Advice RE Photographing Paintings

subseasniper

subseasniper

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Hi everyone,

I am looking for advice regarding photographing paintings. I have a friend who does paintings and is setting up a website with the intention of displaying and selling his paintings. He has asked me to photograph twenty odd paintings and burn them to a disc for adding to his site.

My initial thoughts were to photograph the paintings in his studio using daylight alone. An overcast would (hopefullY) provide nice even lighting. A big issue is to have the final colours as true as possible to the originals so I plan to shoot them in RAW and edit them on my laptop with the paintings in front of us so we can tweak the white balance.

I don't think flash is really appropriate for this project as I don't want to bring out any textures in the painting or to deal with uneven lighting.

I plan to mount each painting on an easel and place it close to the windows in his studio, my camera will be tripod mounted and square on to the paintings. I will then crop the pictures in DPP as well as tweaking the WB as mentioned above.

Does this sound like a good plan or am I talking guff?

I have never tried anything like this before so any tips would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers
 
The traditional way to do this is to light from 45 deg either side of the painting with nice big soft lights. This gets you soft even light - window light might be OK - as long as it's even over the entire painting. Camera has to be squared up to the painting - not easy with a DSLR - I use to do this with a Sinar 5 x 4 camera! At least you can see the result on a laptop as you go - so you should be fine.
 
Yeah, I had thought about the old copylighting set up but I don't have lights to attempt this. The studio has reasonably big windows to allow the dude to paint by so hopefully we can get even lighting across the canvasses.
 
Does this sound like a good plan or am I talking guff?
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Agggghhhhh, stupid computer just wiped out a whole box of reply..... :crying:

so now you get the short version. :LOL:

Soft natural light is the best option, faffing with flash can be really hard to get spot on and if the widow is big enough to get totally even light over the whole surface, it's a better option.

Being lined up over all axis is a good idea but the fact that you can tweak the shape in PP means that small errors are easy to take care of.

As for colour, I'd ignore what the screen is saying all together. You will never get a laptop calibrated enough to attempt any kind of colour match. Shoot each piece of art with a grey card and use this to make sure the file shows it as colour neutral and bang on for exposure. It will most likely be off on the screen but the file should be spot on. You need to make sure it's in the right profile so that the colour space doesn't change when the images are uploaded to the web too.

Where they will viewed on all sorts of crappy monitors and all your hard work will be flushed. ;):LOL:
 
Copy lighting is by far the best approach, basically 2 x opposite softboxes at 45 deg.
Theoretically, daylight is just as good but you'll never get the lighting completely even.

Squaring up the camera is essential, and as previously pointed out, difficult with a DSLR - and relying on PS to correct errors is a poor approach, it's well worth getting it right in camera however long it takes.

As for getting the colour right, a grey card won't do it. You need a MacBeth colour target.
 
Gee Gary, was that actually meant to be as sanctimonious and righteous as it read?

For what it's worth you're wrong anyway. I have shot large and pompously over priced canvasses over 8ft for fine art repro. On LF and lit with big old barn door boxes. I know how all that works but it's just total overkill for this job.

The original poster already said that they don't want to use flash and I agree, there's no point. If there is texture to paint then that will be picked up by lights at 45 degrees and again, the original post has that that's not wanted.

The sky IS the biggest softbox that you can get, what reason have you for not wanting to use it?

It is better to get the camera squared up but again for web use, it's about recognising the point of diminishing returns. Is it really worth spending an extra 15 or 20 minutes for each piece chasing the last Nth of a degree when it can be corrected in PP. You cannot tell me that you would be able to tell the difference......

Colour, MacBeth card is great and I never go to a shoot without one but I can produce bang on colour and exposure just by setting the camera to the "grey" square. If you can't perhaps a workflow review is in order.

Stropy post, you bet. This is my job, I know my onions. Dislike my art by all means but when it comes to getting the job done and collecting my cash, it's spot on every time.
 
Whoa, no need for handbags at ten paces guys.

All advice is appreciated but I am more inclined to do it with daylight alone as the pictures will be displayed on a website so will be fairly lo-res. I was maybe aiming a bit high with the colour criticality, I just want it close enough so potential clients won't throw their toys out the pram if they buy something and it isn't the colour they thought. I had the same thoughts of using a grey card.

Cheers
 
no need for handbags at ten paces guys.
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They don't work if you stand any further back. ;)
 
:D They do if you chuck them guys.

I'm just glad I don't have to do it!
 
dazzajl said:
Gee Gary, was that actually meant to be as sanctimonious and righteous as it read?

For what it's worth you're wrong anyway. I have shot large and pompously over priced canvasses over 8ft for fine art repro. On LF and lit with big old barn door boxes. I know how all that works but it's just total overkill for this job.

The original poster already said that they don't want to use flash and I agree, there's no point. If there is texture to paint then that will be picked up by lights at 45 degrees and again, the original post has that that's not wanted.

The sky IS the biggest softbox that you can get, what reason have you for not wanting to use it?

It is better to get the camera squared up but again for web use, it's about recognising the point of diminishing returns. Is it really worth spending an extra 15 or 20 minutes for each piece chasing the last Nth of a degree when it can be corrected in PP. You cannot tell me that you would be able to tell the difference......

Colour, MacBeth card is great and I never go to a shoot without one but I can produce bang on colour and exposure just by setting the camera to the "grey" square. If you can't perhaps a workflow review is in order.

Stropy post, you bet. This is my job, I know my onions. Dislike my art by all means but when it comes to getting the job done and collecting my cash, it's spot on every time.
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Well, I probably am sanctimonious and righteous. But I earn my living from photography and I tend to give what I believe to be the correct answer, whether the OP is looking for perfection or not.

The sky may be the biggest softbox but unless the shot's being taken outdoors only a small part of it can be used... and it then becomes the same size as the window (or whatever it comes through) and the light strikes at whatever angle it happens to be at.

You say that you're a professional - so hopefully you'll agree that the worst possible advice you can give is to take a shot under anything less than perfect conditions.
 
I can remember doing copy photography at uni and we had a copy table set up with lamps at each corer of the painting/print so there was even light. If I remember rightly, they had tiny diffusers on them just to soften everything off
 
It really all depends on the size of the paintings and the results that you are after. You may get away with shooting under natural soft (Overcast) daylight, but I've never had much luck with that. The simple answer is to try it and see if it works. You may want to use a polarising filter over the camera lens to help cut down unwanted reflections of the paintings surface and increase saturation.

Many years ago I was involved with a company that did a lot of this work. mainly artwork and paintings. Boy did they have a set up. Modified horizontal HK platform for the camera with strip xenon flash tubes. Polarisers over the tubes and camera lens. Expensive but the quality was fantastic.
 
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