Amaryllis Oil Painting

Some backlit amaryllis and orchids, oil on linen, 18" x 24".  A reposting of this painting to hopefully inspire some positive creativity.

Fire and Ice
copyright Catherine K. Moore

Photographing Oil Paintings for a Beginner

Getting a good photograph of a painting is no simple task, getting one that is good enough to upload to a print on demand (POD) site is even more challenging as I'm finding out.

There seems to be two needs most painters have:  1.  have a photo acceptable for a blog, or for a selling site like Etsy to share an image of your painting with just enough detail (lower resolution) and 2. a photo with enough resolution to upload to a POD site.

1.  How to photograph a painting for a blog or a selling site like Etsy:

These photographs may be taken out of doors on overcast days and edited simply making sure to keep the digital image true to the actual.  I sit with the lights up near my monitor adjusting and making some photo prints to check accuracy.  

What I do is use my camera on auto, Large format, not RAW for this purpose, wander around with my painting leaning it so there isn't any glare, line up perpendicular to the canvas face (to not distort) and take a photo.  Sometimes I use an old Picasa editor, usually I use Photoshop since I have some basic skills in it, but I crop and use auto adjust tools if things do not match the original.  For blogging use, I like to use Photoshop to add a copyright with my name on the lower right corner of the painting.

Here is a Youtube video which shows this fairly simple method:

How to photograph your paintings for the internet, Part 1 - Outside www.timgagnonstudio.com

Here is an article with more details which leads into how to make POD acceptable photographs:

http://www.lightspacetime.com/art-blog/tips-on-photographing-your-art-the-right-way/

2.  How to photograph a painting for a Print on Demand site (cheaply):

These photographs need to be glare-free, show detail, and be accurate to the original work.

Basically, you are looking for a large JPEG file to upload and this requires a better camera than one for blogging or selling on Etsy or eBay, because you can zoom in with lower resolution cameras to show details for those sites whereas a POD needs everything at a higher resolution and be glare-free.

First, here are some links to sites showing how to photograph your artwork professionally:

http://news.smugmug.com/2014/05/14/the-art-of-copy-work-photographing-artwork-accurately-without-glare/

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/art-demos-techniques/how-to-photograph-a-painting-step-by-step

http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/how-to/marketing-your-art/708/how-to-photograph-your-artwork

Well, maybe you don't have the fancy lights inside or a room with blocked windows and you want to do a hybrid of the easy method above and the professional method in part 2, which is what I wanted to do, and not spend any extra money...

So...here's my modification.

Supplies: 

1. an outdoor wall you can tack 2-3 yards of cheap black fabric to.  Buy the fabric at JoAnn's fabrics with an online discount coupon to save $.  Put some nails up in the middle top of the black cloth for your artwork to hang from.
2. Buy or borrow an 18 megapixel camera, with a tripod.  If you use a lower res camera, your final file will be smaller, and so will your available image sizes your POD can make.
3. tripod, must have
4. a travel easel in case you are shooting canvas board, linen board, etc.  It has to be able to hold the work absolutely vertical and not cover the front with clip edges.

Procedure:

1. Take the photos on an overcast day if possible.   Glare on the painting is unacceptable and ruins the work for a POD.  
2. Too Much Sunshine?  I found there are too many sunny days in our California drought so I use a white topped shade tent (similar to what you find at an art fair) with the side walls up to create a box around my side wall of my house (which I tack the black cloth on).  I set up my camera tripod at the back of the shade tent.  This mimics an overcast day and doesn't add color (like a blue topped shade tent would cast a blue hue onto the artwork).  Otherwise wait for the weather to change.
3. I use a zoom lens, 55-250mm.  
4. Set up about 10-15 feet back, level your tripod and camera, center your camera on your work.  Painting in landscape position.
5. Use the timer feature or a remote, because camera shake will ruin your photo.  I use the 2 sec timer.
6. Use live shoot and make sure your painting is turned in a landscape position regardless of what is on it.  Your job is to fill the screen with as little of your black background cloth as possible.  If you are in RAW two bars show up, do not go over them or that part is clipped off.  When you switch back to Auto, you will need to readjust.

Photos need to be taken in RAW rather than JPEG.  If you have Photoshop they have a separate RAW editor from the one that pops up for JPEG images.  It is really easy to figure out and the flow is in order to keep from messing up.  Don't jump to the far right adjustments and go backwards, just adjust top down for each page and go on to the next page.  There is more on this from Adobe to watch for free.

I set AWB to cloudy, and take a few at different exposures -1, 0. +1 and I've found that the ones with faster shutter speeds tend to have better detail.  Under 1/125 and I end up with blur.  I also will take one on full Automatic.

When I edit in RAW, sometimes I find that if I zoom in it is blurry, so I discard the file and look for ones with a faster speed or retake the photo.  Since I'm still learning and haven't found an answer to this I'm just noticing that 1/125 seems to be the cutoff for getting a good photo on a cloudy day setting.

Hope this helps!

Sunset Coast

It has been a while since posting last, and having some commission work to complete.  Here is some coast inspiration late in the day for something new.  The painting trip to New England has not been posted but it was gorgeous to plein air paint in such beautiful surroundings.  

Kitty Moore Cupertino