Printing a Milky Way Photo

[dmb8021]

I have never printed any of the pictures I have taken, but would like to print this Milky Way shot I took in Acadia in September (I previously posted this shot in the Landscape sub-forum). I have gone back through this forum and saw some of the lab recommendations, such as Bay Photo, Printique, mpix, etc but have a couple of questions.

1) What type of print do you think would be best? I was leaning toward a Metal print.

2) If I got a 20x30 print, I would guess the noise on the water and rocks would be clearly visible and should be cleaned up before sending it to the lab?

I obviously can't upload the full resolution photo to this site, but I you want to see it, I can send it to you.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[BirdDogDad]

Beautiful photo! Just this morning I posted the following on the general photo forum to a similar question:

I can't speak for Bay Photo, but I had a 45 x 17 inch metal print done by DuraPlaq in Longmont, CO, of a great shot of the Northern Lights I got in Iceland. Absolutely spectacular. The metal process provides a luminosity and detail I've never seen equalled in any traditional print. The stars and subtle colors of the lights literally glow. I've had a few other smaller, less expensive metal prints done of different subjects from other sources as well, and the color fidelity and crispness is highly impressive. The difference, in my understanding, is that just about any traditional print material will absorb some of the inks (if reproduced that way), while the hardness of metal prevents any absorption or diffusion. In my experience, metal would be a great choice for your astro images. You might want to try a couple of small proof prints on different materials for comparison if you're planning on investing a good deal of money in your prints. DuraPlaq sent me a small proof before I committed to a sizeable chunk of change for the final product.

So yes, I think metal would be spectacular. And yes, metal will faithfully reproduce any noise or flaws. It will also faithfully reproduce any over-processing, so proceed with care!

 

[dmb8021]

Beautiful photo! Just this morning I posted the following on the general photo forum to a similar question:

I can't speak for Bay Photo, but I had a 45 x 17 inch metal print done by DuraPlaq in Longmont, CO, of a great shot of the Northern Lights I got in Iceland. Absolutely spectacular. The metal process provides a luminosity and detail I've never seen equalled in any traditional print. The stars and subtle colors of the lights literally glow. I've had a few other smaller, less expensive metal prints done of different subjects from other sources as well, and the color fidelity and crispness is highly impressive. The difference, in my understanding, is that just about any traditional print material will absorb some of the inks (if reproduced that way), while the hardness of metal prevents any absorption or diffusion. In my experience, metal would be a great choice for your astro images. You might want to try a couple of small proof prints on different materials for comparison if you're planning on investing a good deal of money in your prints. DuraPlaq sent me a small proof before I committed to a sizeable chunk of change for the final product.

So yes, I think metal would be spectacular. And yes, metal will faithfully reproduce any noise or flaws. It will also faithfully reproduce any over-processing, so proceed with care!

Thanks for the info. I have a couple of star trail pictures from Joshua Tree that I might also print, so it sounds like metal is a good way to go for astro photos. Just have to clean up the images.

 

[DRwyoming]

I really like metal prints for images that have a lot of bright sparkle and colors and that includes Milky Way images. Your image looks like a great candidate for direct metal printing. Very nice image with just enough foreground detail and a great sky. But yes, do any noise clean up work before sending it off for a 20x30 print.

 

[Deleted member 115]

Looks like a great photo for a metal print. I have had a few night shots printed professionally on hd metal white and a few at home on metallic pearl photo papers with our Canon Pro300.
The HD metal prints are awesome but may look a bit darker than you expect due to the lack of backlight on your monitor. Might keep this in mind while placing order.

I really like your photo, it's nice to see Saturn and Jupiter

 

[Bill Schone]

I have never printed any of the pictures I have taken, but would like to print this Milky Way shot I took in Acadia in September (I previously posted this shot in the Landscape sub-forum). I have gone back through this forum and saw some of the lab recommendations, such as Bay Photo, Printique, mpix, etc but have a couple of questions.

1) What type of print do you think would be best? I was leaning toward a Metal print.

2) If I got a 20x30 print, I would guess the noise on the water and rocks would be clearly visible and should be cleaned up before sending it to the lab?

I obviously can't upload the full resolution photo to this site, but I you want to see it, I can send it to you.

View attachment 10566

Great capture! Keep us updated on your findings for printing. My niece sent off a couple of my Neowise captures to Bay Photo to print on metal for Christmas. Haven’t gotten a report from her as to the results, but will let you know also. Once again really nice shot.

 

[dmb8021]

Great capture! Keep us updated on your findings for printing. My niece sent off a couple of my Neowise captures to Bay Photo to print on metal for Christmas. Haven’t gotten a report from her as to the results, but will let you know also. Once again really nice shot.

will do. I actually haven’t ordered it yet because I realized I did a really bad job with adding the foreground in photoshop and need to redo it.

 

[Deleted member 115]

What do you mean by adding the foreground?

 

[dmb8021]

What do you mean by adding the foreground?

The foreground rocks were taken during the blue hour in that exact same spot and I did a bad job of creating the composite. I had a tough time masking the pine trees and so I tried to take a shortcut and it didn’t work out well.

 

[Bill Schone]

I’m not a photoshop user, but I thought they just introduced a new Sky replacement feature? Additionally I’d second Hut’s comment about the prints tending to be dark, I had printed just a 4x6 at a local photo shop & it certainly came out dark.

 

[frdjohns]

I recently had an image of a bull elk in the fog printed at 20 x 30. It was done by Nations Photo Lab and I am very pleased with the result. I had it done glossy on a standout and it came out beautifully. They give you the option of having them color correct before printing, but I did not allow that as I wanted the image printed as I processed it.

This was the second time I've used them for a large 20 x 30 print, and based on what I've received I will continue to use them. They can be found at:
Nations Photo Lab

 

[BirdDogDad]

I too have been pleased with Nations, and their prices are extremely reasonable. Regarding the comments of prints coming out dark, I wasted a lot of money on prints that were far darker than what my monitor showed, before I wised up and learned the "soft proofing" ropes. Nations (and several other labs) offers a number of ICC profiles tailored to their print options for both Lightroom and Photoshop that allow you to "soft proof" your print, and I've found them to be pretty accurate. Info and instructions here: https://nationsphotolab.zendesk.com...-What-are-ICC-Profiles-and-how-do-I-use-them-

The other thing to remember is that the default setting on most monitors is far too bright to give an accurate rendition of a print. My iMac is calibrated, but even so, I keep the brightness setting about 25% below "default," which combined with the ICC profiles, gives a pretty darned good representation of a printed output. When soft proofing with an ICC profile, I often find that shadows fill in and overall exposure drops a bit, so many times I'll do some minor adjustments accordingly before finalizing the file for print. Before ordering a large, expensive print, it can be worth ordering a few small 4x6 versions at different exposures/shadow depth, and compare them to what you see on your monitor. This is also a good way to "reverse calibrate" your monitor, making notes of various monitor settings to match your prints. I've finally gotten to where I am confident that what I see on my monitor will be what I see on the final print...but it took a fair amount of trial, error, and wasted prints to get there.

 

[Bill Schone]

Excellent advice, thank you.