What kind of prep and considerations for using a night photo in print work?

Question

One thing I still struggle with is using night photos in advertisements. I tend to avoid it but sometimes its necessary or requested.

I find it difficult on glossy and even worse on a newsprint to work with any sort of night photo.

What kind of prep and/or adjustments can be taken to a night shot to make sure it doesn't come out looking too dark, flat, hard to see, kinda lost on the paper.

Say something like this using a photo from Unsplash for a quick example, no affiliation at all with Milwaukee.

Or again with a photo from Unsplash:

When actually printing these can quickly look overly dark and muddy.

Answer 1

As all printing issues.

a) The first step is to calibrate your monitor.

b) Use the apropiate color prifile. Do not use other that is not suitable for the type of paper or system.

When actually printing these can quickly look overly dark and muddy.

Here are two different issues here.

• Dark: Correct it with curves.

• Muddy: Correct them with saturation and contrast.

As an aditional note, be sure you have a White point. There are some photos that could not have a real white point, but in general terms you should look for one on this images, to asure you have contrast, then you need to decide to what part of the sky you want to see as daylight and where your deep night black starts.

This is a matter of taste, but you need to learn to read the RGB values and the CMYK values and then decide if you need to adjust a bit more the curves.

Answer 2

It sounds like the problem may lie with the printing. You may need to seek a vendor with a higher-quality printer. Good quality printing on glossy paper should not result in images that are dull and low-contrast. You may need to find a commercial printer that can print at a higher density.

In the mean time, verify that your image is CMYK and not RGB. This can make a significant impact on printing.

Use photoshop to tweak the image (higher contrast, brighter, levels, etc.) to get the ideal look - bright screens tend to show up details better than prints, so keep that in mind when editing.