[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.

[tugboatbill]

Thank you, I will - in probably a month's time

[tugboatbill]

OK, I have got my results up to a reasonable standard but I think that an investment in a new camera and tripod is on the cards.

Bearing in mind that I really am on a tight budget and that the camera will be used mostly for capturing images of my paintings, I am thinking of the Nikon D40 which seems to be very good value with the cashback, or perhaps the Fuji FinePix S9600. I realise that the Fuji is not a DSLR but would this be an advantage or a disadvantage? My wife will probably want to use the camera for occasional wildlife shots, and we will use it for photo's of our grandaughter other than that it will be for as faithful and accurate as possible colour rendering of my artwork.

Would either of these, or something that I haven't considered be most appropriate? Oh, and am I right in thinking that I can frame the image on the Nikon using the LCD screen, or do I have to use the viewfinder?

Thanks.

[RobDickinson]

Theres no LCD view on the D40, if you want that look elsewhere, but framing via an optical viewfinder is fine - remember your shooting something thats not moving , and using a tripod, you can shoot and try again..

IMO the SLR will let you use primes which will help with levels of distortion the image will have (tho the D40 wont AF with them likely). And Probably be much better on colour accuracy too.

And you can throw on a longer lens and it should perform fine for wildlife, though afain , with no in body motor you'll have to look for AF-S lenses which tend to be more expensive.

[tugboatbill]

Thanks once again Rob, no LCD huh?

Told you I was new at this stuff, optical viewfinders are obviously a different beast then

Not too sure what you mean by primes either?

The reason I pitched the Nikon against the Fuji is because they both appear to have been a similar price initially, well on Amazon anyway, and now the Fuji is less than £200. But my heart is telling me that the Nikon would be a really good step up from my Canon G2.

[RobDickinson]

D40 has an LCD but you cant view live with it. Only for settings and review of images - Some can (canon 450d etc).

A prime is a fixed focal length lens, there usualy faster, sharper and opticaly more accurate than zooms, and typicaly dont exist on P&S cameras (tho there are exeptions like the sigma DP1). The more accurate the image of the art is when you take it the better the end results will be, tho theres a lot of software out there to corret for things like lens distortion.

A dSLR, any dSLR, will significanly outperform a P&S, even a prosumer, for shooting speed, low light shooting, autofocus etc

[tugboatbill]

Wonderful, and now I understand what Live Mode means, just one more question Rob, I have just read your latest post on the thread re the newly announced Canon. Is this a serious contender for my needs, should I hang on a little while longer or should I just go ahead with the Nikon?

[RobDickinson]

The nikon takes a good pic but for an all round photography tool its limited.

3 AF points, no body motor, no bracketing , no mirror lockup, no ISO100 etc.

Depends IMO on the street price of the 1000D, the D40 realy is quite cheap and does take a cracking pic which has a lot to recomend itself for.

The purchase price of a SLR is only the start tho...

[ryart]

If you can stretch to it I would definitely go for a dSLR and as RobDickinson says a prime lens would be best. Worth trying the kit lens first though and choosing the focal length that has the least pincushion/barrel distortion, the latest Canon offering looks quite reasonable if the MTF results at photozone.de are anything to go by.

I have recently been photographing some paintings with a Canon 400d. The results were fine but I could have done with live view for accurate and easy focusing. Auto focus simply didn't work consistently on the paintings (rather minimalist with little detail for the system to lock onto) and the viewfinders of today don't have the split image and fresnel screen focusing aids of old manual focus cameras - showing my age here. I'm getting very tempted to change to a 450d .

Can't comment on the Nikons as I know little about them, but as RobDickinson correctly says the camera price tends to be just the start of the spending...

[tugboatbill]

Thanks, have been looking at the Canon website, the Live Mode is obviously a bonus and also, as they state "During playback, the LCD provides detailed review of shots" The other point I noticed, apart from a 10mp sensor, is the 7 point AF which I should imagine is well suited to my needs - but the lowest price I have seen listed is just under £400 - which is going to be another £160 or so pounds.

And I need something fairly quickly....hhmmm. I am off to bed now, probably to dream about camera's. Why is it that all of our toys are so complicated?

[ryart]

Originally Posted by tugboatbill

Why is it that all of our toys are so complicated?

How very true.. and expensive

[tugboatbill]

Well, that has almost ruled out the Nikon then. Thanks for that input ryart, my paintings are on the minimalist side and it seems from your comment that live view is almost a must have in my case, although I still can't get my head around how the two systems differ? Is it that non live view cameras such as the Nikon freeze a moment in time, and if you move the camera or make an adjustment the view on the viewfinder remains static?

[RobDickinson]

Typicaly for a dSLR the LCD is there purely to check your pics after you've taken them, make sure the framed OK and no details blown etc.

You focus through the viewfinder, either manualy or using one or more autofocus points, none of this interacts with the LCD. The AF points are on a specific chip which is (kinda) placed in line with the lens/viewing channel the viewfinder is in.

These focus points are usualy fast and accurate and are better than the P&S method of contrast/edge detection from the sensor images.

Liveview flips the mirror mechanism up ( so you cant use the viewfinder now) and (on the 450D) employs similar edge/contrast detection to P&S cameras, you can zoom in (10*) to check for accuracy, and/or go manual to adjust.

Its kinda frowned on as its kooky but it has its uses in landscape/macro or your kinda stuff.

[ryart]

Originally Posted by tugboatbill

Well, that has almost ruled out the Nikon then. Thanks for that input ryart, my paintings are on the minimalist side and it seems from your comment that live view is almost a must have in my case, although I still can't get my head around how the two systems differ? Is it that non live view cameras such as the Nikon freeze a moment in time, and if you move the camera or make an adjustment the view on the viewfinder remains static?

Maybe not a "must have" so much as very desirable feature (which I fancy having). With those difficult to focus paintings one trick is to place a piece of paper on the painting and focus on the sharp edge. Not quite sure what you mean in your last sentence - its getting late!

[ryart]

Mr Dickinson is obviously more with it than me at this time of night. What he says, a very clear explanation.

[RobDickinson]

http://www.anandtech.com/digitalcame...spx?i=3350&p=4

Not 100% accurate there but 98% ok anyhow..