Finer art photo editing

Out of context: Reply #3

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  • boobs0

    I actually used to photograph art for an art museum and a university, so I have some knowledge here.

    The most important thing is to light it completely evenly, and with no glare. The lights must be at quite an oblique angle, to avoid the glare. Next, you must position the camera exactly opposite the middle of the painting, and be sure you're shooting square squarely at the painting, so the painting comes out with all right angles. You must use a tripod for this part. These steps take time, especially if the painting is big.

    Next, you need to white balance it correctly, expose it correctly, and process it correctly in PhotoShop so the colors are accurate.

    I just looked at a couple of YouTube videos, and most of them were just plain wrong on several points. So avoid looking at those.

    If the work is small, it frequently works OK to just use a scanner. But this won't work for anything at all glossy, or with any impasto.

    If the work is at all critical, and it sounds like it is, it's probably best to just hire the photographer who does this work at the local museum. There are a lot of things to fuck up--like big glaring reflections on the picture, or having one corner really dark, or a hot spot in the center. And, of course, painters are really fussy about the end results.

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