Photographing your own Art

I've had quite a few clients come in recently who have photographed their own artwork and been a bit disappointed when I've explained a few problems they have with their files. I thought I'd share with you a few important points to keep in mind if you want to copy your own art.

Firstly let's understand one thing - it takes a lot more than a 'good camera' to copy a piece of art. Just like it takes more than owning a good oven to cook a great meal. There is a set of skills, knowledge and other equipment required to blend together the ingredients and end up with something edible… or in our case, printable!

Secondly, you need to understand why you want to photograph your own art. Is it to create an image you can use online or do you want to print saleable reproductions from it? The first is easier, the second needs a lot more effort.

These tips below will help you capture better photos of your art for social media, promotions and small print jobs. 

So, let's look at the equipment first…

The Camera - there's a lot of cameras on the market, the thing to look for is megapixels - the more the merrier. Phones are brilliant these days... for video and social media work. You cannot get decent files out of them for anything bigger than about A4 for printing. The results might be OK for cards or 5" x 7" prints but anything bigger than A4 and you simply cannot compete, quality-wise with artists who do it right. There are digital SLR cameras on the market now that are around the $1000-$2000 mark that are usually around 20-30 megapixels, this is really the minimum you want to use. But there are limitations to every camera.

The Lens - Yes, you must consider the lens separate from the camera. Most DSLR cameras are sold with "Kit Lenses", these are usually short zoom lenses made of plastic, very cheap and not very sharp. If you want good reproductions, buy a good 85mm to 135mm fixed focal length lens. These lenses can cost you  as much as the camera itself for a good one. Wide angle lenses cause distortion and zooms are not as sharp so avoid them if you can.

A Tripod - you simply can't photograph art properly unless you use a tripod. Why? Because you MUST be perfectly square to the art to get all the corners sharp. You can confirm how square-on you are by getting a piece of string and measuring the distance from the centre of the lens to each corner of the artwork or as we do, use a laser.

Lighting - You have several options depending on your budget. Using natural light can be great but it can cause colour issues unless you know how to control White Balance. A bright sunny day is best while keeping the artwork just under cover in light shade, facing out to the light. Watch out for oddly coloured walls or lots of green foliage as these can create a colour cast that may be difficult to remove.

An indoor DIY flash kit, you need at least two flash units of equal power, set up on stands with umbrellas to act as reflectors. Don't use straight flash. The lights must be set at a 45 degree angle to the art and at the same height as the camera. 

OK, so that's the gear you need, now it's time to get technical and look at the settings you use…

File Type - If your camera offers a RAW setting, please use it. I've discussed JPEG files in other posts so won't go into it here. Suffice to say, for the best results, shoot in RAW format. Don't use PNG, it's more for graphic images.

Colour Space - If you want to print from these images then if your camera offers the AdobeRGB colourspace, use it in preference to sRGB - it will give you a better range of colour tones PROVIDED your whole system is set to AdobeRGB, that is any program you use to work on the images like Photoshop, Lightroom etc. Contact us for more detail if you aren't sure. 

sRGB is what makes the web work - any photo or art copy will look best on a website when saved in the sRGB colourspace. 

ISO - Ideally you should set the camera to 100ISO for best results. The higher the ISO, the more noise you will introduce to the shadow/darker areas of the image.

Aperture - Most lenses work better closed down a little to around f8 or f11. Never shoot wide open (f2.8) or fully closed down (f22) - these settings use the extreme outside or centre of the lens elements and will result in a softer image. If using flash, move the units closer or further away to get the right balance of power and even coverage.

Shutter Speed - If you are using available light only then this needs to be set for correct exposure to match the ISO and Aperture used. If you have a twin flash set-up, then be sure to set the shutter speed to sync with the flash, usually around 125th will be fine on most DSLR's.

Right - so you've got the right gear, you've set everything up correctly, you've taken your photograph - now what?

Now you have to deal with the image in some sort of software package, perhaps Photoshop. All your good work can be undone here if you don't understand what's required at this point. This blog isn't the place to give you lessons in Photoshop, there are plenty of online resources for that. However, what I will tell you is that your first step is to ensure your monitor is calibrated. You will need a Gretag MacBeth iOne or similar device to do this. The colours you see on your monitor are not guaranteed to be correct - most likely they are not what you will see in print.

I'd suggest you will need to get a test print made. You can order a small print, about A4 size from our web site - www.inkjetlab.com.au - on the paper of your choice and you will then be able to make some educated adjustments for the final image.

The thing most people don't realise is this. Digital cameras are designed to take photographs of a particular size, I've discussed this before. If you are photographing small artwork, you might be OK but anything beyond A3 will require that your file is enlarged beyond what it was designed for and will result in a loss of detail. So, if you want large reproductions, it might be better to send your artwork to us… nudge, nudge, wink wink, say no more!