No matter what size the print facility, efficient workflow, speed and quality are always top of mind. The same holds true for Josh King, who runs Sacramento Giclee, a five-person shop that works primarily with artists who need scanning, reproduction and custom framing of their artwork.
“We’re a custom print shop, and we do everything from capturing originals to printing, installing, shipping and framing,” King says. “We also do some big jobs for hospitality or healthcare where we might do 200 prints.”
As his business has grown, King has explored new ways to speed up production while maintaining quality, and last September he decided to pair an Epson SureColor S80600 64-inch solvent printer with the two aqueous printers in his operation.
“The main reason was that I didn’t want to liquid coat our canvases anymore,” he says, as the solvent inks don’t require a protective coating after printing. “Before, we’d have to print one day, let it dry for a day, spray coat it one day, and let it dry before we could stretch it. Now, with the SureColor printer, within an hour, I can stretch a canvas.”
King relies on LexJet Sunset by Fredrix Satin Canvas SUV to print to, and then cuts and joins the bars for hand-stretched canvas finishing.
“I’ve done 10 canvas prints so far today,” he said one morning. “This is just so much faster … the new printer really speeds up the process. The canvas is great and the colors look just as good [as when they’re printed on an aqueous printer].”
While King keeps his aqueous printers busy with fine art papers, he also puts the Epson SureColor to work with photo paper jobs, using LexJet Sunset Photo Satin SUV 275g.
“We do some commercial stuff, I really like working with the artists individually to get their stuff exactly how they want it,” King says.
