Posting Prints and Paintings

[LOVEnLAVISH]

I have some paintings and artwork that I would like to post in the future.My problem is that the painting never looks as good when I photograph it.It comes out not as clear and the colors don't look the same. My scanner makes things look worse.So my question is what am I doing wrong?

What resolution should I save it at?150 or 300,am I saving it as a jpeg?Also am I saving for web, or just a regular save?

Any tips would be appreciated,thanks!

[rainbowofcrazy]

Have you looked at the camera manual, played with settings? Same with the scanner settings. Does your equipment photograph/scan other things decently?

For photographs.. are you using natural light? Daylight bulbs with a light box? Taking photographs of your artwork right outside may be helpful as well.

I just did a Google search for "how to photograph artwork" and there are a ton of tutorials.. doing a quick search will get you a lot of helpful advice :)

I would save photographs at a lower resolution, just to prevent art theft, and add a small watermark for added protection. Granted watermarks can be removed but it doesn't hurt to add it on there.

[ElizabethMayville]

Shooting a painting so that it's a good representation of the actual piece is super hard. When I shoot my oil paintings, I do so in indirect natural light with no flash (i set them on a table near a window on a cloudy day, and shoot the image from above). When I shoot my gouache paintings I use the flash since the paint isn't shiny like oil or acrylic (I also do this in indirect sunlight). Once the images are uploaded, I edit the beejesus out of them in Photoshop, paying a lot of attention to brightness/contrast and color. Once they look good I save them at 72 ppi.

I think it's also helpful to take a bunch of images of your painting so that the customer can get a feel for what it might look like in different situations. I generally do one full sized image, a detail, and a shot of the the actual painting from an angle so that you can see the paper on which it was painted.

I hope that helps some!

[Former_Member]

I have had the some difficulty, as well. I find that hanging the painting (if you can) on a clean wall in a room with a lot of natural light coming through helps the photograph depict an accurate representation of the painting. Make sure, as said in previous posts, that you aren't using flash. Take multiple pictures close up and far away making sure you have all the details of your painting displayed.


Good luck!

[Former_Member]

Make sure you understand what white balance is and how to set it on your camera. With digital photography you have to tell the camera what white is, if not your colors will more than likely be off, i.e., too blue, too orange etc.

Also scanning resolution is up to you. A computer screen has the lowest resolution 72 ppi (dpi) You do not need to scan in at anything more than this. I however scan at 300-600 dpi so I have product photos that are print ready. Then I save a web file at 72 ppi (dpi).

A resolution of 300 is deemed print worthy, some printers prefer 350 to be safe. Scanning to 600 or higher allows you to scale the image and sill have an acceptable resolution for printing.

.jpg is considered a standard file extension for photographs. .tiff is also used but not for web, this file extension does not compress the pixel information and is therefore a larger file.

Happy Photographing!

[LOVEnLAVISH]

Thank you everyone who took the time to reply to my question.It's all very helpful and I really appreciate your help.