Month: December 2016

This post is about photographing your artwork for good quality reproduction. There are two ways to do this – Pay someone to do it for you, or Do it yourself. I always opt for the latter when possible, and after some experimentation have finally worked out a method that does the trick for me. For the benefit of others who are thinking of doing this, or for those who have struggled with this task, here is my approach.

First, some background. For a good reproduction, the minimum resolution is 300 dpi. Now, I have a decent camera (Nikon D5200), and it shoots at 4000 x 6000 pixels. This is typical for a good camera. At 300 dpi, that means I can only shoot artwork that is about 13 inches by 20 inches. If the proportions are different, I can’t make full use of the camera’s sensor. So while this is adequate for a 9×12 canvas, it’s not quite good enough for 14×18 or 16×20, let alone 24×36.

My solution involves taking a mosaic of close up images of my canvas, then combining these shots into a composite using Adobe Photoshop Elements. Elements is not expensive (or Photoshop is available on a subscription basis too), and does a great job of stitching the photos together, using the Panorama feature. Here are the details:

First set up the canvas level and plumb on an easel. To avoid glare, I face the front of the canvas away from a window, so only diffuse light illuminates it. Plus I use a polarizing filter on the camera. If the light level isn’t high, the camera will just take a longer exposure, and you can also increase the ISO a bit. The camera should be set on a tripod square to the canvas, as close to perpendicular as you can get it. I just eyeball this. I also use a remote shutter release on the camera so it doesn’t shake during the exposure. Once set, the focus doesn’t have to be adjusted between shots.

Then I start shooting. For a 24×36 canvas, I take four shots along the bottom of the canvas, sliding it horizontally on the easel between shots. You want a fair bit of overlap between shots. Then I lower the painting about ten inches, and take another four four shots across the middle of the painting. I lower it one more time to take a strip of four shots across the top.

Now it’s time to stitch everything together in post-processing. Prepare the images by cropping out any background, so that none of the easel or room shows up in the image. Otherwise this extra background will confuse the stitching process. Do this for all the edge shots. It took me awhile to figure this out. Then save all the cropped images. Go into Element’s Enhance menu, and select Photomerge, Photomerge Panorama. Select the images to be included in the merge, and click OK. Elements will figure out where the pictures should go in the right order. It takes a few moments to accomplish this task, which is really complicated mathematically, but hey, that’s what computers do. After the merge, under the Layers menu, Flatten the image.

At this point the image may not be perfectly square. I go to Image, Transform, Free Transform and stretch the corners until they’re square. And that’s it. Do any other post processing you need, then save the file as a jpeg and take it to your printer for reproduction.

It gets easier with a bit of practice. Especially when working things out, little details kept messing me up. I ended up clamping blocks under the easel’s lower support so it didn’t tilt when the canvas was off center, and I used shims to keep the support bar from throwing shadows across the top edge. I hung my camera bag as a weight under the tripod for extra stability. And I had my wife help by telling me when the canvas was slid over enough so I didn’t have to keep walking back and forth, but it can be done as a single person task.

I hope this helps save you time and money.

As 2016 draws to a close, and the prospects for reflecting back on past events is too dismal to consider, it’s time to look ahead to 2017. After preparing for a year, it’s time for me to start entering shows and art fairs. Living here in greater Chicagoland, there’s no lack of opportunities. In fact, there is a local company that specializes in setting up and running art fairs – Amdur Productions. They run 31 events, though not all are suitable for me as a painter, especially as this is my first time showing. Besides Amdur, Joe and Kathleen Isacson of xculturearts.com run a few shows, and I plan on being in two of them (already juried in for their Affair of the Arts show in Spring Grove in March). Additionally, there are two independent fairs I plan on submitting to – Art at the Dole run by the Lakeside Legacy Foundation in Crystal Lake, and Art in the Barn in Barrington. All together I hope to participate in eight shows throughout the year.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time. It is frankly a bit scary. I am not a natural sales person at all. I’d much prefer if my art spoke for itself at some high end gallery in the big city, but that’s not going to happen all by itself. Before it does, there’s a lot of preparation that has to be done. One obvious preliminary for outdoor shows is the purchase of a tent, and for indoor shows, some kind of portable walls are needed. For these I’ve already purchased metal grid panels from ULine.com, four wall sections of 2′ x 7′, and a freestanding triangular tower 2′ x 6.5′ high. They are simple enough to assemble, and broken down each piece is light enough to carry easily, but it will be 7 trips to the car to get them all inside. However, they will show a good amount of art.

A tent is another matter. I’m looking at a TrimLine canopy tent, a solid standard at art shows. With all the accoutrements I’m interested in, like mesh walls for hanging artwork on directly, I expect to spend about two grand. This is a substantial outlay of capitol, and I can only justify it by hoping I can sell enough artwork to pay it back. That’s a risky proposition. In addition, between jury fees and space fees, I’ll be spending more than for the tent and walls combined. So there is significant risk in this venture. But it’s a necessity in the attempt to fufil my dream.