Wide Format Scanning

Does It Apply to Fine Arts?

by Cheryl Dangel Cullen

Pop artists, photographers, and illustrators aren’t the only ones jumping on the digital bandwagon. Fine artists are seeing the benefits of self-publishing, too, by using a process called giclée for making limited edition prints.

The Art of Giclée
Giclée, prounced gee-clay, is an advanced printmaking process for creating high-quality fine art reproductions. Until recently, traditional giclée prints have been limited to photographic papers. Now, the giclée process enables reproduction on virtually the same media as the original artwork whether it is on canvas, textured watercolor paper, or specialty fine art papers.

Giclée prints give would-be collectors the opportunity to purchase fine quality art at a reasonable cost, which is one reason the market is growing. Once again, the other driver is the self-published artist, who can have as few as two or ten prints made at a time.

When done correctly, a giclée reproduction can be virtually indistinguishable from the original artwork. The result is wide acceptance of high quality giclées by galleries, museums, and private collectors.

The Importance of the Scan
While pop art and poster reproduction is generally thought to be ideal for wide format scanners, there is debate over what to use when reproducing paintings. Print makers will typically use a large format digital camera such as BetterLight, a professional prepress flatbed scanner, or a repro stand scanner such as Cruse.

"I have artists call me from all over the country and ask me what printers I use," says Gary Kerr, president, Fine Art Impressions, a giclée printmaker with state-of-the-art production facilities. "I say, the printer isn’t really that important. What is important is how digital the original is. All printers are good, but the quality of file you print from will determine the quality of the output."

Betsy Green, gallery director/manager, Lizza Graphics agrees: "The art of a good reproduction is more in the scan than in the printer. The printer is important as is the paper and archival ink, but if you don’t have a good scan, you’ll lose a lot in your print."

Choosing a Method
How to get that good scan is where Kerr and Green part ways. Kerr is an advocate of the scan back camera. "In my shop, we use museum standards, so we’ll mount the artwork to the wall and use a BetterLight Scanning back which is 48 mega pixels to capture the image. We wouldn’t want to use a Cruse scanner, even though they are well respected scanners, because we wouldn’t place a $40 million original painting on a vertical copy stand.

"Our clients expect us to treat their artwork like it is on loan from the Smithsonian, so we wouldn’t put it face down on glass or onto or into a scanning device that can malfunction.

We are using the standards found in museums for handling, treating, and photographing art."

"Automation isn’t our goal," he adds. "Our process is far more interpretive. We ask, ‘How do we digitize this piece of art?’"

Conversely, Lizza Graphics relies on a Cruse CS285 ST scanner and prints to an Epson 9600 printer. "We’ve done thousands of scans and the bed moves slowly, so there is very little vibration to the lenses and the lights. It is a totally safe situation. The safety of the painting isn’t an issue. We’ve had some priceless pieces on it and from my standpoint, there’s more of a chance of something going wrong using a 4 x 5 camera," explains Bob Lizza, owner and president of Lizza Graphics, who used to use a Betterlight scan back and had problems bracing a piece vertically and trying to keep it vertical long enough to photograph it. "As far as using a 4 x 5 camera, that could take a half hour to 1-1/2 hours to set up the lights correctly. With the Cruse, it takes 10 minutes."

In fact, Lizza Graphics recently used the Cruse to scan a painting commissioned by a foundation for Pope John Paul II. It was his version of the four Mysteries of Light painted by the Vatican Artist of the Year, Natalia Tsarkova, that hung in the Pope’s apartment for a time and was the last physical item he blessed before his death. "Tsarkova actually came to our facility, approved the giclée, saw our whole setup, and was quite impressed," says Lizza.

Beating a Dead Drum
All this talk about innovative scanners makes one wonder what ever happened to the old drum scanner. Drum scanners "are on their way out," says Jay Magenheim, president of Ideal Scanners and Systems, which is the largest U.S. distributor of IDEAL / Contex large format scanners. "Think of being an artist with an oil. You wouldn’t want to bend that substrate around a drum with the possibility of chipping the substrate or oil. The scanners we use we automatically adjust the height up to ½-inch high so it can take foam core, a matte, or whatever."

"You are beating on a dead drum," echoes Ziv Argov, director of marketing, Scanning Solutions Division, Creo Inc. "The drum scanner era is over. Today’s high end CCD scanners give all the quality of drum scanners, and much more convenience, ease of use, and flexibility."