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I only photograph my art work outside. Ideally I prefer to photograph my paintings on a bright sunny day, I like how direct sunlight makes my paintings warm and bright. The second best option is to photograph on a bright overcast day, this might be the easiest as I don't have to navigate glare on the artwork. Sometimes I am impatient for ideal weather and I try to photograph in lesser conditions. I usually end up regretting it because trying to get the colours correct in photoshop afterwards can be frustrating.
I used to be a part-time professional wedding and portrait photographer, so the camera I use to photograph my art is the same one I used for photographing people. I have a Cannon 5D with a 24-105 lens.
I start by finding the best place to lean my painting. I try to make sure it isn't a windy day or my painting might fall over, but if I am once again impatient and it is a little windy, I try to make sure there aren't any rocks or things that could put a hole in the painting if it did happen to fall. I used to lean my painting against my car, but as you can see above I've got a great spot to lean them against the deck at our new home.
I photograph in manual mode. I make an educated guess on what the exposure should be, then I do some bracketing. Bracketing basically means taking some more photos at different exposures close to the exposure I think it should be. Usually about three stops above and three below, this gives me the best chance that one of the photos will be perfect.
Then I put my photographs into Lightroom, a program I use to edit things such as density, tone, colour, etc. And finally I put the photos into photoshop where I edit the levels (making it darker/lighter or change contrast). I save 3 different sizes in photoshop for my different purposes: one is the finished full resolution file (biggest), one is a web sized version for my website, and one is turned into a square format for displaying on Instagram and Facebook. I don't know if other artists go through this whole complicated process, but this is just the system that I am used to.
Should you have any questions about my process, don't hesitate to ask!
*I usually try to photograph my paintings before I put the varnish on them. The photographs that I take are just for my records, my website and for Social Media. I don't use my own photographs to create prints. When it comes to making prints I prefer to have my work professionally photographed by Allan at Canvas Plus in Ladysmith as he does an excellent job!
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This means you can use the camera on your phone or tablet and superimpose any piece of art onto a wall inside of your home or business.
To use this feature, Just look for the "Live Preview AR" button when viewing any piece of art on this website!
This means you can use the camera on your phone or tablet and superimpose any piece of art onto a wall inside of your home or business.
To use this feature, Just look for the "Live Preview AR" button when viewing any piece of art on this website!
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