What to Look For When Buying Giclees

I always suggest buying original art, but occasionally you may be in the market for something less expensive. What should you look for in a print?

• Buy an Artist's Giclee ("zhee-CLAY"), a digital scan of a painting printed with high-end ink-jet printers. It's more expensive than traditional offset lithography on paper, but it can be printed on canvas or watercolor paper, and the quality is superior, producing brighter, longer-lasting colors.
• Buy Giclees from a gallery or direct from the artist. Don't go to Wal-Mart or Target, or any other big-box retailer. If you buy from the gallery or artist, you'll be getting a painting that's not mass-produced. Galleries and artists produce a few giclees, rather than thousands, so you're less likely to see the same image on your neighbor's bathroom wall.
• If you can, get an enhanced/embellished giclee. This is when the artist paints dabs over the giclee with oil or acrylic paint to capture the texture and feel of the original painting. Embellished paintings can cost more than just a plain old giclee, though, and not all embellished pieces are embellished by the artist him/herself, and they're more expensive, so ask before you buy.