REVIEW: WhiteWall ultraHD Photo Print Under Acrylic Glass (DISCOUNT OFFER)

WhiteWall ultraHD Photo Print Under Acrylic Glass
This is an actual snapshot of my print hanging on the wall in my house
NOTE: Photos destroy the sharpness and colors of prints,
so this is far from amazing print quality hanging on my wall

I loved my WhiteWall HD Metal print so much that I had to try out their ultraHD under acrylic print to see what it was all about. I decided to print the image below as it is one of my test images that I use to trick print masters to see if they can tell the difference between Canon and Epson low and high cost printers:

There's lots of details and the reds and yellows are really easy to mess up if you don't have a good profile, and the subtle blues in the dreary sky are often ruined when going from digital sRGB to print unless the printer really leaves the color alone from the 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF that I sent them.

Despite soft-proofing in advance using their ICC profile, my print did come out just a little darker than what I get when I print myself using Canon and Epson printers. It was otherwise accurate as the reds are too vibrant for print, so the rendering intent chosen by the print master plays a huge role in the final result.

For the HD Metal, WhiteWall created a print that was better than my best print but for ultraHD Acrylic, I was able to outperform their result using my printers. This is something to keep in mind for self-printers who know how their print should turn out, so you might want to consider ordering just an ultraHD print (without acrylic) to proof the results before committing to the acrylic option.

Options

This time I elected to forgo the excellent framing options and went for the more stylish 0.98" cylindrical spacers as shown here:

Cylindrical spacers 0.98"

Here was my order as it was placed (prices subject to change and were before any special offers featured on this blog):

Here's a snapshot of what it looks from the side:

Acrylic glass 0.08" Gloss with Alu-Dibond 0.12" and Cylindrical spacers 0.98"

I found that for this size the thickness was plenty sturdy, so going thicker would have only added weight which would have created more problems when hanging this print. As it stands, there were no nails or mounting hardware for these cylinders so it was bit tricky to mount it and get it perfectly level. Had it not been for drywall that was soft enough to punch through using pressure, I probably would have had a hard time mounting these with nails, so I probably wouldn't do the cylinders again - and definitely not on a print any larger than this.

WhiteWall Seal of Quality and 5 Year Warranty

The seal of quality and "Made in Germany" hologram just add to the feeling that this is something special and not your run of the mill print. WhiteWall is serious about quality (read here) and has the awards to prove that I'm not the only one who appreciates their traditional German attention to detail.

WhiteWall ultraHD vs Lambda Photo Print on Glossy Fuji Crystal DP II

To help illustrate just how good WhiteWall's new ultraHD technology is, they provided select attendees at PhotoPlus Expo 2016 in New York with sample prints done on identical Fuji Crystal DP II paper using Lambda and ultraHD techniques.

As you can see below from the Lambda print, the quality is good and representative of what I see from many well-known services in the United States:

However, it's not until you compare that with ultraHD that you see the real difference in the details:

When I view WhiteWall prints, the two things I always notice about them is that the colors are very accurate (especially on HD metal) and the sharpness is excellent without being overdone.

Conclusion

NOTE: Please see my HD Metal article for details on ordering, shipping, packaging, etc... as this article assumes you've read that article FIRST.

Acrylics have the distinction that they are simply a protective layer over a print, so the quality of the acrylic you get depends on the print underneath. This is an important distinction over HD metal where the print is actually embedded into the metal using a special process, so for my needs I still prefer metal over acrylic.

Acrylic also has the tendency to get swirls (think of paint on a black car), so it looks great when it is new but unless you treat it very carefully when cleaning it then it's easier than I'm comfortable with when it comes to getting surface swirls.

Next up for me is probably a photo print on wood as I suspect it will be more durable than acrylic, printed similarly to metal and it just looks wicked cool in real life from the samples I've seen so far!

Where to order

Click here to learn more and get 20% Off Your First Purchase at WhiteWall when you use the coupon code: WWNC20

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Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. I was given a partial discount and free shipping for my order by WhiteWall Germany.