How to Photograph Art

If you want to enter an art show, create a website to showcase your artwork or share creations with a friend via email, to do so you need to photograph your art. There are professional photographers who specialize in this, but if you have a digital camera and a little patience you can photograph your artwork yourself. With a little experience you can became a valuable resource for you and your artist friends. Experimenting to find the best way to approach this task will help you discover what works best for you because the surface of a work varies from medium to medium and art piece to art piece.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Digital camera with a flash that turns off
• Black cloth
• Easel that can be positioned straight up, perpendicular from the floor
• Tripod

1. Hang artwork on a wall outside or place on an easel that is positioned straight up. It is important to be able to shoot as straight on as you can, so a painting, for example, appears square and not distorted. Laying the artwork on the floor and shooting it from overhead works on smaller pieces. Make sure there are no shadows on the art from you or your camera. Don't use a flash.

2. Avoid glare by taking artwork out of the frame to photograph if it is behind glass. Some painted surfaces and some graphite drawings easily reflect light. Drawings, watercolors and oil paintings that do not have a varnish finish are less reflective. If you are unsure about the surface of a painting, photograph it with a flash and see if there is reflection. The reflection will be exaggerated with a flash. Use a black cloth backdrop if feasible.

3. Choose a time of day when the light is more subdued or a slightly overcast day. You want plenty of light, but you want to eliminate glare on the surface of the artwork. Photograph indoors in an evenly and well-lit room. Don't set the artwork up near windows.

4. Use a tripod to keep the camera level and prevent it moving. Position the camera about 2 to 3 feet away from the artwork, depending on your lens. Make sure you can frame the whole piece of art in your viewfinder. If you can't, move back a bit until you can.

5. Focus on the center of the art. You need a sharp focus. Use a micro setting on your lens if you have one. Photograph the artwork several times. Take some with a manual focus and some with auto focus.

6. Increase and decrease the light settings so that you have a varied amount of light. This is called bracketing. Either vary the f-stop or the shutter speed slightly over and slightly under the correct amount. This will give you about six to 10 photos to choose from. It will help you learn what works best.

7. Some photographers specializing in photographing art use a darkened room with professional lighting that diffuses the light and lessens the glare. The artwork is placed against a black cloth that helps control the evenness of the light.

8. Use a photo processing software like Adobe Photoshop or Elements to crop the background from the artwork. Resize the art to fit the venue the photo will be used for. For print, you need a large file with 300 dpi. For the web, a smaller file with 72 dpi. Art shows usually have specific requirements for file size. Make sure to follow the instructions exactly. Many email providers resize your file for you when you upload them to send to family and friends.

Tips & Warnings

• Be careful to avoid shadows on the artwork. Check your review screen to see if shadows are being thrown on the art. The camera will catch shadows you may not see with your eyes. If the photographs tend to turn blue (indoors) or yellow (outdoor), correct the white balance on your camera or try different lighting situations instead of color-correcting in Photoshop. Strive for the best setting to work in.