Diversification into Photos on Canvas, Running Rampant

Well, a recession begins, a year of time passes, and diversification is in the air as prevalent as the oxygen we breathe. Within our industry, it means that giclee printing companies are executing upon new strategies that leverage from their fine art giclee printing equipment, technology, and expertise. It seems like every day we are hearing about another giclee printing services firm expanding (from a services standpoint) from giclee art reproduction into the photos on canvas market.

The photos on canvas market is primarily online driven. Professional canvas prints are made available to professional photographers to reproduce their own work and for the general consumer looking to put photos to canvas (such as an amateur family photo). This market is now seeing an influx of competition from the traditional fine art giclee reproduction crowd.

The bottom line is that the "kill or be killed" mentality is hot and heavy these days. Let's face it -most of these companies aren't entering into the canvas photo market in order to expand - they are entering so that their giclee printing business in general will survive the economic storm. Such an entry will come with significant risk. In order to compete, these giclee printing companies must invest in a new and complex ecommerce website with special capabilities (and its going to cost a lot to compete with those who have been offerring photos on canvas for years). But having a website doesnt get you anywhere if nobody knows about it. Therefore, the canvas photo business model will require a substantial investment in consistent, aggressive advertising in order to drive traffic to the website. The advertising will compete amongst many others and better be compelling if any canvas prints are going to move. Furthermore, the current recession means that the market is shrinking.

Many entrepreneurs in general fall into the trap of thinking that its going to be easy to switch from one business model to another and suddenly its all going to make sense. To summarize - it aint going to be easy.

Early to Solvent Printing

Here's my view....In 2004, there were a few early adopters or perhaps "risk takers" that delved into the solvent printing world! Prior to this, these decor art publisher/printing companies had been operating production and producing giclee prints with aqueous inks on Iris, Epson and Roland printer's (such as the Epson Stylus Pro 9800, Epson Stylus Pro 7800, Epson Stylus Pro 4800). The Roland 540, 740 Sol-Jet and Mimaki Jv3 solvent based printers produced the best giclee print quality and resolution. Solvent technology now appealed to some canvas transfer companies and they embraced digital canvas printing. At this time Giclee was really acceptable on all levels......finally! Fine art inkjet canvas was making a big splash in the market now. The goal for these companies was to break into the hotel market, furniture outlets and mainly big box stores digitally with a giclee canvas art prints at an extremely competitive price. The price point at this level was unobtainable with their current water based giclee printing technology. Before this transformation took place, the giclee art prints provided by suppliers for big box stores were lithography canvas and digital prints imported from overseas. The materials costs were too high for ink and canvas, along with the extra steps in production like top-coating canvas. These businesses had to be more responsive with faster turnaround times and more efficient print speeds. They had to manufacture a canvas print at the absolute lowest cost possible. Of course the image quality had to meet this market standard. This digital solvent canvas product was far superior to the competition.

Optical Brightener Additives: A Candid Discussion

A lot of giclee printing professionals are curious about whether the presence of optical brightener additives in a giclee canvas matters to them. As the innovators of the world's first white optical brightener free canvas, let us help explain our reasons behind the breakthrough technology.

What most people dont know is that optical brighteners are bleaches. These bleaches, which are also found in white t-shirts and other textiles and laundry detergents, absorb ultraviolet (UV) light and emit back visible blue light. They trick your eye into thinking that something is whiter than it really is. These bleaches only last so long, until the point that they actually burn out and no longer do anything. These bleaches are also harmful to the environment because when they are used in manufacturing, they are often found in domestic waste waters, and are toxic to fish and other animals.

Now let's look from an art perspective. In terms of giclee, just imagine a valued fine art giclee piece where the bleaches have burned out of the inkjet receptive coating. What happens is the canvas becomes its natural color (which would appear as a yellow color to the eye), and the colors would shift. Now, the fine art print wont look as it was originally intended to look - and instead it will look yellow. Over time, this will happen to an inkjet canvas manufactured with optical brighteners whether it has been laminated with a giclee varnish or not (put a giclee print of this nature in direct sunlight for about one week and you will see for yourself). Is yellowing like this acceptable for the fine art market? In our opinion: Decor - Yes. Fine Art - No.

Then there's the metamerism issue with the optical brighteners. Optical Brightners excaerbate the effects of metamerism. See, optical brighteners require UV in order to "fire", or appear to our eyes. If there's no UV exposure, the optical brighteners will not "fire" and the giclee print looks just as it would without optical brighteners - a more yellow color. Is color shifting like this acceptable for the fine art market? In our opinion: Decor - Yes. Fine Art - No.

More on this subject later....