I first heard about printing on Aluminium just three years ago while having dinner with a group of photographers in rural Alaska. They said: "Max, you've got to try printing on it, the colors just pop and make the image so alive!" After such an enthusiastic recommendation, I had to try it and that turned out to be an exceptional decision. Today, there are two commercially popular choices for printing photography on aluminium, Dibond and ChromaLuxe.

Dibond is older and more well known than ChromaLuxe but there are notable differences so let's get into that straight away. I could go to go into biochemical details and go full science here but since I am a photographer and not a printer, I won't go down that path. Therefore, let's focus on what makes the image look best because that's what people really want to know anyhow.

Dibond was first came to market in the 1990s, and is a brand name for an aluminum composite material - or ACM - consisting of two aluminum sheets with a polyethylene (plastic) core in between presumably to make the final product more rigid and durable. It is also used for many other applications such as signage and direct printing. Dibond uses a UV-cured ink to print direct onto a brushed aluminum surface creating a metallic look with an emphasis on the brushed texture of the metal.

In the early 2010's, ChromaLuxe came to market and soon gathered commercial traction sometime around 2015. ChromaLuxe is a brand of ACM that was designed with fine art and high-quality dye-sublimation metal prints in mind. It features a white polymer coating that creates vibrant, high-definition images through a process of heat and pressure that infuses the dye directly into a single aluminium panel.

Unsurprisingly, there are pros and cons to everything and for me the pros very much outweigh the cons regarding ChromaLuxe. As you can see in the image above in my booth during art3f in Paris, France, there is a strip of glare from a spotlight in the middle of "Reflecting on Technology" (on the left). Both Dibond and ChromaLuxe can have glare issues and they each have various matte and glossy options to choose from. Yet, event with a matte finish, you must choose your lighting wisely or you risk seeing glare on your image. Therefore, it is important to know precisely where an image will be placed and what natural and artificial light sources will affect the image when displayed on a wall.

Sure you can always look online and see "examples" of the finishes via a computer screen but the best case scenario is to see them is live and in person in at a gallery or art show so you can truly understand what the product is and how it looks to you.

Another issue with both Dibond and ChromaLuxe is that if not properly packed, prints can arrive chipped as you can see in the above photo from my booth at art3f in Milan, Italy. This work arrived damaged and I was not a happy artist. Fortunately, my production partner was able to replace the damaged piece at no charge so the risk is pretty minimal to the end user. For me, however, when shipping directly to an art fair this is very inconvenient and annoying.

I recently placed a 72" x 36" (183 x 92cm) limited edition print of "Reflecting on Technology" in the home of a New York collector and it was delivered in a wooden crate which arrived in perfect condition - see below.

So what's the bottom line? Dibond just doesn't look as good as ChromaLuxe does and the colors are more intense.

I once went to go buy a pair of speakers in New York and asked the salesman - which speakers are the best? The very wise man answered: "The ones that sound the best to you". Along those same lines, the best print surface is the one that looks best to you. If you like intense and vibrant colors that add an extra dimension to most every image then you may want to consider a print on ChromaLuxe HD. It's basically all I ever use.

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