The Most Important Step in the Print Workflow

Monitor Calibration

In preparation for producing the best image files possible for print, I take several important steps throughout my editing workflow. The most important step however, is working on a monitor calibrated for color and brightness. By calibrating my monitor I can ensure that my prints will come out exactly the way I envision them. Currently, I work on a BenQ SW270C monitor built specifically for editing photographs. One important note is that my monitor is calibrated differently based on whether the final image will be posted to the web or printed. When editing for web I set the brightness at 120 nits to accurately reflect what people will see on their phone or computer. But when editing for print I set the brightness at 80 nits to compensate for the fact that images look darker on paper than they do on a screen.

Other Important Steps That Make a Big Difference

Setting the Photoshop workspace to a light gray or white background ensures that any shadows in the image are not too dark, as editing on a black background changes the way the eye perceives shadows.

The final output size of the image file is the next important consideration to be made because that affects the output sharpening process.

Before I print my work, I first resize the image in Photoshop to the final output size, and then go through a multi-stage sharpening process. This is because different size prints will require different levels of sharpening. These are just a few of the important steps I take to produce a high-quality file for print.

Metal Prints Explained

What are Metal Prints?

Metal Prints are known by several names such as HD Metal Prints, Aluminum Prints, Brushed Aluminum Prints, DiBond Prints, Metallic Prints and Metal Photo Prints. Printing on metal is a sleek modern way to display your work without having to frame it. Metal Prints really bring an image to life to life. Due to their durability, archival quality, and convenience, they are quickly becoming the new standard for displaying and selling art. Metal prints are made via a process called sublimation, and here’s how it works.

Unlike the traditional method of printing directly on the surface, which may damage easily, dye sublimation infuses the image directly into the hard coating to provide lasting durability and protection.

The first step requires your image to be printed on paper transfer media on a giclee printer with specialized sublimation inks made for the metal print process. The print will look like a flat colored mirrored copy of the original image.

This sheet is then taped on to blank metal photo panel which is then placed in a heat press. The heat and pressure causes the sublimation inks to transform into a gas. The gas is then absorbed through the pores of the polymer coating of the metal and into the base coating. As the metal cools, the pores close and the metal surface stabilizes.

Additional Benefits

Other than the obvious image quality, metal prints offer additional benefits.

Metal prints offer great value. Since metal photo prints don’t need to be framed, you can save big on framing costs which are often much more than the price of the print itself. My metal prints come ready to hang at a fraction of the cost of a custom framed traditional photo print.

Durability and archivability of metal prints are excellent. The surface coating is very tough and scratch resistant. It doesn’t require any glass to cover it. Also, they are incredibly fade resistant. So, how long do metal prints last? The Rochester Institute of Technology tested metal prints to last up to 4 times longer than archival silver halide photographic prints which last about 40 years.

Since they are printed on aluminum, metal prints are also water proof. If you have finger prints or something gets on it, just use a damp cloth to wipe it.

How to Create Amazing Milky Way and Nightscape Images

Some of my most popular images contain the Milky Way and I get many requests to explain how I capture those images, so today I’d like to walk you through that process. Once you try shooting the Milky Way you’ll love it!

Open your aperture as wide as possible

By the time the Milky Way comes out at night it is very dark. Normally, in landscape photography, you would set your aperture to f/11 for maximum sharpness and then adjust the shutter speed to achieve the optimal exposure, but in this situation you want to let in as much light as possible to the camera sensor. A lens with an aperture of f/2.8 or lower is going to be best when shooting the Milky Way.

Increase your ISO

In landscape photography you would normally set your ISO to 100. Again, shooting the Milky Way is very different. In astrophotography, you want to increase your ISO to ensure that you aren’t clipping your blacks on the histogram. Typically, I start with an ISO of 6400 and then adjust up or down based on what the histogram says. And don’t worry if your images looks noisy! Try shooting a series of exposures one after the other and then using a program like Starry Landscape Stacker to blend them together and reduce the noise.

Focus manually

It becomes too dark for our cameras to use autofocus at night, so you will have to focus manually. In live view, zoom in on the stars as much as you can and begin to adjust the focus ring, noticing that the stars change size as you do. Continue to adjust the focus ring until the stars stop getting smaller and look like perfect circles. Alternatively, you can try shining a headlamp on an object far off in the distance and focusing on the light.

Make sure your stars aren’t trailing

Star trails occur when your exposure is too long and the stars begin to move. Star trails look really cool, but that isn’t what we want when shooting the Milky Way! The sharper the stars the better, so you will need to adjust your shutter speed if it looks like the stars are trailing. I like to use the Star trails feature in Photopills because it tells me the maximum shutter speed I can have given the resolution of my camera and focal length of my lens, but generally if you can keep your exposure under 20 seconds you should be ok.

Consider a blue hour blend

If you’d like more detail in the foreground than you would get with the methods described above, consider a blue hour blend. You’ll want to capture your foreground during blue hour or twilight after the sun sets with the setting you would use when shooting a traditional landscape, ISO 100 f/11. Once you have your foreground, wait until the Milky Way comes out and capture it using the settings described earlier in this article. Then, in Photoshop swap your blue hour sky for your Milky Way.

Don’t forget about twilight!

People typically focus on shooting the Milky Way in astrophotography, but the time in between right after the sun sets and before the Milky Way comes out can be used to create amazing images too! I really like shooting at this time because there is still light on the landscape that can be brought out with dodging and burning, and the sky turns a beautiful shade of blue, but you still have some stars in the sky so the top of your image doesn't look empty.

I hope you enjoyed these tips! Feel free to message me with any questions, and subscribe to my mailing list so you know when the next article comes out!

How to Capture Backlit Landscapes

One of the techniques that took my photography to the next level was understanding how the direction of light in a scenes affects how the main subject was lit. Recognizing certain types of light and how that impacts a scene is important to the success of a photographer.

Scenes can be lit three different ways: back light, side light, and front light. Today I want to explain how to shoot and process backlit images.

Backlight can product incredibly images, but the dynamic range in these images can be very difficult to capture as the dynamic range typically extends beyond what the camera can capture in a single exposure. Exposing for the sun results in a foreground that is too dark, but exposing for the foreground results in a blown out sky.

Bracketing your exposure will help manage these backlit scenes. I take two exposures, one with an optimal exposure for the foreground, and one with an optimal exposure for the sky. Once I have captured these images, I blend them together in post-processing. The result is a realistic image that retains all details.

Next time you go out to capture a backlit scene, try experimenting with bracketing to preserve the highlights and shadows in your scene.

I hope this technique is helpful next time you go into the field. Feel free to message me if you have any questions, and sign up for my list so you’ll know when my next article is released.