Silkscreen Printing

Silkscreen (or serigraph) prints are great for graphic designers, artists and illustrators due to their arts & crafts ‘handmade’ look and feel.

However the process of creating a silkscreen print, although extremely rewarding can be a messy and labour-intensive affair.

We aim to take the hassle out of producing gallery quality print runs, saving you time and ultimately enabling you to concentrate on bigger and better things.

We work with some very serious and experienced printers who have produced prints for some top artists including D*Face and even corporate clients like Rockstar Games and know how to finish a print to the very highest standard.

Our printers can help you transform your artwork into a professional fine art silkscreen print - offering an additional artworking service (if required) to re-touch your artwork and make your design print-ready, as well as helping to select Pantone colours to match your artwork and desired finish.

Silkscreen printing can also be used in combination with digital Giclée prints which is a great way to enhance a piece and add an extra special touch with finishes such as glitter or varnish.

Whether it's selecting the right paper and finish to mixing bespoke metallic or fluro inks, we've got you covered!

Giclée Printing

Giclée (pronounced “gee-clay”), is derived from the French verb gicler meaning “to squirt or spray”.

Giclée fine art prints are popular with artists and particularly illustrators and painters who wish to transfer their works onto a print medium while maintaining the artworks original character.

It’s an established fine art process combining pigment based inks with high quality fine art papers in order to achieve prints of superior archival quality.

Pairing both the recent technological advancements in inkjet technologies and the latest professional inkjet printers along with our range of high-quality fine art papers, our Giclée prints combine the benefits of digital control applied to a traditional material, allowing for the creation of prints with a variation in style, superb colour management and incredibly sharp image detail.

We work with specialist Giclée printers and have dedicated project managers on hand who can assist you with fine tuning your prints to get exactly the results you’re after and get them looking perfect every time.

Our Giclée prints are created using either an Epson Stylus Pro 11880 or 9900 with Ultrachrome HDR archival inks, capable of producing the most stunning images with an extremely wide tonal range and colour gamut.

As always at Eight, we have hand-picked the highest quality archival papers from Hahnemühle, Somerset, and Canson, all of which have been rigorously tried and tested for optimal colour, density, and tonal fidelity.

Our papers come in a range of textures and finishes, from flat matts to smooth and rich gloss and Baryta.

Turnaround time: see 'Paper Range & Pricing' below

Photographic C-Type printing

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Digital C-Type (or 'Chromagenic') prints are ideal for both artists and photographers either for personal or exhibition printing.

With their ability to produce stunning colour and dramatic black & white prints, C-Type printing involves digitally exposing the image directly onto a special light sensitive paper before finishing with a traditional photographic darkroom process (not to be confused with the high-res digital ink-jet printing of a Giclée, which doesn't involve any chemistry or light sensitivity).

Prints are made from a digital file rather than film or a negative, allowing for greater control over the final image but still producing the finely balanced, rich and vibrant yet subtle tonal variation of the traditional analogue process, with unparalleled depth in shadow detail. The resulting uniform spot size and shape means that even toward the edges and corners the image remains as razor sharp as the centre - a finish impossible with any other optical printing technique.

We work with the best photographic printing specialists in the UK and have dedicated project managers on hand who can assist you with fine tuning your prints to get them looking perfect every time. 

Our C-Type prints are produced using RGB lasers (as opposed to inferior LEDs), which creates a much sharper, high quality, true photographic print.

All our C-Types are made using a specially selected range of professional Fuji Crystal Archive and Kodak Endura photographic papers, including classic semi-matt, gloss, pure-matt velvet and metallic papers.

We are able to produce the largest and highest quality professional archival C-Type prints in the UK, using a Durst Lambda - (up to 400 ppi, equivalent to a resolution of 4000 dpi) producing images with the highest possible resolution available in the industry, and over 68 billion colours!

Or alternatively using an Océ Lightjet 500XL for widths over 48 inches - allowing us to go all the way up to 120 x 72 inches.

We are also able to scan from original film or large format negatives up to 22x18 inches, or 35mm slides if required, using top-of-the-range Fujifilm drum or Kodak IQ Smart flatbed scanners with ultra-high optical resolutions.

Capable of capturing very subtle details from film originals and producing scans with exceptionally smooth tonal gradients. Scans are usually produced at 600dpi or 300dpi, depending on the process, but we can produce higher or lower dpi's on request.

Turnaround time: see 'Paper Range & Pricing' below

Duratrans Printing

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We also offer a bespoke Duratrans printing service for artists, photographers and commercial clients. Duratrans prints are ideal for creating eye-catching backlit displays for use in event, office or retail spaces.

We work with the best duratrans printing specialists in the UK and have dedicated project managers on hand who can assist you with fine tuning your prints to get them looking perfect every time.

All our Duratrans prints are made using the same 100% photographic process as our C-Type prints but with a specially selected range of professional Kodak photographic film, namely Kodak Professional Endura Transparency display material. We also stock Fujitrans Crystal Archive display material (available by request), but as the Kodak film is effectively identical, we prefer to use that to save material due to its larger roll size.

We are able to produce the largest and highest quality professional archival grade Duratrans prints in the UK, using either a Durst Lambda - (up to 400 ppi, equivalent to a resolution of 4000 dpi) producing images with the highest possible resolution available in the industry, and over 68 billion colours!

Or alternatively using an Océ Lightjet 500XL for widths over 48 inches - allowing us to go all the way up to 120 x 72 inches.

For more information see our page on Duratrans.

Turnaround time: see 'Paper Range & Pricing' below

Black & White Photographic Printing

When it comes to professional black & white printing, we work with the only print lab in the UK to produce silver gelatin prints from digital files as well as negatives.

All our black and white Lambda prints are produced on genuine Harman (formerly Ilford) black and white silver gelatin photographic paper - ‘true’ black and white, without the colour cast you would usually find in C-Types and Giclées, due to their colour printing process.

We offer three premier Harman GDS papers to fit your needs, fibre-based Gloss, fibre-based Matt or resin-coated, producing the same high-quality printing as our C-Type prints, but with B&W chemical processing.

With ‘resin coated’ papers, the prints have a consistent and neutral image tone and the paper offers fine tonal benefits including strong blacks and subtle highlight detail

Our digital B&W papers can be printed up to 108 x 48 inches, and we can also offer B&W hand printing from negatives up to 20 x 24 inches.

We are also able to scan from original film or large format negatives up to 22x18 inches, or 35mm slides if required, using top-of-the-range Fujifilm drum or Kodak IQ Smart flatbed scanners with ultra-high optical resolutions.

Capable of capturing very subtle details from film originals and producing scans with exceptionally smooth tonal gradients. Scans are usually produced at 600dpi or 300dpi, depending on the process, but we can produce higher or lower dpi's on request.

Turnaround time: see 'Paper Range & Pricing' below

Direct to Media

Our Direct to Media UV printing means that we can print your image directly to a flat substrate of your choice, up to four inches thick and 8 x 10 ft as one full piece. Direct to media can be highly durable compared to traditional prints mounted to a substrate, with the added bonus of being water-resistant.

We always advise you to book a test print before printing full artwork as images present differently depending on the substrates.

Turnaround time: see 'Paper Range & Pricing' below