Photo Printing - Acrylic

jimbling

I'm thinking the scenery shots are probably most suitable?

jimbling

melekalikimaka wrote: »

the bus image i think would suit the acrylic very well, sunset acrylic is a little too dentist waiting room, and plant and animal wouldnt be my bag, but that bus one is excellent

Cheers. Ya, love that picture all right. I was thinking the Moon Valley shot would be pretty nice on Acrylic too id say?

melekalikimaka

jimbling wrote: »

Cheers. Ya, love that picture all right. I was thinking the Moon Valley shot would be pretty nice on Acrylic too id say?

i presume thats th eimage above? if so i dont think so tbh, the colour gradient and detail might not transfer well if the printing process isnt up to scratch, again this is the assumption that the sign printing is what i image it is, could be wrong

jimbling

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i presume thats th eimage above? if so i dont think so tbh, the colour gradient and detail might not transfer well if the printing process isnt up to scratch, again this is the assumption that the sign printing is what i image it is, could be wrong

Ya, it's the 3rd pic. The high quality version is much brighter and more vibrant if that makes any difference?

I dont have a clue what sign printing even is

stcstc

i agree the hp latex printer they are using isnt really a photo art type thing, so the shadow detail might not be the best

also where you have very smooth graidients it might not cope to well either


mind for the price they are charging its worth a punt i guess

the other thing is i find most people actually dont notice the difference until its pointed out to them between some of these things

i mean the amount of times i see people saying some of the online photo print places do the best quality, generally i reckon its that people just havent seen any better if that makes sense

PaulieC

Just be aware that the prints that picanova do on acrylic do not come with mounting hardware. I got one done a couple of months back and Steve is correct, the acrylic is quite thin and wobbly. However they are done by printing on paper and mounting on the acrylic. Another thing is that they don't come pre-drilled, so you'll need to do this also. I got the standoff mounts on eBay for about a tenner.
Lastly, while the quality is ok, it's not a patch on what Steve does

jimbling

stcstc wrote: »

i agree the hp latex printer they are using isnt really a photo art type thing, so the shadow detail might not be the best
also where you have very smooth graidients it might not cope to well either
mind for the price they are charging its worth a punt i guess
the other thing is i find most people actually dont notice the difference until its pointed out to them between some of these things
i mean the amount of times i see people saying some of the online photo print places do the best quality, generally i reckon its that people just havent seen any better if that makes sense

Hey Steve… thanks for the advice.
So would you have the same opinion then. Of the few pics above, would you consider the Bus on the Bolivian salt flats to be the best option for the service they will provide?

cambo_gueno wrote: »

Just be aware that the prints that picanova do on acrylic do not come with mounting hardware. I got one done a couple of months back and Steve is correct, the acrylic is quite thin and wobbly. However they are done by printing on paper and mounting on the acrylic. Another thing is that they don't come pre-drilled, so you'll need to do this also. I got the standoff mounts on eBay for about a tenner.

Cheers for that… hadn’t realized they didn’t supply the mounts. That’s a bit annoying but the deal is already purchased at this point.

cambo_gueno wrote: »

Lastly, while the quality is ok, it's not a patch on what Steve does

I believe it. But this deal will cost me €50 (€60 with the mounts I guess) and a similar size print would cost me €250 with Steve. I have no doubt that the price difference might be worth it if I knew & understood more about the whole thing… or if I felt my photos were of a better standard and warranted the extra price to hang on my wall.

Mr Velo

Guys, I got one of these on the groupon offer. Got a mount with it including 2 rubber spacers, but haven't the foggiest idea on how to actually use the damn mount. It would appear it sticks to the wall, but can't fathom how to attach the acrylic to the mount. Any help greatly appreciated.

stcstc

can u put up some pics, i might be able to help if i see them

jimbling

So, received the Print and thought I'd update this thread.

Couple of things:

1) Dealing with Picanova.
Not the best. Takes a min of two days to get a reply to an email, even if it’s a follow up question to an existing query. Very annoying.
Also, when I picked the picture I wanted to get done, I realized it would look better in a different size. I had ordered the most expensive voucher, for the biggest size. I wanted to downgrade to a cheaper option (£30+ cheaper on the site, €10 cheaper on the groupon deal) but they wouldn’t let me. Thought this was completely ridiculous and would put me off going with them again.

2) The Picture
It looks pretty good I must say. The colours are well captured, but as mentioned earlier, I probably wouldn’t spot the real differences between this and a better quality one.
I knew it was only 3mm in depth, but I was still pretty surprised at how thin it was when I got it. It does look/feel a little flimsy… I can see the appeal of the greater thickness even without bringing the image quality into the equation.

3) The Aftermath
While trying to figure out where to put the picture I was wandering around the house holding it up in spots trying to get a look. I stupidly held it in one spot while stretching to get a good view of it through a mirror across the way. Inevitably my clumsiness came to the fore and the print slipped from my fingers and hit the ground with a cringe inducing crack! Yes, a huge crack across the bottom left corner of the print

So, what to do?? I could try to hide the crack with a frame that cuts out the corner in some manner. Or I could get the print cut into a smaller size. It’s 30” x 24”. I would likely lose 2 inches from the left and bottom of the print in getting this done. It will certainly take away from the picture, but it might be the best plan of action.
Anyone got any other ideas?


PS: Mr Velo: I also purchased the mount with the print and it definitely wasn't too obvious what to do with it. But that went to the back of my mind pretty quickly due to the events above

stcstc

it might be possible to cut

the issues though would be:

the edge then wont be polished

there is a chance the some of the print on the new edge might come off too

i would suggest possible cutting and then using a frame to hide the edges, well without seeing thats what sounds the best thing to do

Nebezpeci Mys

Got my Picanova print a few weeks back and have to say I'm not very impressed. Leaving the flimsiness aside, there is visible colour banding and highlights are blown out in places. Had the same picture printed before elsewhere and without any of these issues, so won't go with Picanova again.

stcstc

there is a bit of ya get what ya pays for with these things


loads of people offer them, not many actually understand how to do them quite right

but there again the offer you got seemed deff worth a punt

SamBrugha

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i printed my college exhibition on acrylic, i'll try pull a photo of them up from it, I ended up winning an award for the presentation of the work, IMO all down to the acrylic printing, the images i used were a mix of quite contrasty bright and dull colours


HandDanbo by melekalikimaka, on Flickr

A Steamy Relationship by melekalikimaka, on Flickr

Danbo Like Smarties by melekalikimaka, on Flickr

and tbh the looked better, so so much better than standard printing, tho I think the pictures theme kinda lends to suiting acrylic.

I used steve at 360dpi, good price, not as cheap as that deal, but I think with this sort of printing theres so much that can go wrong in the process I wanted it done properly, and it paid dividends

I went to college with Sterling here, and these prints were very very tasty!

Nebezpeci Mys

SamBrugha wrote: »

I went to college with Sterling here, and these prints were very very tasty!

Not surprised, Steve always does a great job afaik.

dinneenp

Quiet annoyed and pis*ed off.
I googled 'acrylic prints' and the ad result was for Snapfish offering 50% off Acrylic Prints.
So I went throught the site, picked photo, size etc. and applied code. Didn't work.
Contacted Support and in the end realised the the code is only for canvas prints.
I asked them if they'd honour it for me but they said no.