I say! Doh!

Before I go, here's a novel idea to describe an inkjet print made with pigment based ink: inkjet print made with pigmented ink.*

Or how about one with dye ink: inkjet print made with dye ink*

*If you really feel the need to pop the word 'archival' in, just in case the prospective buyer lives to be 250 years old, I suggest after the word 'with'.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: bill t. on April 03, 2010, 11:55:44 am
Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.   But I might settle for "intensity modulations on passive substrate" in some circumstances.  But as far as I'm concerned, no label attached to one my Epsonogenic prints is ever going to say anything except "photograph" by way of media description.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: DarkPenguin on April 03, 2010, 12:46:54 pm
I call mine crap.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: ckimmerle on April 03, 2010, 02:23:54 pm
Quote from: bill t.
Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.

I have a friend who insists on calling his darkroom prints "photography", and my digital prints "pixelography". He doesn't think he means anything by it (separate, but equal, he says), but I think it's his way, if even subconsciously, of relegating digital work to second-class status.

I stopped letting it bother me, though, as it was his hangup, not mine.

FWIW, I go with "Pigment on paper" for my exhibition prints. I'm not trying to imply that these are not inkjet prints, but rather separating my work from the stuff that people can print on their $50 consumer model. It's important to be honest, but we should avoid falling victim to common misconceptions which may devalue our work.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: John R Smith on April 03, 2010, 04:39:45 pm
Long before digital photography was thought of, or Photoshop was more than a vague notion in the Knoll Brother's minds, there was even then a problem of description for photographic prints. A huge gulf of quality lay between a print produced by the like of Adams and Weston on Agfa Record Rapid or the old Ilford Galerie, and your average consumer print churned out by the local chemist or the mail-order lab on cheap, thin, resin-coat paper. Yet they were all photographic prints. Those of us "staring into trays" knew the difference, but your typical weekend snapper did not, and cared less.

We have exactly the same problem now. The notion of "ink-jet" as a description became pejorative because of its early association with poor-quality dyes and print life measured in months, not years. We still have not managed to shake this perception off, although the best printers with the best pigments on the finest papers can produce work which has the depth, quality and longevity of the best silver prints.

Museums and galleries which are well-informed and passionate about their material do know the difference, and so do the relatively small number of serious buyers of art. We don't have to invent silly new pretentious nomenclature to impress them. On the rear of my prints which I consider fine enough to be bothered mounting for display, I simply annotate with the subject, date, paper make and type, and the inkset (Epson K3 in my case). Those who know about this stuff will appreciate the information, which is all that counts.

John
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot on April 04, 2010, 12:46:09 pm
Quote from: bill t.
Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.   But I might settle for "intensity modulations on passive substrate" in some circumstances.  But as far as I'm concerned, no label attached to one my Epsonogenic prints is ever going to say anything except "photograph" by way of media description.

I don't think anyone is seriously going to doubt that what anyone who uses a digital camera does isn't photography (not I anyway). The OP was about how such images are marketed. Because of ignorance, deliberate hype, or otherwise, people are describing their work using pretty misleading language. Those who know what to look for won't be fooled, but to the casual buyer the waters get muddied very quickly. If two prints were described thus: carbon (pigment) print and carbon (pigment) print, then are they a: both carbon prints made using the contact printing technique deleloped in the mid 19C, or b: inkjet prints made using carbon pigment based inks, or c: one of each. Answers on a postcard please to the usual address.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: John R Smith on April 04, 2010, 03:30:59 pm
Quote from: buckshot
I don't think anyone is seriously going to doubt that what anyone who uses a digital camera does isn't photography (not I anyway).

Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.

John
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: artobest on April 04, 2010, 06:10:11 pm
Quote from: John R Smith
Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.

John

I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and, as a professional printer, have lately been contemplating removing the word "photographic" from my website and promotional literature. Inkjet prints, it seems to me, are not truly photographic. This is not to deprecate them in any way: they belong to a far older and still noble tradition of printed pictures made with ink.

I don't care for the word digital either, as in 'digital print'. The print may emanate from a digital file, but it is the analogue expression of that file - OK, perhaps not strictly analogue in the sense of being made up of truly continuous data, but then no more digital than, say, aquatint or halftone or any number of other 'stippled' printing techniques.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: bill t. on April 04, 2010, 07:05:16 pm
OK, it's MANIFESTO TIME!  

Digitally created images are the only true photographs.  That is because only digital photography mimics the operation of the human visual system, whereas chemical image making operates on much different principles.

Photons enter our eyes, and are converted to electrical signals by a matrix array sensor.  The signals are transmitted via neurological wiring to our brains, where the images are heavily processed to create data based representations of what is around us.  Human vision and digital photography walk hand in hand in the Valley of Perception.  I am one with my DSLR, but my old Nikon F is a different species.

End of Manifesto.

And as far what to call our prints goes, that is something only photographers care much about.  We photographers are positively amusing in our tendency to deeply concern ourselves with things that matter not a hoot to our customers, while often ignoring things that do concern them.  People buy my pictures because they like the images, not for the media.  As a kind of backstory, I may tell them it's a photograph that I made with a big inkjet printer and it will last a long time if they keep it away from sunlight and other unusually bright light sources etc.  And collectors don't have to be told, and are welcome to buy or not buy my images as they see fit.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: dgberg on April 05, 2010, 05:43:19 am
Amen!
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: ognita on April 05, 2010, 09:44:00 am
Gave a talk last the other day. A photographer approached me. He is quite happy with my images and wanted to know more. I'm happy.
Went to meet him yesterday. He's very excited to see me. He showed me his personal collections. Very impressive. He's a gallery owner too. We're both happy.
An exhibit is brewing, until we discussed how I print my images - he cringed
His 2 galleries only hosts silver gel and platinum palladium prints. Traditional. I understand. But when he mentioned some things about printing digital - I cringed.

Showed him some of my prints today - just to show him my prints.
He is quite impressed... but still.
He is proposing to have my images be printed traditional. His printman has a way to convert it to a neg.

Not so happy anymore.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on April 05, 2010, 09:54:05 am
Quote from: artobest
I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and, as a professional printer, have lately been contemplating removing the word "photographic" from my website and promotional literature. Inkjet prints, it seems to me, are not truly photographic. This is not to deprecate them in any way: they belong to a far older and still noble tradition of printed pictures made with ink.

I don't care for the word digital either, as in 'digital print'. The print may emanate from a digital file, but it is the analogue expression of that file - OK, perhaps not strictly analogue in the sense of being made up of truly continuous data, but then no more digital than, say, aquatint or halftone or any number of other 'stippled' printing techniques.
So how about "This is an analogue expression of a digital file, expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts) placed on the surface of a sheet of ... [Here you throw in a description of whatever 'paper' or 'canvas' you are using]. The digital file was initially produced with the aid of another electro-mechanical device incorporating both a 'lens' (please see Wikipedia for a definition of lens) and a light-gathering medium (a.k.a. sensor or film)."

Short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding.    


-Eric

P.S. Personally, I'm warming up to the idea of "pig on paper", as it is such a visually evocative phrase.

Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: JeffKohn on April 06, 2010, 02:56:13 pm
Quote from: John R Smith
Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.
Who says drawing/recording with light refers only to the final output? I think using this definition (silver print) as the only valid one for the terms photograph or photography is far too narrow. This definition rules out the images in photo books (no matter how finely printed), as well as projected slides; and what about Cibachromes and dye-transfer prints, which are both dye-based? I think most people would consider these photographs, regardless of the exact technology used in the final output. And one could also argue the absurd, that such a definition includes completely digital, made-up images as long as the final output is a lightjet print.

Now if you want to get more specific and define the term "photographic print" in such a way that it only applies when the output medium is light-sensitive, there may be some validity to that argument (although I still think it's debatable). But I've had discussions with some who say shooting digital isn't photography at all, and should use some new made-up terms such as pixelography, and that's just silly.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: JeffKohn on April 06, 2010, 02:58:41 pm
As to the original question, I think make some valid points have been made about using the term "Pigment Print" given its history, so I think "Archival Pigment Inkjet Print" or maybe just "Pigment Inkjet Print" sound fine.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Colorwave on April 06, 2010, 03:18:34 pm
Quote from: Eric Myrvaagnes
. . . expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts)
Shrewd marketing.  This should appeal to those with anaphylaxis concerns, although I'd have a hard time proving that the inks were manufactured in a plant that didn't also process nuts.  I don't encourage mastication or licking of prints, but you can never be too safe.

I also find the comment, Eric, about your description being "short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding" spot on.  What more could we ask for?

As for those with concerns about the confusion with the term "Pigment Print" and it's historic usage in Eastern Europe, the demographic of those who collect the works of Josef Sudek and myself have a small enough overlap that I'm willing to take the chance on a small degree of ambiguity.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Paul Stalker on April 06, 2010, 09:28:33 pm
This thread started on April Fools' day...right?
Stand tall, straight, proud and say it...pigjet.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: howseth on April 06, 2010, 10:45:16 pm
I will say it (but slouching in a torn seat): Pigjet.

Howard
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Colorwave on April 06, 2010, 11:59:01 pm
Quote from: PaulStalker
Stand tall, straight, proud and say it...pigjet.
How the course of history might have been altered if Jack Duganne had opted for the term pigjet instead of giclee . . .

Say pigjet often enough and it begins to not sound any funnier than the French slang word for ejaculate.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: artobest on April 07, 2010, 06:04:01 am
Quote from: Eric Myrvaagnes
So how about "This is an analogue expression of a digital file, expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts) placed on the surface of a sheet of ... [Here you throw in a description of whatever 'paper' or 'canvas' you are using]. The digital file was initially produced with the aid of another electro-mechanical device incorporating both a 'lens' (please see Wikipedia for a definition of lens) and a light-gathering medium (a.k.a. sensor or film)."

Short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding.  

You can laugh, and the discussion may get pretentious at times, but there are very real misconceptions about, and resistance to, inkjet printing out there, and some of that surely has to do with bullshit labelling and marketing. "Giclee" means nothing, curatorially speaking, so some kind of meaningful term has to be arrived at.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on April 07, 2010, 10:06:27 am
Quote from: artobest
You can laugh, and the discussion may get pretentious at times, but there are very real misconceptions about, and resistance to, inkjet printing out there, and some of that surely has to do with bullshit labelling and marketing. "Giclee" means nothing, curatorially speaking, so some kind of meaningful term has to be arrived at.

That's why (when I'm not joking) I lean towards something like "pigment on paper." (I don't currently print on canvas, plastic, or metal.) "Pigment inkjet on paper"  might be useful to encourage one's audience to get used to the idea that inkjet prints are respectable. I tend to avoid the word "archival" because there still seems to be serious disagreement as to what it really means (Is any paper with optical brighteners truly "archival?", etc.)


With prints from a digital printer, I do think it is important to distinguish between "dye" and "pigment" inks, as most pigment inks have a much longer life than do most dye inks.

That's my 2 cents.

-Eric

Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Scott Martin on April 07, 2010, 10:25:46 am
Quote from: Eric Myrvaagnes
That's why (when I'm not joking) I lean towards something like "pigment on paper."
If you do that, I'd encourage more specificity as to what type of paper is being used.

Pigment print on cotton rag paper
Pigment print on fiber base paper
Coated pigment print on canvas
etc...

Collectors, curators and buyers like to know this info and this is consistent with historical print specification methods.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on April 07, 2010, 01:33:19 pm
Quote from: pearlstreet
Pigjet is brilliant but we should pronounce it pee zhay, don't you think?  

Sharon
Who is going to be the first one to put this on their website???
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Randy Carone on April 07, 2010, 01:58:38 pm
Sharon,

Genius! pee zhay. I do not want to know what it means in French!
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Pete Berry on April 07, 2010, 08:02:10 pm
Just back from Yosemite, where I visited, as usual, the hallowed halls of the Ansel Adams Gallery.

They label archival digital prints of his works, and others by current staff photographers, as "Archival Pigment Photograph". Can't recall how they labled the much less expensive non-archival ones....

I can't come up with a more apt single word than "archival" to distinguish prints in the "fine art" category from those made with dye-based ink and/or unstable media.

Pete
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Sven W on April 08, 2010, 10:55:49 am
Quote from: Onsight
If you do that, I'd encourage more specificity as to what type of paper is being used.

Pigment print on cotton rag paper
Pigment print on fiber base paper
Coated pigment print on canvas
etc...

Collectors, curators and buyers like to know this info and this is consistent with historical print specification methods.

I really agree on that....
That's the term Mac Holbert at Nash Editons recommendes.
FYI....I'm going to reproduce 14 silveralbumin prints for the MoMA here in Stockholm.
And I've had a long discussion with their conservation expert regarding the terminology for this project.
This is our conclusion:
The photographs are made by Guillaume Berggren around 1880-90 and printed as "silveralbumin prints".
The reproductions are photographs made as "pigment prints on acidfree cotton rag".

/Sven
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot on April 08, 2010, 12:59:12 pm
Quote from: Sven W
The reproductions are photographs made as "pigment prints on acidfree cotton rag".

So, would those reproductions be casein pigment prints ... or carbon pigment prints ... (or some other established photographic process using pigments) ... or inkjet pigment prints?
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Colorwave on April 08, 2010, 01:04:34 pm
Quote from: buckshot
So, would those reproductions be casein pigment prints ... or carbon pigment prints ... (or some other established photographic process using pigments) ... or inkjet pigment prints?
And what sort of process was the cotton grown with?  Where did all of the acid go and how?
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Sven W on April 08, 2010, 02:43:21 pm
Quote from: Colorwave
And what sort of process was the cotton grown with?  Where did all of the acid go and how?

Ok, very funny for somebody.....
And for twenty years ago, the term for a b/w print in all the museums was:
"Beseler-Oriental-Dektol-Selenium" print.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: Colorwave on April 08, 2010, 03:04:09 pm
Quote from: Sven W
Ok, very funny for somebody.....
Just advocating simple, non-obfuscating (ie. giclee), but not anal retentive nomenclature in paragraph form.  How the creator got from A to B is the backstory, but the operative information is what the collector is left to hold in their hand or put on their wall.  "Pigment on (xyz media)" seems to hit the sweet spot for me.  If they know that the print will last as long as current technology can offer and find the end result visually appealing, they can ask additional questions later, but know what they absolutely need to know in the course of a few words.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: enduser on April 08, 2010, 10:10:02 pm
We are going to describe all our work from now on as  "iPrints".
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: na goodman on April 09, 2010, 04:07:23 am
Ron, I just wanted to say, very nice website.
Title: What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?
Post by: buckshot on April 09, 2010, 10:53:08 am
Quote from: Colorwave
...how the creator got from A to B is the backstory...

Certainly with inkjet printing, becasue there is no backstory with respect to the actual (physical) printing of the image. Well, that's not quite true, it usually goes like this: "I put a piece of paper in the printer, loaded its icc profile, and hit the print button in photoshop". For other printing techniques there is a 'backstory', or biography, that is relevant, interesting and important to the buyer/collector. Have a look at http://www.photogravure.com/ (http://www.photogravure.com/) to see what I mean. Maybe one day there'll be a similar site called www.epsonultrachromek3inkset.com, but I doubt it.


Quote from: Colorwave
...but know what they absolutely need to know in the course of a few words.

So "Pigment on (xyz media)" is ok (but misleading), while 'inkjet pigment print on (xyz media)' is too long-winded (but accurate)?

It's interesting why many photographers are jumping through hoops to avoid using the word inkjet. I suspect it has something to do with the perception of the work's value by the buyer/collector/viewer, but I may be mistaken (oooh, it's a giclee print - must be worth a lot more than a plain old inkjet pigment version. Doh!) However, if that is the case then it's a shame, because a strong image will always sell, pretty much no matter what it's printed on or how it's described. If you've got confidence in the strength of your work spell it out - 'This is an archival inkjet print on Epson matte paper made using the Epson Ultrachrome K3 inkset'. If on the other hand you work is of average quality, dress it up in some fancy language - 'This is a giclee carbon (pigment) print on 100% acid-free organic fair-trade cotton rag' - and hope the gullible buyer falls for it. I wouldn't hold my breath though.