Using Internet Photo Printing Service for Astrophotography

[gilesco]

I'm working on a Mosaic, and have a H-alpha channel that looks pretty good so far, so was thinking about using an Internet Photo Printing service to get the final results printed.

Anyone have any experience with using these? I used photobox.co.uk in the past for normal photos, but found that they just error when I upload my astrophotography photo, I'm wondering whether they're trying to do some post-processing or something and deciding that it is too dark.

Anyone who can share successful experiences in this regard?

 

[Ags]

As a hack, add a colored border to the image to fool the printing service into thinking the image isn't as dark as it really is!

[CraigT82]

I've used Whitewall to print lunar and planetary images.  I used their ultra HD acrylic prints and been pretty satisfied so far.

 

 

[gilesco]

8 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I've used Whitewall to print lunar and planetary images.  I used their ultra HD acrylic prints and been pretty satisfied so far.

 

 

I'm looking at Nebulous DSOs, which might not work so well as planetary imaging.

[CraigT82]

4 minutes ago, gilesco said:

I'm looking at Nebulous DSOs, which might not work so well as planetary imaging.

Why do you think that?  Both disciplines require good colour reproduction, contrast conservation and high resolution.

I've also had an M31 image done in the same way and it looks great

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by CraigT82

[gilesco]

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

Why do you think that?  Both disciplines require good colour reproduction, contrast conservation and high resolution.

I've also had an M31 image done in the same way and it looks great

 

Ok, that looks ok, will look them up

[gilesco]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

As a hack, add a colored border to the image to fool the printing service into thinking the image isn't as dark as it really is!

Yeah, but as it is a hack, and I would need to do it with photo box (did manage to eventually upload, but they modified my photo to make the background grey, and found no way in their tool to undo that), I am looking for a company that might allow me to tag the photo for non-processing in that regard.

[bdlbug]

I use CEWE - you download the application to your pc/laptop and can set the image not to be pre-processed 
the foam backed prints are reasonably priced and I’m happy with the nebulas and galaxies I got printed 

 

[gilesco]

15 hours ago, bdlbug said:

I use CEWE - you download the application to your pc/laptop and can set the image not to be pre-processed 
the foam backed prints are reasonably priced and I’m happy with the nebulas and galaxies I got printed 

 

OK, well I've given CEWE a try, it'll take a week or so, we will see how it turns out.

[Wyvernp]

I've used both photobox and mypicture for aluminium prints and both have been excellent although mypicture can be a lot cheaper, not for astro but for diving photos which more often than not have a black background. you can run into issues with drizzled images as the pixel count is too high.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Wyvernp

[gilesco]

CEWE foam backed print test sample arrived today, it looks great, so will use them. Quite reasonable for the price, once I managed to remove delivery costs with a voucher code.

[ollypenrice]

I've used these people in France: https://www.monoeuvre.fr/decoration-murale/photo-sur-acrylique.jsf

They do astrophotos pretty well and don't do any reprocessing. I'd offer two pieces of advice when processing for printers. 1) Make sure your background sky is a little lighter than you've set it in your screen version because print will pull it down again. 2) Be sure not to have your brightest details too close to the saturation point. Print seems to white clip to some extent.

Olly