A real option for professional fine-art inkjet prints

A real option for professional fine-art inkjet prints

Mon, Dec 20, 2010 Joe Ciarcia has just launched Gamut Prints, a new professional lab specializing in fine art ink-jet prints. I’ve known Joe for probably 5+ years on the Digital Wedding Forum. He’s always been the go to guy for any color calibration questions. Now, he’s put his knowledge to use, offering professional prints for the discerning photographer. Gamut Prints specializes in Fine Art Prints, sometimes referred to as Giclée prints, or the art of creating prints using fine art ink jet printers. Gamut Prints specializes in everything from traditional luster and metallic papers to, my favorites, the cotton fiber based papers. Speaking with Joe in a telephone interview, he says that his goal is to be the go to lab for low volume, high quality art prints. I sent Joe a color and BW file for test prints and he sent me back at least two dozen prints – a dozen different BW prints on different papers and a dozen different color prints on different papers. The quality is outstanding, no question at all. The colors pop, the BW’s sizzle with silver and the papers stand out. What really gets me excited about Gamut Prints is the possibility to print on some of the fine art rags. While living in Japan, I owned an 8 Color Epson 2400 (which had 3 levels of gray ink) and was able to print outstanding color and BW images on the fine art rag paper. But, with the move back to the US, I couldn’t take my printer with me and have been missing those fine art papers.

Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth is by far my favorite paper. It is very close to the Epson Fine Art Ultrasmooth paper that I used in Japan most of the time. The color quality is outstanding and the BW is to die for. Operating a portrait or wedding studio, these fine art papers give the opportunity to upsell to something special. In the day and age where prints are almost free at some of the big box stores, being able to offers something that the end client cannot reproduce themselves, is an opportunity. Be sure to check out Gamut Prints for some of the best fine art prints I’ve seen in a long time. Fundy