Hey everyone, I was asked by a gallery in Gunnison about displaying my photography and the owners asked me about one photo in particular. It was around midnight on Cottonwood Pass and the Milky Way was just extraordinary! I'm very happy with this photo but I don't know how it will print.
They asked about a stretched canvas print around the neighborhood of 20x30". I have a 5D Mk. II but I took this pic at 3200 ISO! I'm very hesitant to print it on canvas at that size. I was thinking either just a regular archival paper print or an acrylic face mount.
Has anyone had much success with printing night photos? This would be the first non-lightning night photo printed and I'm concerned about the noise (and whether canvas would make the print "dull").
Thank you for any feedback!
Here's where you can view the photo at 100% resolution.
Hey everyone, I was asked by a gallery in Gunnison about displaying my photography and the owners asked me about one photo in particular. It was around midnight on Cottonwood Pass and the Milky Way was just extraordinary! I'm very happy with this photo but I don't know how it will print.
They asked about a stretched canvas print around the neighborhood of 20x30". I have a 5D Mk. II but I took this pic at 3200 ISO! I'm very hesitant to print it on canvas at that size. I was thinking either just a regular archival paper print or an acrylic face mount.
Has anyone had much success with printing night photos? This would be the first non-lightning night photo printed and I'm concerned about the noise (and whether canvas would make the print "dull").
Thank you for any feedback!
Here's a link to where you can view the pic at 100% resolution.
After doing all that is possible in the area of noise reduction a professional photographic lab will print a test strip of the image for you to evaluate....This is certainly less expensive than printing the entire image.
Joe Rogers
Ryan, it's possible that a canvas wrap may be your best friend on this one because the grain will sort of melt together when the ink hits canvas. The MW is so bright and prominent that I don't think it will kill the brilliance that much. The cactus shot on the March RMNP cover was one that I was asked to print as a canvas wrap at 30"x45" (from my 5D2), and that was at 150dpi to get it that big, and it came out surprisingly nice, even in the shadows. John is right, your image does need some noise reduction, even using the scrubby slider in Curves on the very darkest parts of the sky to make them darker would do well.
On the other side of the barn, I did print this MW shot on my Canon Pixma 9000 printer at 13"x19" using the SUPER glossy Canon Pro Platinum paper which has very little bleed, and it also came out surprisingly good (meaning print quality, not commenting on the image, lol). On that one I did darken the blacks to mask noise, and I did have to "print & tweak" a few times before it was right. I think that preparing your image with print in mind will fare excellent results. The shot you made is stunning, that's what they'll see first.
I've seen a forum of images by a videographer who shoots with a 5D2 and a 24mm/1.4, and he did night timelapses (which are just strung-together images) which are quite clean. You can see it here on Vimeo. He wrote that he used something called Stacks in After Effects to get these images to work, which he shot at ISO 100! Turns out that Photoshop has something called Stacks which I want to research to see if it's same. Point is, with some TLC on the dark noise, you'll be able to get a great print. Hope all this makes sense and is helpful.
Posted by Ryan Wright on March 9, 2012 at 12:06 AM
Thank you very much everyone! I hadn't run any noise reduction software on it yet, throwing it through Nik Dfine 2 as I write this.
Joe, very good point about the test strip, thank you for reminding me about asking for that.
Paul, thank you for all the information! I'm not overly worried about the print size, but more so about the noise. It's encouraging to hear that you've made a 30x45" canvas from a MW photo, seriously I can't tell you what a relief it was to read that!
I'll monkey with the photo more and get it more "printable". Does anyone have any experience with Acrylic Face Mounting and night photography? I'm super intrigued by it right now.
Posted by Paul DeCesare on March 11, 2012 at 4:17 AM
Ryan,
I hope this is OK, I worked on your full-size image a bit... for a rich-looking print you'll really want those blacks boosted, and the heavier volume of black ink in the print will automatically smooth out some noise. With these shots you have to work at it in steps. I took your shot and duped the layer and selected the Multiply Blending Mode, then faded the top layer back to about 30%. Then I pulled the blacks down in Curves a bit more, with half an S curve (only in the shadows). Then Levels next where I pulled the white point (on the right) inward to boost back the brightness. Then I opened Viveza2 and pinned the black sky area and wailed away on it, turning Brightness down and Structure up. Added a bit o' sharpeming from Smart Sharpen (70% @ 0.5 Radius). This version should provide a rich print, the original was exposed nicely but lacked contrast and definition as far as a print would go, so this might work for you.
Great image, you really got the meat of the MW in this one!
Paul
Posted by Paul DeCesare on March 11, 2012 at 4:18 AM
Here's a side-by-side, original on the left:
Posted by Ryan Wright on March 11, 2012 at 10:18 PM
Wow Paul, that's quite the edit. Thanks for taking a look at that and putting in the time to produce a great edit! The definition you got in the MW is just incredible! Thank you again!
Discussion
8 repliesThey asked about a stretched canvas print around the neighborhood of 20x30". I have a 5D Mk. II but I took this pic at 3200 ISO! I'm very hesitant to print it on canvas at that size. I was thinking either just a regular archival paper print or an acrylic face mount.
Has anyone had much success with printing night photos? This would be the first non-lightning night photo printed and I'm concerned about the noise (and whether canvas would make the print "dull").
Thank you for any feedback!
Here's where you can view the photo at 100% resolution.
Hey everyone, I was asked by a gallery in Gunnison about displaying my photography and the owners asked me about one photo in particular. It was around midnight on Cottonwood Pass and the Milky Way was just extraordinary! I'm very happy with this photo but I don't know how it will print.
They asked about a stretched canvas print around the neighborhood of 20x30". I have a 5D Mk. II but I took this pic at 3200 ISO! I'm very hesitant to print it on canvas at that size. I was thinking either just a regular archival paper print or an acrylic face mount.
Has anyone had much success with printing night photos? This would be the first non-lightning night photo printed and I'm concerned about the noise (and whether canvas would make the print "dull").
Thank you for any feedback!
Here's a link to where you can view the pic at 100% resolution.
Here!
Joe Rogers
On the other side of the barn, I did print this MW shot on my Canon Pixma 9000 printer at 13"x19" using the SUPER glossy Canon Pro Platinum paper which has very little bleed, and it also came out surprisingly good (meaning print quality, not commenting on the image, lol). On that one I did darken the blacks to mask noise, and I did have to "print & tweak" a few times before it was right. I think that preparing your image with print in mind will fare excellent results. The shot you made is stunning, that's what they'll see first.
I've seen a forum of images by a videographer who shoots with a 5D2 and a 24mm/1.4, and he did night timelapses (which are just strung-together images) which are quite clean. You can see it here on Vimeo. He wrote that he used something called Stacks in After Effects to get these images to work, which he shot at ISO 100! Turns out that Photoshop has something called Stacks which I want to research to see if it's same. Point is, with some TLC on the dark noise, you'll be able to get a great print. Hope all this makes sense and is helpful.
Joe, very good point about the test strip, thank you for reminding me about asking for that.
Paul, thank you for all the information! I'm not overly worried about the print size, but more so about the noise. It's encouraging to hear that you've made a 30x45" canvas from a MW photo, seriously I can't tell you what a relief it was to read that!
I'll monkey with the photo more and get it more "printable". Does anyone have any experience with Acrylic Face Mounting and night photography? I'm super intrigued by it right now.
I hope this is OK, I worked on your full-size image a bit... for a rich-looking print you'll really want those blacks boosted, and the heavier volume of black ink in the print will automatically smooth out some noise. With these shots you have to work at it in steps. I took your shot and duped the layer and selected the Multiply Blending Mode, then faded the top layer back to about 30%. Then I pulled the blacks down in Curves a bit more, with half an S curve (only in the shadows). Then Levels next where I pulled the white point (on the right) inward to boost back the brightness. Then I opened Viveza2 and pinned the black sky area and wailed away on it, turning Brightness down and Structure up. Added a bit o' sharpeming from Smart Sharpen (70% @ 0.5 Radius). This version should provide a rich print, the original was exposed nicely but lacked contrast and definition as far as a print would go, so this might work for you.
Great image, you really got the meat of the MW in this one!
Paul