What Are Digital Prints?

"Digital print" is the umbrella term for any print made from a digital file rather than a plate, stone, or block. Beneath it sit two genuinely different technologies, several overlapping names that are often — but not always — interchangeable, and a set of mounting methods frequently mistaken for print types themselves.

The pigment-inkjet family

Archival pigment print, digital pigment print, pigmented inkjet print, and archival inkjet print generally describe the same process: pigment-based ink on archival, typically cotton-rag paper. Giclée is related but less precise — coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne at Nash Editions to avoid the word "inkjet," the term is widely used for fine-art inkjet prints generally, but does not by itself guarantee a particular ink set, paper, or permanence rating. A museum-grade print and a poster can both correctly be called giclée. At the lower end, conventional inkjet prints may use dye-based inks, non-archival media, or both — any of which can significantly reduce resistance to fading.

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The C-type family

C-type (chromogenic) prints are made by exposing light-sensitive photographic paper and chemically processing it — a fundamentally different, photochemical technology, not inkjet at all. The colour comes from dye layers embedded in the paper itself, not ink on its surface, giving C-types a glossy, luminous finish that reads differently from a matte archival pigment print.

Digital exposure systems such as Lambda or LightJet allow a digital file to be output through this same photochemical process — effectively using C-type paper as the physical carrier for a digital photograph, much of contemporary large-format photography (Andreas Gursky included) is produced this way. Despite originating from a digital file, the resulting print remains chemically processed, not inkjet.

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Mounting methods — not print types

Diasec, Alu-Dibond, and Forex describe how a finished print is presented, not how it was printed, and digital prints are frequently produced already mounted rather than sold as loose sheets. Diasec (invented in Switzerland in 1969) face-mounts the print directly to clear acrylic with no air gap, then backs it with Dibond — an aluminium composite panel — producing the glossy, saturated, frameless look associated with large-format photography. Alu-Dibond alone, without the acrylic face, is a simpler rigid mounting option commonly used for photographic and fine-art prints; its long-term archival suitability depends on the specific print, adhesive, and construction used, not the panel alone.

Forex, a lightweight PVC foam board, is intended primarily for display and signage rather than long-term conservation — it contains acids and by-products that break down over time, and conservators generally favour more stable materials for anything meant to last.

One term that does not belong on this list

Cibachrome, later marketed as Ilfochrome, regularly appears in the same auction catalogues as C-type and pigment prints — but it is a pre-digital, dye-destruction photochemical process: the dyes are embedded in the material itself and selectively destroyed during processing. The material was discontinued entirely in 2012.

Do Digital Prints Last?

Wilhelm Imaging Research, whose testing on print permanence dates back to the 1970s, remains one of the leading independent sources on the subject; its standardized methodology exposes prints to controlled light (450 lux, 12 hours/day) and measures the point at which fading becomes noticeable. Under that testing, some of the most stable chromogenic (C-type) papers have historically achieved display-life ratings of around 60 years, while modern pigment-inkjet systems — depending on the specific ink and paper combination — can exceed several hundred years in comparable tests.

Early inkjet prints from the 1990s, made with dye-based inks on ordinary paper, could fade within a decade — the origin of digital printing's reputation problem, and one the pigment-ink generation substantially addressed. The substrate matters almost as much as the ink: a highly stable pigment cannot indefinitely compensate for an unstable or poorly conserved paper.

How Do Digital Prints Differ Technically?

The differences that matter are physical, not aesthetic. Ink type is one: modern pigment inks can offer substantially greater light stability than many dye-based systems, though actual permanence depends on the specific ink, substrate, and display conditions. Paper is the other, and arguably the more decisive one in practice — cotton rag and other acid-free archival stocks hold pigment where it stays stable, while standard or resin-coated papers allow faster degradation regardless of ink quality.

The C-type family differs from pigment inkjet more fundamentally still: it is photochemical, not ink-based, and digital exposure systems like Lambda and LightJet became particularly important in contemporary photography for their ability to produce very large prints with consistent tonal and colour reproduction. Surface and finish vary accordingly — a matte cotton rag pigment print, a glossy C-type, and a Diasec-mounted print under acrylic each produce a materially different object, independent of the underlying image.

How to Read a Medium Description?

A medium description tells you more than it first appears to, once you know how to parse it. The table below breaks down what each common designation actually specifies — and where it leaves room for interpretation.

Printmaking Technique	Base Process	Paper Type	Use	Synonyms
Archival Pigment Print	Pigment ink deposited via inkjet	Archival, acid-free (typically cotton rag)	Museum-grade fine art editions, contemporary photography	Digital Pigment Print, Pigmented Inkjet Print, Pigment Print, Archival Inkjet Print
Inkjet Print	Dye or pigment ink deposited via inkjet	Standard, non-archival	Open editions, posters	—
Giclée	Dye or pigment ink deposited via inkjet (varies)	Standard or archival (varies)	Museum-grade art editions, open editions, posters	Fine Art Print
C-Type (Chromogenic)	Photochemical exposure and processing	Light-sensitive photographic paper	Large-format contemporary photography, museum-grade photo editions	Chromogenic Print, Lambda Print

Reading it this way — rather than taking any single term at face value — is the difference between assessing a print and simply repeating what the seller called it. A C-type print mounted on aluminium is a photochemical print rigidly mounted for display; a C-type print face-mounted to acrylic is the same print, Diasec-mounted instead — the print and the mounting are two separate questions, worth assessing separately.

What Should Collectors Look For?

The primary criterion is legitimacy, not technique. Authorization by the artist, clear edition documentation, and the work's place within the artist's recognised practice matter more than whether a print carries a physical signature, and more than which printing process produced it — a properly authorized, documented edition is worth collecting whether it was made as an archival pigment print, a C-type, or a Diasec-mounted work.

Collectors should distinguish this from purely commercial reproduction: an unsigned, open-edition print of a painting, sold as decor without edition documentation or artist authorization, occupies a fundamentally different position in the market — regardless of the ink or paper used to produce it.

Do Digital Prints Have a Place in the Fine Art Market?

Digital processes are long since established within fine-art photography, and major museum collections routinely include both chromogenic and archival pigment prints as core holdings. Thomas Ruff's auction record stands at $240,000 (Jpeg pt01, Christie's 2017). Andreas Gursky's Rhein II (1999) — a digitally composed image realised as a chromogenic colour print mounted on acrylic — sold for $4,338,500 at Christie's in 2011, then the record for any photograph at auction. Results at that level are the exception rather than the rule, and say more about the specific artist and work than about digital printing as a category; what they do establish is that the printing technology itself is not a ceiling. Market value depends on the artist, the work, provenance, and historical significance, as with any other medium.

Digital printing is also not necessarily a replacement for traditional printmaking — many contemporary limited edition prints combine digital processes with screenprinting, lithography, etching, or hand-colouring within a single edition.