Photographing Your ArtWork

These days digital photographs make it easy for artists to keep a record of their work. To achieve the best quality images you can, here are some things you should know:

1. Buy a good quality camera with high megapixels
A higher resolution camera provides larger file sizes, which is necessary if you will ever need to use that image for printed purposes (a poster, magazine article, prints, a book, etc).

2. Photograph paintings before they are varnished
Once a painting is varnished it is very difficult to get a good image of it without having glare show up in the photo. Photographing it and reviewing the image before you varnish it will help avoid that complication. If you have already varnished a piece, taking it outside into the shade to take a photo will help.

3. Take test shots to find the best way to photograph your work
Try taking photos in different lighting, such as inside your home or studio where there is sufficient natural lighting, outdoors in the sun and shade, or under artificial natural lighting. Try various camera settings and at different times of the day. Record the factors involved for each shot then open the images on your computer to see what provides the best picture as far as sharper quality and color most representative of your painting (will make it easier to adjust the colors if they are close). Use that method from now on, but check your images to make sure they turned out before sending the painting on its way.

4. Use the highest quality setting and keep the original
This is very important because you can always decrease a file size but you can’t increase it without losing quality. If you always take the picture at the highest megapixels your camera allows, and save the original file, you will always have a high quality image on hand if necessary. If your camera allows for a RAW setting, set it so that when you take a photo of your work it gives you a RAW file and jpg file at the highest megapixel setting. The jpg file is the one you can use for adding images to your website and sending by email because they are compressed files. RAW images have no compression so you have that option available in case you ever need a high quality image of that piece.

Savings on Photoshop Elements

If you don’t already have photo editing software, Photoshop Elements is a great program for editing the color quality of images and it has a “save for web” feature which is great if you maintain your own website. I received a discount offer in the mail this week and thought I would pass it along to you. If you go to Adobe’s website you can try it for Free for 30 days and save 20% when you purchase ($79 instead of $99 US).

Tags: photographing artwork