Varnish On Giclee Print

Question

I would like to add a spot varnish to a giclee print. To be clear: I don't want to varnish the whole page, but add a designed layer of shapes which are varnished on top of the the giclee. This is for a series of short runs (~10 per run), so I need to keep the costs down.

I have spoken to a large number of printers here in the UK who have all said that this isn't something they do. Beyond this, none have been helpful as to why they can't do it or where someone might do it.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it possible. If not why not?

Answer 1

You're not having much luck as it's not economical: to spot varnish the giclee they would need to be trimmed down and run through a litho press. The set up times would make a short run prohibitively expensive, and I've known printers be extremely reluctant about the type of paper they run through a press.

There's a couple of options though. You could screen print a spot varnish, though I doubt this would be any cheaper than litho. The one method that might be cost effective is a DTM machine; there are models out there now that can print varnish, and as they are digital they're good for short runs. Try Colouration in London - I'm pretty sure they have one.