Peachpit Press books on Fine Art Giclee printing.

Thousands of artists and photographers every month come to Nicholas Hellmuth's reviews to find out which printer is best for doing fine art giclee prints. If you intend to produce limited editions of fine art giclee prints you need to do lots of reading on the basics of digital imaging.

Peachpit Press is the best place to buy books on all aspects of digital imaging and web design. Probably half the titles on my desk come from Peachpit Press. These books are not for idiots but instead for creative people who are overwhelmed by all the new hardware and software and need some tips from people who are experts in specific areas.

Peachpit Press is the largest publisher of books on everything that the creative graphic artist needs to survive in the digital world. Many of the titles are appropriate for beginner and intermediate level as well.

Fine Art Giclee printing
Gitter Gallery giclee, ArtExpo 2008.

So many people nowadays want to start printing with a fine art giclee printer. But often they need to master Adobe Photoshop and the basic concepts of color management, prepress scanning, and other key aspects of digital imaging.

People often e-mail us asking for help; but this is why the books exist, and why we have these book lists and reviews. FLAAR is not the place to ask about how to handle your images in Adobe Photoshop (nor are we appropriate to ask what kind of $299 scanner will produce publishable images). The FLAAR network of web sites is indeed to assist people, but for those who wish to actually learn how to produce quality work. Although half the people who e-mail us are setting up graphics design studios, are going into wide format printing, or doing actual prepress, others do this as a hobby or sideline, but they want to do it well.

Our first scanner was a 600 dpi Mictotek. Then we moved to a Umax 800 dpi, then to 1000 dpi, then a Heidelberg LinoColor 1200 dpi. Now we prefer a 5000 dpi Scitex EverSmart Supreme flatbed, all 12x18 inches of its surface area (and this entire area at true optical 5000 dpi). We are now beginning to produce fine art prints and shortly will go into producing giclee prints. So you too can learn how to handle this equipment, but it does take some reading. Here are some books to start with.

 

Design updated April 9, 2008.
Updated Feb. 23, 1999, last udated Aug. 5, 2001.