printing
The Printer – Canon iPF 8400
When we started printing in 2006, we chose the Canon range of printers over any others on the market because they are seven channel machines whereas most others at the time were only four.
All printers use the CMYK channels but Canon also have RGB. As a result of having all of the colours in the spectrum rather than just the primaries, we believe that these printers offer a broader colour gamut.
Canon Professional Inks
We only ever use the Canon Lucia inks: here’s what they say about them:
The professional LUCIA pigment inks offer accurate colour reproduction and enhanced print longevity. Prints can last approx. 200 years in the photo album, 80-years on display behind glass (light fastness) and 50-years without the glass (gas fastness).
Photo-Papers
Canon SmartMatt 180 gsm- Matt – Great for graphic works and photography.
Canon SmartDry 240 gsm – Satin – Our standard photo-paper
Canon SmartDry 200 gsm – Gloss – Glossy version…
Nb. We always mount these papers onto board before framing, eg. on our print and frame service…
Art Paper
Innova Etching 315 gsm Cotton Rag – Natural Soft Texture – Beautiful watercolour style medium – archival quality
reprographic
Reproduction of Artwork
Before we can reproduce an artwork, we first have to
create a digital file to print from.
Although we have the very best equipment to aid in colour matching etc, this is still a highly skilled process where our printing technicians will work closely with the artist to get the desired result.
There are two possible means of capturing the image – scanning and photography.
Scanning
We use a high resolution flatbed scanner which works brilliantly for watercolours, pastels, old photographs, pastels, charcoals, prints and most collages.
We can scan any size of original artwork: where necessary we have software which will stitch a number of sections together perfectly.
Image Editing
Our printing technicians are highly skilled in Photoshop and regularly restore photographs; repair damage on works to be reproduced, and generally help customers with any image manipulation required.
Photography
Sometimes photography produces a better result. Typically we can portray any degree of relief better with a camera than by scanning, for example heavily laid oil paintings, some collages etc. Also, some artworks are too fragile to lay face down on the scanner in which case we hang then vertically to photograph.
We use a Canon DSLR, and a specially constructed âlightbox with daylight temperature, 99% CRI lighting from four directions which allows us to introduce and control shadows.