First color panorama sphere

Just got my first in a series of color panorama prints, mapped onto spheres and output to full color sandstone.

I was disappointed to see how dark the image ended up printing; much darker than the jpeg source. And after seeing how strong the material is, it made me wonder why there is always a 3mm thickness limit - for a model like this, it seems it could be thinner..?

Oh well. I hope my next 4 models, which are in production, don't turn out as dark, as I'll be exhibiting them with the original photographic sources.

The sphere is a little over 2" / 5.5cm high. In future models I've only made one hole, at the bottom.

Look in the post production section for tips on making the colors come out better. I believe the 3mm is more to keep the model stable in the build envelope while it's printing.

Thanks! - I looked in the Post-Production forum, didn't see anything on color issues with sandstone, other than that it can be sanded to polish - is there anything else you could point me too?

I know I've seen them, but can't seem to find them. There was something about a type of varnish that brought the color out. I'll let you know if I find it.

Do a search on the forum on "epoxy spray" or acrylic spray - i talked about it a lot.

When spraying full color sandstone with an epoxy quick dry spray few times the colors turn more vibrant, shiny & the model is much more stronger and tough.

I am a computer graphic artist by trade and one thing I have encountered quite frequently in print, no matter the format, is that what you send to the printer will always come out darker, period. I would cringe as I would lighten my final art until it looked somewhat crappy on my monitor, yet when it was printed on posters, books, shirts etc it would come out perfect.

Typically speaking, graphic designers and artists who work in print regularly use color calibrators and will also set their monitors colors and brightness via software settings to more accurately reflect what their prints will look like. You can then save these custom color settings and switch to them when you want to save some work for print. Because I mainly do graphics for web, I usually run in standard srgb profiles etc.

Windows 7/right click desktop/screen resolution/advanced settings/color management/advanced - or open the video driver control panel that runs with your video card and adjust in there, for example Nvidia.

Mac OS 10.4/System Prefs/Displays/Color/Calibrate.

Printers, video cards, monitors, etc all vary greatly. Now that you know that your work comes out darker you can adjust it lighter and know it will come out as you want it. It is a bit of a pain but that is the reality of non 3d printing.

I absolutely agree with the above post. I am actually a graphic design student (also 3d animation, but that's a give-in) and I hate when I have to print things because they always turn out dark. Too bad it takes so long and so much money for a test print on Shapeways...