High quality printing advice- giclee or inkjet

Question

hi,
I am new to the forum, thanks in advance for any input.
by training I'm a textile designer, so I have very little experience with the ins and outs of printing.
I was commissioned to do a project for a couple who are getting married. It's a decorative marriage license written in Hebrew, that needs to be archival as these things are family heirlooms.
the art work is gauche and ink which is scanned and formatted with the Hebrew text in photoshop, then printed on 140 lb. hot press rag paper
I have been planing on doing a giclee print because its archival and i had also heard from people that the print really looks like paint...(extremely important) i do not want this to look like it came from a computer.
i asked a friend about giclees recently and her opinion was that rather than do a giclee i should go to a great shop and have the print done on inkjet.
she is a professional photographer, so we want opposite effects from our prints. is there anyone out there who has experience with this?
will the inkjet printer give me the effect of looking like paint, or a handwritten document?
thanks!
nina

Answer 1

thanks neil,
that is a lovely example.
this is actually the third ketubah i have done. I've looked at many examples and studied Jewish illuminated manuscripts including ketubot while i was in school.
i don't do calligraphy and having the text done by a scribe is far too expensive, so for the first two i had the text silkscreened and did the painting afterwards... these had the same text (conservative) so i was able to use copies from that printing for both.
hand painting something like that is extremely time consuming not to mention nerve wracking. i'm not getting paid nearly enough for this project as it is, let alone to hand paint the document (the client is kind of a tacky nightmare, i don't think i'd mind so much if i didn't think they had such god awful taste)! however, there are post print hand touches.
modern ketubot(?) are in hebrew, even orthodox texts. there is a large online market for these and if you do a search there are three major sites selling artist's designs almost entirely reproduced in giclee prints. very few people still use lithographs. and most people can not afford to pay for or do not have access to someone who can do the calligraphy and illumination.
if you are interested my favorite of these by far is :
www.ketubah.com
what can you do-- i would love to do a project for someone where they were willing to pay for that kind of work, i know a scribe and we spoke about doing a project together but i would have to pay out 350 to her for the text alone. the design process, consultations and painting can be 100 hours depending on size and detail. i am slow-- however i wouldn't want less than a thousand dollars for myself.
uhm. that went a bit off topic, but there you have it.
i found a printer, he's lovely it's just him, he's using papers i worked with in school on our large format printer that i had great results with...totally knows what he's doing.
nina