The Direct Digital-to-Print Process

What exactly does “Direct Digital-to-Print” mean?

It means the artwork is the most original form of digital art print available. Here’s why…

When a painter makes a giclee or digital art print from their painting, it is always a reproduction: the painting (the original) is photographed (reproduced via photography) and then the photograph of the painting is then printed. The photography part of the process is unavoidably a RE-production. Digital art prints produced this way are therefore 2 degrees of separation from the original, as shown below:

ORIGINAL PAINTING – PHOTOGRAPH – PRINT

When I create a digital art print, I literally create it from scratch: I build a 3D wireframe model, polygon-by-polygon, refine and render it into an original digital master file. It is then output directly to a digital art print, like so:

DIGITAL ORIGINAL – PRINT

Hence the term, Direct Digital-to-Print. One degree of separation, and no intermediate step involved. NOT a reproduction. It is what Alan Bamberger, art consultant and author of the book “The Art of Buying Art” refers to as an “original digital work of art”. He lists 5 categories of digital or giclee prints in this article and my process is number 1.

Note that I do not use 3D landscape “generator” software such as Vue 7. That would be a “software-generated” image, not an artist-created original. Those programs render out remarkably photo-realistic landscapes from pre-programmed complex algorithms, but are universally not regarded as fine art. I use Lightwave 3D software which requires one to build 3D wireframe objects from scratch, and then digitally develop and refine the work from there.

Note also that I do not offer canvas prints. Call me a purist if you like, but a print on canvas is, on one important level, intended to look like a painting. It’s actually more appropriate for the painter, to simulate their original, which was likely painted on canvas. There’s more integrity involved in my opinion, for the painter to output to canvas print, than for me to do so.

My print works originated digitally and I do not wish to imply that it came from a painting on canvas. The direct output to an archival quality print on fine art rag paper is the best, and most appropriate format for these works.