> Does anyone have experience of "printing" images onto thin sheets of
> aluminium either at home or through a pro level photo lab ?
> Our son has asked me for several of my images for him to put onto aluminium
> sheeting and to be hung as wall art.
Yes, I've had a number of them done. They are really nice. They have
sold very well--I only have one left and my wife has cabbaged onto it.
The resulting finish is a little odd. It's a glossy texture. The
printing process is very much one of "painting" . Think of any normal
inkjet style pigment print on paper, but the ink is thicker and more
like tiny droplets of quick-drying acrylic paint. The effective
resolution is lower. Don't even dream that you'll get 300+ pixels per
inch of real resolution. So, you can get away with printing pretty
much any size print because the dot-spread masks any lack of camera
pixels. I think about 150 PPI is the outer extent of real resolution
on a good day. Most labs have the printer driver add dithering to the
image to better mask the horizontal/vertical grid-texture that the
printing process is notorious for.
The printing process usually involves laying down a base layer of
white "paint" or enamel. (either the sheets come prepainted or it is
part of the printing process--depends on the lab and equipment) Then
the image is printed on top of that. What I've seen on many metal
prints is distinct paint depth variations depending on the color and
brightness within the picture. Not anything you see or notice head on,
but at an angle and/or with side lighting, you can see how much the
depth changes. Most of the better labs either include or offer a final
"lacquer" layer that is applied over the top to not only protect and
harden the painted surface from scratching, but also sufficiently
randomizes the ink coverage so this depth problem goes away. Having
had them made both ways, I would never have an unlacquered metal print
done again. This has been partially resolved by some of the newer
printers actually printing white or clear to compensate for the lower
paint depth of lighter tones. This keeps the depth uniform. While the
final lacquer layer would technically be optional, I would still stick
with it for the protection it offers. The pro-lab I use has the new
printers and lacquer overlay. My last couple prints show little of the
depth problem, but I still see it on other people's prints down
through other labs.
The glossy texture creates another strange surface characteristic.
Like any good glossy print, or oil painting, you get DEEP colors and a
bold contrast. However, the textured surface will reflect lights. A
standard smooth glossy print functions more like a mirror and is only
problematic for viewing when the light is behind the viewer. This
glossy texture reflects lights in a specular manner even when they are
off-axis. I would consider this similar to that of listening to a
record player. The sound quality is AMAZING, but you get cracks and
pops from any particles the needle encounters in the groove. The print
reflects those lights in a way that gives the impression of random
visually random cracks and pops. If your lighting source is at high
angles (typical for illuminating oil paintings), this addresses most
of the problem, but then you can see the grid-texture of the printing
process if the light source is too small. Larger diameter light
sources at high angles seem to work better than old-school halogen
spotlights.
I was going riff about LED lights, but I'll save that for another post.
AG Schnozz
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