Finally printing

[Atmos (Colin)]

Well I have been pretty lazy of late finishing off this picture but tomorrow I am sending this off to get printed as a 10x20" metal print while there is a special on at Print2Metal.

During the down sizing it does seem to have made it look a bit more speckled (smaller stars appearing brighter) so I do want to see if I can mitigate that a bit more as it looks a little spotty. If not, I'll just send it as it is.

Just wanted to give a global thanks to everyone for their constructive criticism and processing advice

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Top stuff Colin!

I got two large prints from them (34-35inch diagonal) and both are really good. One thing worth keeping in mind is that images on a screen appear brighter than a print, so it might help to brighten the image a bit prior to printing, in particular in the darker areas.

[Stonius (Markus)]

Curious - why printing to metal? Is it analagous to printing to cibachrome back in the day?

Markus

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Originally Posted by Stonius

Curious - why printing to metal? Is it analagous to printing to cibachrome back in the day?

Markus

Why on metal? Even large prints are lightweight and it works well with astrophotos IMO

My favourite would be thick acrylic but these can get heavy very quickly as you increase the size of your prints.

Not sure about cibachrome, I wasn't around at the time these were popular

[RickS (Rick)]

I'd be interested to hear how it turns out, Colin. I did a large print with p2m and the result looks pretty ordinary, feels quite flimsy and doesn't sit flat. I think I might have been pushing the limits of their process.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Wavytone]

I think he means printing with metallic inks, not printing on metal. I've had a few prints done with metallic inks and they can be quite stunning in terms of the depth and range of colour and contrast. It's similar in some ways to the wet look produced by reverse printing on glas or acrylic but being paper far lighter.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by Slawomir

Top stuff Colin!

I got two large prints from them (34-35inch diagonal) and both are really good. One thing worth keeping in mind is that images on a screen appear brighter than a print, so it might help to brighten the image a bit prior to printing, in particular in the darker areas.

They're a bit bigger than my ~23" diagonal, would look nice on a wall though
Thanks for the brightening tip, gone and brightened it up a bit before sending it off.

Brighter and link to 18MP version

Originally Posted by Stonius

Curious - why printing to metal? Is it analagous to printing to cibachrome back in the day?

Markus

I've seen some metallic prints in the past and they have been very vibrant and contrasty compared to normal matt or glossy paper. Metallic ink (on good quality gloss paper) also looks fantastic.

Originally Posted by RickS

I'd be interested to hear how it turns out, Colin. I did a large print with p2m and the result looks pretty ordinary, feels quite flimsy and doesn't sit flat. I think I might have been pushing the limits of their process.

Cheers,
Rick.

What size did you get? The largest that I've seen in person is a 16x20" as that is the largest print size allowed by VAPS for judging.

Originally Posted by Wavytone

I think he means printing with metallic inks, not printing on metal. I've had a few prints done with metallic inks and they can be quite stunning in terms of the depth and range of colour and contrast. It's similar in some ways to the wet look produced by reverse printing on glas or acrylic but being paper far lighter.

I personally think that metallic inks are a must for black and white because of the amazing contrast that they appear to have.

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

I reckon your photo will look amazing. Might be worth hanging it in a place where it gets some illumination at night - good lighting brings astro prints to live!

[Stonius (Markus)]

Ah, interesting. So is that something Snap or KwikKopy might do, or is it more like a professional photo lab?

Markus

Originally Posted by Wavytone

I think he means printing with metallic inks, not printing on metal. I've had a few prints done with metallic inks and they can be quite stunning in terms of the depth and range of colour and contrast. It's similar in some ways to the wet look produced by reverse printing on glas or acrylic but being paper far lighter.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

What size did you get? The largest that I've seen in person is a 16x20" as that is the largest print size allowed by VAPS for judging.

It was just under 30x38"

[Atmos (Colin)]

Had a reasonable large parcel arrive on Thursday containing the print, quite happy with the print.
If I was to do it again I'd need to drop the brightness of the top yellow patch and increase some of the darker areas (flatten the image somewhat). I probably should have done a pre-print test so that's my fault really.

As it is only a 10x20" it is reasonably small, it feels stiff and the mounting plate on the back feels well constructed.

Overall I am happy with it. Considering that I can drop it to 50% native resolution and print at 40x80" 300DPI... maybe I should go bigger at some point

[RickS (Rick)]

Glad to hear you're happy with the result, Colin!