Capturing images of paintings
Anthony S
Should I lie each painting on the floor and shoot downwards? Or would
it be better to shoot them from a frontal view? Suggestions on a
tripod/gear, tec. Thanks.
Anthony
G- Blank
"Anthony S" <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey -The title should have been clueless amateur seeks advice on how to
do a professionals job :^) You could always tell the cheapskate who is
hiring you to find someone that knows how!
A lot of it depends on how big these paintings are. I have a copy stand
which I can shoot flat art up to 16x20- it has positionable arms with
lamps on them to decrease glare by moving the lamps . Advice on
equipment depends on the requirements : a DSlr should be fine for small
repro's up to say 8x10 for prints.
Labs use scanning backs in the range of 30-60 megapixels for high end
work where large prints or 4 color repro work is being done, they use
carbon arc lamps to illuminate both sides. You can use two flash guns
on stands and umbrellas for really big pieces hung on a wall. If this is
really low end (like web stuff) you could shoot them outdoors against a
wall on a cloudy day-cropping out background junk- yes you could use a
ladder or a roof top- or stand on your assistants back ;)
I would also consider the use of a color bar as well as an on Camera
POL.
--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
greg_____photo(dot)com
Sheldon
"Anthony S" <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139263715.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
It's much easier to shoot them hanging. Your problem will be getting the
lighting just right, and making sure whatever lighting you use won't damage
the paintings (don't want really hot lights). I would try and light them
from two sides at 45 degree angles, and make sure you have the white balance
just right or you'll have to tweak them with software. If any of them are
under glass, or reflect a lot of light, a polarizer might help. Obviously,
a tripod and anythng to cut down on camera shake is a plus.
If possible, bring a notebook computer so you can blowup your images and
really get a good look at them when you start. You don't want to make the
same mistake 60 times when you can catch it on the first image. And, since
you don't have to pay for film or processing, you can afford to do a lot of
bracketing to make sure things are right.
I "think" this is a good start. It will be interesting to see what others
have to say.
>
irwell
wrote:
Use a tripod, and the telephoto lens from about twenty
feet away, if possible. A frontal view is better.
Battleax
"G- Blank" <Stub...@notgonnagive.com> wrote in message
news:Stubborn-A46194...@news.isp.giganews.com...
> In article <1139263715.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> "Anthony S" <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi. I was asked to shoot 50-60 paintings with a digital camera.
>> Should I lie each painting on the floor and shoot downwards? Or would
>> it be better to shoot them from a frontal view? Suggestions on a
>> tripod/gear, tec. Thanks.
>>
>> Anthony
>
> Hey -The title should have been clueless amateur seeks advice on how to
> do a professionals job :^) You could always tell the cheapskate who is
> hiring you to find someone that knows how!
>
The problem with using a professional is that sometimes you get a total
asshole.
Know what I mean?
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
Unless they are very small, you'll have difficulty centering the
camera over them when shooting down. Shooting straight on
is much better. Use a tripod. Distortion is distracting; a moderate
focal length lens is probably best, a wide angle zoom is almost
certainly bad. Try to find some kind of neutral backdrop to
eliminate background detail. You must must must not use
on camera flash or direct lighting as the surface is generally
reflective, even if there's no glass. Diffuse natural lighting or
lights at a 45 degree angle are preferred. Pay attention to your
white balance, especially if you're using incandescent lights.
Some of these things, like adjusting your lighting, are easier to
deal with with the immediate feedback of digital than they were
with film.
I understand the other comment about amateurs doing a professional's
job, but the reality is that the average painter, unless they have
professional representation or their day job makes real money,
would have difficulty spending what a professional would likely
charge for the job.
G- Blank
"Battleax" <unava...@thistime.net> wrote:
>
> The problem with using a professional is that sometimes you get a total
> asshole.
> Know what I mean?
Not a clue,---- I am sure your an expert-though.
& There are always those a-holes that can't take a joke
and forget that the question was answered.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> I understand the other comment about amateurs doing a professional's
> job, but the reality is that the average painter, unless they have
> professional representation or their day job makes real money,
> would have difficulty spending what a professional would likely
> charge for the job.
BTW, my experience with this is shooting slides for review/portfolio
and I sort of assumed that was what the OP wanted. If you're shooting
for serious reproduction, I think you gotta pay for good professional
work.
G- Blank
b...@mambo.ucolick.org wrote:
>
> I understand the other comment about amateurs doing a professional's
> job, but the reality is that the average painter, unless they have
> professional representation or their day job makes real money,
> would have difficulty spending what a professional would likely
> charge for the job.
Like you state it really has a lot to do with the requirements,
which is why I attempted to provide some help. I think regardless
there are people that charge fair prices for quality service provided
and then there are those that gouge.
Sheldon
> In article <1139272169.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> b...@mambo.ucolick.org wrote:
>>
>> I understand the other comment about amateurs doing a professional's
>> job, but the reality is that the average painter, unless they have
>> professional representation or their day job makes real money,
>> would have difficulty spending what a professional would likely
>> charge for the job.
>
> Like you state it really has a lot to do with the requirements,
> which is why I attempted to provide some help. I think regardless
> there are people that charge fair prices for quality service provided
> and then there are those that gouge.
>
>
prospective clients, and a lot of artists who shoot their own work. Some is
unacceptable crap, but unless the photos are for glossy magazines or for
reproductions the shots generally don't have to be perfect. As you say, it
depends on what they want to use the pictures for. And, the right equipment
to do the job can even be prohibitive for a gallery owner.
Edwin Pawlowski
"Anthony S" <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139263715.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
You already have some good advice but I want to add a couple of little tips.
I've some similar shots years ago with a film camera. Horizontal is better.
Are all the paintings the same size or can they be grouped by size? Make a
stand of some sort to hold them in the same position. Set up on a tripod
and do a test shot or two. Print it out and determine what changes have to
be made to fine tune lighting or focal length of the lens.
Depending on the end use, there are many other considerations. Paintings
don't always fill the screen or print size perfectly so use a background
that is flattering or neutral. If they are merely a record of the paintings
that will sit in a file drawer you don't need the same quality as for
something going to be reproduced in poster size. Find out the expectations
first to avoid problems later.
Hunt
anthon...@gmail.com says...
Anthony,
Unless they are very small, or you love working at height, and have a really
tall mono-stand, I'd hang them FLAT on a wall and work horizontal to the wall.
Set your lights at 45 degrees and equidistant from the paintings. Level the
paintings and level your tripod/camera. Lay out a string, at 90 degrees from
the center, and plumb-bob your tripod center to it.
If you have glass, or they paintings have relief and gloss, get some
Polarizing media for each light (match the media for each light), and place a
Polarizing filter on your lens. I'd opt for a very slight telephoto, so as to
not introduce barrel distortion, but this means some working room.
If you are having trouble getting the light even across the entirity of the
painting (an incident light meter at each corner plus center, will tell you),
then you might want to hang diffusion media in front of the lights. I liked
Lowell Sof-lights for this type of work, but if you need to Polarize, then you
may just have to move the lights WAY-Y-Y back to get even coverage.
You might want to lock up the mirror, and use a shutter release, however that
works with your camera. If you cannot do this, I'd hang ankle weights on the
tripod, and be very, very careful with the shutter trip.
Good luck,
Hunt
Hunt
Stub...@notgonnagive.com says...
>
>In article <1139263715.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> "Anthony S" <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi. I was asked to shoot 50-60 paintings with a digital camera.
>> Should I lie each painting on the floor and shoot downwards? Or would
>> it be better to shoot them from a frontal view? Suggestions on a
>> tripod/gear, tec. Thanks.
>>
>> Anthony
>
>I would also consider the use of a color bar as well as an on Camera
>POL.
Good idea, that I forgot. Kodak has one, with a ruler built-in, that I stick
below the paintings. Thanks for reminding me.
Hunt
Ron Hunter
reflection of the light source from the surface of the painting. Best I
have found is directly in front of the painting with the light source as
diffused as possible, and never use flash!
Pat
One cannot stress enough the orientation of your camera to the
pictures. It is easiest if you have a flat surface to work against,
not pictures hanging from a wall on a wire and leaning out a little.
Horizontal or vertical will work. Horizontal is probably better, but
it is harder to do unless you have the right equipment (which you
don't) or the picture is small.
Build a jig where you can hold the picture perfectly flat and at a
given location. Put a dot on the spot where you will center the
picture. Measure from the ground to the center of the dot. Put your
lense relatively level and adjust your tripod to the center of your
lense is the same height. Get close to the dot and center the dot in
your viewfinder while keeping the center of your lense at the same
height as the center of the dot.
Move your camera into position. Measure out 3 or 4 feet from the dot
(left, right, top and bottom) and put in a pushpin. Pins need to be
exactly the same distance from the center of the dot. Move your camera
so the center of your lense is EXACTLY the same distance from each of
the pushpins. The dot has to be exactly in the center of the
viewfinder.
You have to do all of this to get rid of parralex. Otherwise your
picture will be distorted. This is tough and time consuming and why
another poster recommended professional equipment to do this.
If you are moving the camera back and forth, put a plumbbob off of your
tripod. Now put a piece of tap there as your reference. Run another
piece of tap in a perfectly straight line to the spot exactly under the
dot. Your plumbbob has to remain on that line at all times.
Now go adjust your lights. 45 degrees from the dot. Generally at the
same height as the dot, too.
Put up a gray card, white backdrop or something with a consistant
color. Photography it and check your lights to make sure the lighting
is even. Pay particular attention to hot-spots or vignetting (light
fadeoff near the edges). That is why previous poster suggested very
soft light or polarized lights set back a ways. Make sure there is no
light behind you. No lights other than the lights on the pictures.
You don't want a reflection of you in the image.
As you hand the pictures, you need to make sure they are exactly flat
against the wall AND the center of the picture is at the center of the
dot. It is possible to correct parralex in photoshop, but that causes
its own set of problems. I think it is much easier to try to shoot the
picture without any parralex to start wi
Don't rush this job. To get good results, expect to have a couple of
hours into setting it up. Expect a couple of more hours to take the
pictures. Then at least an hour of beer-drinking afterwards. Believe
me, you'll need it.
All of this will get you a good copy, but not quality for high-quality
reproduction. That you have to leave to a professional (and probably
one that specializes in it). But it will get you a good quality copy
to put on a website or to make slide of for a jury.
If you don't want to go through all of this -- and who would want to --
then just snap a picture with diffused lighting as it's hanging on the
wall. I don't think there's much middle ground between doing it as a
snapshot and doing it right.
Good luck. I'd say "have fun", but you probably won't.
p.s. The post that said bring a laptop is a great idea because you
only want to do this once.
Matt Clara
news:1139263715.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Read Hunter and Fuqa's "Light: Science & Magic". (Hopefully I spelled Mr.
Fuqa's name correctly, but it's doubtful.) That and some practice is all
you'll need.
--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com
Xiaoding
Don't worry about orientation, or distortion, cause you can fix that
later with Photshop. You got Phototshop, right? Cause if you don't,
then you will never get it right. I take pics of paintings at an
angle, to eliminate the flash, then fix the angle later on. Works
great.
Just make sure you don't get a shine from your flash, or light source.
You can't take that out. Try a few, see how they like it. If they
don't like it, tell them to hire a professional who has the right
equipment for the job. Oh, it does cost money.
Marc Sabatella
> later with Photshop.
I think this is very bad advice. Sure, it might be possible, but the
results likely won't be as good, and it will almost certainly take far
longer to even get close with Photoshop than it would to just line the
shot up well in the first place. And this just suggests a certain
amount of carelessness that probably will carry over into other aspects
of the job (like getting the exposure and color right).
Of course, if for some reason you must use flash, shooting at an angle
might help, but the real answer is not to use flash. Professional
photographers generally shoot with floods to either side, illuminating
the center of the painting from 45 degree angles. Professional
*artists* shooting their own work often simply take the work outside and
shoot on an overcast day or in the shade on a sunny day - you can get
pretty diffuse lighting this way. If the work is under glass, ask the
artist if it's OK to remove it. Glass adds problems you would rather
not deal with.
Some things I've found to watch out for:
- Be sure nothing is casting a shadow on the painting. Many easels will
not only obscure the bottom quarter inch but also cast a shadow on the
next quarter inch. I set up a table against a wall and set up the
paintings on that. They lean backward a little, so I set up my tripod a
bit high and angle it down. Try to get the painting as square in the
frame as possible, and fill it up as much as possible too. Doing a
whole bunch in a row the same size speeds things up a lot.
- 50-100 is considered a good focal length for this kind of work,
meaning the typical DSLR kit lens can get you right in that range once
you account for the crop factor
- Set a fairly narrow aperture to give yourself the best shot at having
the whole painting nicely in focus.
- Use a gray card to set exposure and white balance (and shoot RAW just
in case). With luck, you won't actually need to fit these in
postprocessing. Most people expect they'll need to do some, to get the
colors just right. If you don't know that you have a well-calibrated
monitor, you are probably better off trying to get things as good as
possible in the shot. Adjusting color later is something the artist
might want input in.
- The great thing about shooting digital is the ability to crop down to
just the image - this is how most competitions / shows / galleries will
want the finished slides. But unless the artists asks you to do the
cropping, he's probably better off doing it himself, as there are often
judgement calls as to exactly where to crop.
---------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/
zeitgeist
As others suggested, hang images on a wall, square the camera up, use a
slightly long lens.
but I differ on the lighting, the concept of 4 lights as used on the typical
copy stand was based on the old fashioned way of using flood lights. They
needed to get as much as possible on the subject. they used four to smooth
out hot spots, but using four highly specular lights causes many problems,
especially if the paintings are made with texture and even more so with
glossy paints, you'd end up with sparkly white spots all over. I would use
two flash heads on either side aimed at the side walls, or get two panels of
styrofoam insulation (peel the color plastic or logos off) this gives you
light from two large sources instead of several small ones, highlights are
diffuse and not blocked up sparkly. Pros used polaroid sheets over the
lights with a filter set perpendicular to the orientation of the light's
filter sheets, this limited the amount of glare. with large soft bounced
light sources the glare problem is less.
don't use anything auto, must be full manual, especially the white balance,
otherwise whatever the sensor sees the most of, lots of red in this one,
blue in that one will swing the color balance wildly. exposure works the
same way, if the image is mostly white it will under expose the image,
remember sensors assume a medium gray in color and exposure, it will expose
a white sheet as if it were gray, same as a black sheet.
tripod, use a cable release so you don't start a vibration with your trigger
finger.
Matt Clara
news:1139543534....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240802756/104-3664359-0557556?v=glance&n=283155
Xiaoding
results likely won't be as good, and it will almost certainly take far
longer to even get close with Photoshop than it would to just line the
shot up well in the first place"
You have got to be kidding, right? You might actually try it to see
how long it
takes, try 3 seconds. It really takes almost no time at all, and since
you are
already using Photoshop, or some similar program anyways...how this can
take longer than
trying to line up some huge painting, on the fly, with no equipment,
escapes me.
But then, I'm not a "pro", who assumes that every request requires
moving Mount
Everest to be done right.
Jan Böhme
> Sure, it might be possible, but the
> results likely won't be as good, and it will almost certainly take far
> longer to even get close with Photoshop than it would to just line the
> shot up well in the first place"
>
> You have got to be kidding, right? You might actually try it to see
> how long it
> takes, try 3 seconds.
Exactly how do you use Photoshop for this? I'm probably ignorant, but I
knew no quick way to do it before CS2 introduced "Lens corrections",
and even with this filter, at least I can't easily correct all kinds of
distortions that can occur when you shoot a painting askew.
Jan Böhme
Pat
If you shoot at a significant and unknow angle, you chances of
correcting your parralex are pretty slim. You can do it, but you now
have a higher resolution on one side of the picture thant the other.
You are also lighting it from 1 side, so it won't be even.
You way will work and would be okay for some uses, but I think Marc is
trying to discuss how to do it the right way. It isn't "moving Mt.
Everest", it is just doing it right and that takes some time and
effort.
Also take into account that the OP stated that there are 50-60
pictures. All of the set-up would be a chore for 1 picture, but if
he's doing 60, it's a lot easier to do it right when you shoot it so
you cut down the post-processing work.
Trying to correct 60 separate pictures with different parralexes would
be a chore in its own rite.
Xiaoding
frame around the photo.
Then right click, select perspective, adjust for that. There are other
options there as
well, distort can bring a single corner into line. You got to play
around with it, but with a
little practice, gets real easy. Setting some guides at first helps
too. Also helps if the top
or bottom of the photo is horizontally correct before you start.
After this, check the width of the photo, I find it can expand a bit,
ususally 4 to 6 percent.
Marc Sabatella
> results likely won't be as good, and it will almost certainly take far
> longer to even get close with Photoshop than it would to just line the
> shot up well in the first place"
>
> You have got to be kidding, right? You might actually try it to see
> how long it
> takes, try 3 seconds.
Yes, you can produce *some* results in that short a period of time, if
you already know the commands for doing so. If you don't, of course, it
can take quite a while to get the hang of doing even those most
rudimentary sorts of adjustments you seem to be talking about. But
unless you really know what you are doing and take the time to do it
right, you are likely to introduce distortions. Not only can these
distoritions result in the image visible differing from the original,
but they can also result in artifacts that might be visible if you have
a slide made (one of the primary reasons someone would want to have
professional photographs of their paintings) and the images blown up to,
say, 4 feet by 6 feet. And of course, you are also like to get
inconsistent lighting on the painting if you are not setting up
carefully.
On the other hand, lining the shot up correctly in the first place
doesn't take all that long, either, once you learn how. And if you are
shooting a whole bunhc of paintings, you only have to do it once. So it
may well average out to just a couple of seconds per shot.
> how this can
> take longer than
> trying to line up some huge painting, on the fly, with no equipment,
> escapes me.
The only equipment required is a tripod and an easel or something to
hold your paintings at a predictable angle (or a wall, as others have
mentioned).
> But then, I'm not a "pro", who assumes that every request requires
> moving Mount
> Everest to be done right.
Yes, if you're only shooting your own artwork for your own amusement,
you can get away with all sorts of distortions. For that matter, you
can get fine results at that level with a disposable film camera and a
pair of scissors for cropping. But I assumed that the OP wanted to get
the best reuslts he could, within reason. And taking a minute or so to
line up your shot properly is not unreasonable, especially since it is
going to give *much* better results for little if any extra effort over
what you are suggesting.