Zoltron's Iris prints are printed exclusively by the magicians at Trillium Press.

The Process

After the artwork is complete, our images are delivered to Trillium where master printers make the necessary adjustments to the files in order to prepare them for output to the Iris Printer. The density and paper penetration and tonal range are unsurpassed by any other digital printer. Once all of the initial steps have been completed and we are happy with the final product, the prints are produced. Once the printing is complete, each print is meticulously examined, edges are torn, and each print is signed and numbered.

About Trillium

Trillium Press has been creating limited edition prints since 1979. Their first edition of prints was pulled by hand from stone. Since then they have been serving the fine art community as a producer, publisher, gallery, educator, and dealer of limited edition prints.

Digital printing at Trillium takes its lead from lithography. Trillium doesn't rely on software defaults to create digital files. For each image, many separate layers are assigned to specific colors to create depth and accuracy similar to creating hand-drawn color separations. All of the digital imagers are working artists outside of their duties at Trillium. Trillium relies on their professional aesthetic experience to bring others' work to completion. Sensitivity to the language of color is necessary both in the creation of the files as well as communicating with the artists who rely on our services. Zoltron's Prints are printed on Iris 3047 printers. Digital printing depends on great input to achieve great results.

Click here to view a QuickTime movie of the process

Giclée vs. Iris

A word about the term giclée. Early on in the history of Iris printing, there were those who felt the need to legitimize digital output for the fine art market. To this end, they drew on the language which has supplied the print world with most of its terms: French. Because the printers spray ink onto paper,the term giclée (to squirt, spray) was adopted, despite its rather coarse connotations to native speakers of that language. And so the revolution began. And to every party there are latecomers. Although they used other methods of printing, in some cases even home desktop models, these printers were using the term giclée to market and sell their prints. These digital artists wanted an "in," and in their rush, they co-opted the term. So be it. Terms are meant to classify and focus an idea, but in this case, giclée merely obfuscates a quickly changing and, for some, difficult to understand field. Let it just be said, all Iris prints are giclées, but not all giclées are Irises.

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