Under Development- Nevada Fine Art's New Acrylics

Nevada Fine Art Printers New Printing Technique

Well I never get the scoop on any particular product before it comes out, and frankly this isn't a scoop, but me being a bit nosey. A famous photographer whom I follow, Mark Metternich, posted to Facebook about Nevada Fine Art Printer and how they were coming out with a new type of print. I subsequently pestered Mark and he then told me to pester Nevada Fine Art Printers and for what ever reason Nevada Fine Art Printers sent me a... misprint... trial print... test print... what ever... they sent me something that they had done the week before of their new image printing technique. So I guess a bit of persistence paid off.

And it is cool!

Now I can't show you the print yet, maybe they will give me permission to, but until that time I will hold onto it. But for you to visualize what the image is, it is of the Japanese Maple Tree from Oregon.

What makes this print different and special you might wonder... well lets break it down from what I can tell.

The Acrylic

First it is an acrylic print. It comes with the 1/8 inch acrylic face mount polished to perfection, but that is about where the similarities end.

The Innovation

Now where it begins to break away from the norm is that the print isn't a standard pearl paper mounted to the acrylic face mount like you get pretty much everywhere else but rather it's Nevada Fine Art's proprietary Lumachrome technique of printing... from what I can tell. I am not sure they didn't say, but I can piece things together.

So if you actually peel the acrylic away from its backing you can actually see the image printed onto the acrylic... or how ever they do it. So that right there separates this from most standard acrylic prints you get anywhere else. Next, I think, is where the magic and the challenge of the print comes to life.

When you pick up the print you notice two things immediately. First the acrylic face mount and second the metal backing. Yes, this is a metal photo print too. I took a bit of liberty and pealed away the face mount a bit and took a look at the metal backing. The metal backing actually does not have any of the print on it but that doesn't mean its not important.

Now lets do a bit of explaining here when it comes to metal prints. Metal prints generally come in two forms, they have the standard white coating metal print and the less often seen high gloss brushed metal print. The white coating print sounds exactly what it looks like. It is a sheet of metal with a white coating that allows for the ink to be sublimated onto the surface of the metal. The white coating essentially acts like a white sheet of paper. This allows for whites and blacks and the full dynamic range of colors to be printed onto the thing. Now for the brushed metal, there is a coating still, its just clear. Because the print has a clear coating the printing surface itself looks like a smooth sheet of aluminum. It is high gloss and has a nice metallic effect. Brushed metal prints kind of have their own unique look, they work really well for certain types of photography like cars and futuristic images. Cool but mostly have a niche purpose. Now lets get back to the new acrylic print and how it utilizes this clear coat.

As mentioned the print is an acrylic front, with the Lumachrome image mounted to the back of the acrylic. Then for the backing of the image, it is a high gloss brushed metal surface. When you combine all these three layers together you get a new type of holographic magic in a print I have never seen before.

Now I have a Lumachrome acrylic sitting on my wall at my home. It looks great. One of the selling points of acrylic is that people say it has a 3D effect. I always felt that this was a bit over stated though with some prints it actually is true. If the light catches an acrylic print right, there is a shimmer to it that is fun, but unless you stare at photography and prints as much as a photographer, you might not notice it all that much unless someone says something. The selling points of acrylic are that they last longer, often have higher detail and clarity and have that shimmering quality to them that you do not get with most other types of prints.

Nevada Fine Arts New Acrylic Print

When you look at the new acrylic print, there is a shimmer and glitter to it that comes from that brushed metal backing. It is truly eye catching. Everything has a glittery effect especially the highlights and it is just pretty. Next as you look across the image, the promise acrylic's 3D effect actually begins to hold water. Literally there are parts of this image that look like it was printed in some sort of 3D layer system making the branches of the tree actually feel like one is behind the other. The sharpness of the image is there and the details are very good. It is a stunning image to look at. But there are still some kinks to work out.

I spoke with Robert who owns Nevada Fine Art Printers and he says the product is still not quite ready yet, and I agree. The brushed metal kind of leaves smooth areas with a texture that look a bit odd, but frankly from standard viewing distance you wouldn't notice it anyways. Now since there is no white backing, they have to work out how to do white properly especially in things like clouds and water. The image I have doesn't technically have white in the sky, but very very light blue. So I can't give full feedback on how it might actually turn out on a white surface. I sent them one of my images to do a test print, and we will see if they send me back a test print. I will know more then.

Final Thoughts

I am really impressed and really want to do a print on this new system once it is up and running. In fact if I can, I think I will make it a standard print in my booth system once they get it worked out completely. I think it can really set images apart as a whole new way of making prints.

This new print is something else. I just hope they can pull it off because I want it.