Photographing my paintings for website

[tugboatbill]

Can someone please point me in the right direction.

I have a portfolio of paintings which I will be listing on my new website but I have taken a couple of photo's and the colours are completely unnatural and do not represent the actual work at all.

I have tried messing around with some of the settings in a photo editor but have only seemed to make things worse.

Is it something to do with the white balance or am I on the wrong track completely?

[TarMoo]

A few questions....

What camera do you have and what mode of flash do you have available?

Many cameras have a "white balance" setting. Tungsten light has a red cast, florescent lights a green tone. If you take an indoor photo then you can have a combination of light sources. One answer to that is to use colour gels over a flash (e.g. an orange gel) and then shoot with a Tungsten white balance.

[tugboatbill]

Thanks for responding TarMoo.

I am afraid that photography really is not my forte, and my camera - well, my wife's camera, is a Canon Ixus, 5mp I think.

[tugboatbill]

Reading your reply it seems that to get a good result I am going to need to invest in a good/better camera?

[tugboatbill]

What I don't understand is that the same pictures when viewed as actual photographs give quite accurate colours. Is it that viewing them on a computer screen affects the colour balance, or is the monitor showing up poor lighting or photography?

Would photographing them outside in broad daylight make a difference?

[Liquid101]

Your best bet is waiting for about 3pm on a bright overcast day - go outside and lean the painting at a 45 Deg angle against something. Then stand at an appropriate distance and line the painting up square in the viewfinder. Might be worth getting/borrowing a tripod to make life easier.

Ideally, you want to include a reference chart with at least 3 shades of grey on to enable you to balance colour and tone. You can capture this in the shot, or capture it on identical settings in the same position to enable you to apply colour balance to your 'painting' shot. You'll need software that records action like photoshop to do this.

I would avoid flash altogether. Unless you go down a full twin softbox set-up, it'll be very difficult to get good results.

[amgard]

Obviously you should get them as good as you can, but bear in mind that the general public who will be viewing them will be doing so on uncalibrated monitors, with very varying results.

I did some photographs for a clients artwork website and we had endless 'discussions' about the colours, until I showed them on 3 PCs side by side, including hers. I reminded her that she couldn't personally be present when anyone was viewing them.

It is definitely worth including some disclaimer about colour rendition.

[tugboatbill]

Thank you ever so much Liquid101 and amgard for your most constructive help it is much appreciated

[RobDickinson]

I use my 350d and a 50mmf1.8

I shoot raw and have a calibrate monitor ( via spyder pro 3) - I dont , but should, use a white balance card.

www.bigskyart.co.nz

I tend to go for auto white balance then adjust to what looks right for the painting.

[tugboatbill]

Thanks rob, I presume a calibrate monitor is a monitor running the software?

Something to bear in mind perhaps in the future, in the meantime I am going to try and get hold of some greyscale cards - Jessops? - and wait for a dry, nice day.

[tugboatbill]

OK, taking this one stage further would the results be considerably more accurate in terms of colour values for the website if I were to invest in a budget studio setup?

Something along the lines of an Interfit twin umbrella Tungsten Studio Lighting Kit with say a decent 5mp camera and tripod? I forgot that I actually own an old Canon GS2, which I think is 4mp - in order to save money at this stage would this give me good results with a lighting kit?

[RobDickinson]

No, by calibrated monitor I mean I've used a spyder Pro 3 to set my monitors colour temp to be accurate.

So if I set the white balance correctly the colours on screen should match the ones I shot.

IMO you dont need the studio stuff unless you 100% want consistent lighting on the pieces and cant get it any other way, I usualy shoot my wifes stuff in her art room which ( as you'd expect) is actualy great for light in daytime.

It has a window behind the painting shining diffuse light onto the surface and a window 90degrees to the right which shines stronger more diffuse light, so its easy to get a good detailed shot of the paintings.

I always use a prime at f8 or so and a tripod (+ timer and MLU). Still usualy have to do some PP perspective adjustment.

[ryart]

A little trick for you to ensure that the camera sensor is parallel with the surface of the artwork.

Place or hold a mirror in the centre of, and flat against, the artwork and adjust camera position until the reflection of the lens is centred in the viewfinder. Obviously remove the mirror before taking the shot, and this method does require a tripod.

This not only saves having to square up in post-processing, but ensures that the focus point is the same across the artwork. (Stopping down to increase the depth of field helps to allow if camera and artwork are out of alignment to each other, but remember that the lens only focuses at one point and depth of field sets the bounds for what you can get away with/is acceptable - all to do with circles of confusion if memory serves me)

Liquids advice about shooting outside is spot on, to which I would add that it may be worth experimenting with full sun. Depending on the angle to the sun it tends to accentuate the texture of the painting more.

[tugboatbill]

Thank you ever so much for that Rob and ryart, I really didn't want to start going into the realms of studio lighting etc. and to someone who at best has only been a casual photographer over the years this advice is invaluable to me. I didn't even get the name of my old Canon right, its a Powershot G2, and in it's day it was a good camera. I think it is better than the Ixus, even though the Ixus is 5mp.

As silly as this sounds I have been experimenting with it and set the white balance to manual using a piece of white card as a reference, but as I lost the camera manual years ago I couldn't figure out how to take a picture using this setting. I am going to buy a reference card with 3 shades of grey as recommended by Liquid101, hopefully these are stocked in outlets such as Jessops, and set myself on a steep learning curve.

[ryart]

Best of luck, let us know how you get on. If you have any problems you know where to come.