Photographing Your Art
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When it comes to printing your artwork it is extremely important to start out with a high resolution digital image of the best quality possible.
As we have mentioned before, this can be achieved by scanning or by taking a digital photograph. For many artists nowadays, photographing their work themselves has become an attractive option for several reasons. Firstly, they may well already have a good quality digital camera and maybe an interest in photography; secondly it makes sense to produce their own images as it will represent at least some cost saving in the printing process.
However, it can be both a blessing and a curse for various reasons too, because taking a good photograph, like many things in life, does require some practice and a basic understanding of digital photography. Once mastered however, it can be very rewarding and learning to photograph your art will hopefully lead to greater and understanding of your equipment and the principles of photography and, in turn, perhaps give you another artistic outlet as well as a lot of enjoyment from taking better photographs on of all kinds of different subjects.
Image By Effie Yang
This is just a brief outline of what you will need to know and understand in order to produce a digital image of sufficiently high standard for a printer to be able to produce a reproduction of good quality which is, after all, what you want as an artist.
In terms of equipment you are going to need a DSLR camera and currently these are available from a few hundred dollars all the way up to several thousands. You won’t need to buy at the high end however, most modern entry level DSLR’s from the big names like Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony etc. are usually perfectly sufficient due to modern technology and the fairly high resolutions (megapixels) at which they can capture images. Ideally you should also have a suitable tripod to ensure a nice steady camera when photographing your paintings.
If you are new to digital photography, there will be a lot to learn. Most modern cameras can be used on fully automatic settings just like a point and shoot digital camera but when taking pictures of your art, you really will need to understand a little more about some of the settings and options if you are going to get the best results.
There are thousands of books on the subject of digital photography, many available online in digital format as well as physical publications, but a good place to start is often the manual that is provided with the camera itself as these usually contain not only instructions but often some useful basic photography tips.
You can download a short free report on how to shoot quality digital pictures from the website “Learn Digital Photography Now”
When shooting your artwork it is best to do it in natural daylight, ensuring that there is no glare from lighting or the sun reflecting off of the surface as this will ruin your results. You will also need to pay particular attention to things like the white balance, and of course focus. Preferably you should shoot in RAW format – different cameras have different capabilities, some can shoot both RAW and high quality JPEG simultaneously so you need to understand what you want and how to make your camera behave accordingly.
Shooting in RAW produces much larger file sizes and preserves far greater detail in each image. For printing purposes, RAW files are much easier to work with and as they are uncompressed there is no loss of image quality. You may find that you will be unable to view the resulting images on your PC as it requires specific image editing software. Some camera manufacturers include a version in their camera software and some do not. If you have a camera capable of taking RAW/JPEG together, you may prefer this as you will always be able to look at the JPEG on your computer even if you can’t see the RAW image.
Additionally, make sure that you are taking the photo at 90 degrees to the flat surface of your Painting – if it is tilting away from or towards the camera, it will make cropping the final image much more difficult and you may end up losing significant areas of the painting. Of course, the image needs to be horizontal as well, with no sloping right or left. Try to fill the frame as much as possible with the painting itself – the background is of no interest as far as printing goes and the larger the image of the work, the better.
These are very basic guidelines but if you follow them you should end up with a very acceptable basis from which to print your work. If you ask a professional to do it for you it is going to cost you every time, so the investment in a DSLR for a few hundred dollars will pay for itself in fairly short order if you are intending to make prints of your art on a fairly regular basis.
Effectively you are already making money with your camera! With this in mind, I thought I would finish this post by expanding a little more on this interesting topic.
If you move your thinking a little further, you could also find yourself doing the work for others once you have become proficient, perhaps making a small charge for your time and work. Owning a DSLR might well awaken a whole new artistic streak in you, adding photography to your love of creating beautiful pictures. There are many ways your investment can start paying you over time – if you become even reasonably good at taking photographs, there are countless opportunities for you to turn that ability into new streams of income as many amateur photographers have found out for themselves.
I have included a glossary below of several sites that can help you realize additional income from good quality digital photographs – if you have the camera and a computer with an internet connection there is no reason why you cannot eventually start earning some extra money with your new found skills. This is not exclusive to artists of course, anyone can apply these methods as a means of generating income with their camera. They are not listed in any particular order and we do not vouch for one over another but all have been established for some time and without exception offer solid money back guarantees should you be in any way dissatisfied, so we feel comfortable in listing them here.
Many will include information on microstock photography – you can learn more about microstock at one of the leading online sites, called Shutterstock or you can try this list of some of the other stock photography sites. For a more detailed guide on stock photography try Going Digital by Larry Stepanowicz
Resources for Digital Photographers Wishing To Earn Money From Their Work
Free Report – How To Make Money With Digital Photography
DigiCam Cash – Earn Money With Digital Cameras
Camera Career – Freelance Photography
Profitable Photography – Starting A Photography Business
Camera Dollars – A Homebased Internet Photography System
Get Paid To Draw – Selling Drawings, Designs & Photographs Online
