Printing night sky pictures?

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PeakPhoto
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p.1 #1 · Printing night sky pictures?

Howdy folks,

So I've been shooting and printing and selling for about a year now, but there is one thing I can never get to print right and that's my star shots. They always come out way too dark. I'm using labs like Bay Photo and MpixPro. I'm embedding the printer profile for Bay. I'm guessing it has to do with my laptop being backlit and photos not being, but I don't how to solve this for print.

I'm still a rookie so any advice at all would be great.

Example images I'm trying to print:
http://www.peakphotographymt.com/p690939594/h5359afe8#h5359afe8

http://www.peakphotographymt.com/p690939594/h5359afe8#h5359afe8

http://www.peakphotographymt.com/p690939594/h5359afe8#h5359afe8

Thank you!

Andy

Jan 31, 2013 at 02:33 AM

dgdg
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p.1 #2 · Printing night sky pictures?

Your photos look nice on my overly bright monitor.
I find my star shots look flat and dark, more so than other types of photos, if not using the printer profiles, but you are. So here are a few thoughts.

1. Is your monitor calibrated properly, particularly for brightness?
2. You would edit a proof of your photo in LR using the printer profile, but still export it as sRGB profile.
3. I imagine your laptop monitor is susceptible to drastic changes in image appearance as you change your viewing angle. This could trump any monitor calibration, particularly for colors. You may want to consider a cheap ips external monitor.

Jan 31, 2013 at 01:40 PM

PeakPhoto
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p.1 #3 · Printing night sky pictures?

Thank you for the advice dgdg. I've got a calibrator on it's way. I've never really had a problem with prints looking off from what my laptop appears. But my 27in monitor for my desktop is way off, so I'm finally splurging on a calibrator. Hoping that helps with this as well.

Thanks again.

Feb 01, 2013 at 04:33 PM

runamuck
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p.1 #4 · Printing night sky pictures?

I never could get something like this to print right on my Eepson R800 printer. It came out with really inky shadows. There was no nuance in the dark areas. I chalked it up to the difference between back-lighted monitor and reflected light and gave up as printing was simply not that important.

Have you contacted Bay or Mpix to discuss this? After all, their future business depends on getting it right.

Feb 01, 2013 at 05:00 PM

RustyBug
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p.1 #5 · Printing night sky pictures?

Here's a thread that helped me come to understand the additive/subtractive ... backlit monitor / reflective print relationship ... in my own algebraic kinda way.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1061877/0?keyword=subtractive,additive#10098244

Feb 01, 2013 at 11:03 PM

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