Artists of all kinds, whether you are a painter, an illustrator or a graphic designer, need to capture the work correctly before you can sell high quality prints of it.
If budget allows, hiring a professional photographer is the easiest way to get accurate colours and sharp detail.
If you would rather do it yourself, that is entirely possible with the right equipment and a few techniques.
Lighting
Lighting is the most crucial factor to get right from the start.
In professional photography this setup is known as "copy lighting". It means placing two lights on opposite sides of the artwork at a 45 degree angle, so the surface is lit evenly and no shadows fall across it.
If natural light is not an option, an artificial light source works well. A simple work lamp can give you a well lit environment for photographing your artwork.
To soften harsh lighting, place a sheet of diffusion material in front of the lamp. You can also hold a white surface, such as a piece of foam core, opposite the light source. It reflects light back into the shadows and balances the illumination.
Capturing the photo: DSLR or smartphone
A DSLR or mirrorless camera gives you full control over the settings and the lens. You do not need one to get a good result.
Newer smartphones have advanced cameras that capture sharp, high resolution images, usually more than enough for professional prints.
If you are using a smartphone, follow these steps.
Use the highest resolution setting. Most modern smartphones let you change the resolution. Open your camera settings and make sure you are shooting at the highest one available, sometimes labelled "High Efficiency" or "Pro Mode".
Turn the flash off. A flash fires straight at the surface and leaves a bright hotspot in the middle of the picture. Light the artwork with your lamps or with daylight instead.
Clean the lens. A smudge or a speck of dust on the lens costs you sharpness. Wipe it with a microfibre cloth before you shoot.
Stabilise your phone. Even slight movement blurs fine detail. Use a tripod or rest the phone on a steady surface. With a tripod, set a timer or use a remote shutter so your hand never touches the phone.
Frame the shot correctly. Hold the phone parallel to the artwork to avoid distortion. Turn on the grid lines in your camera settings and use them to line the work up straight.
Tap to focus and set the exposure. Tap the artwork before you shoot so the phone focuses on it. If the picture looks too dark or too bright, slide the brightness bar that appears when you tap.
Shoot in RAW if you can. Some phones support RAW, which keeps more detail and gives you more room when you edit. Enable it in the camera settings if the option is there.
Crop to the edges of the artwork. Do this before you upload. Every pixel spent on the wall or the floor around the piece is a pixel that is not in your print, and skipping it is what most often pushes a file below the resolution a large size needs.
Done this way, a phone produces images that rival a professional camera. The key is proper lighting, a stable camera and the right settings.
Textured and impasto paintings
Thick paint, palette knife work and heavy canvas texture need a different approach. Flat, even light is what makes a smooth painting reproduce well, and it is exactly what makes a textured one look flat.
Rake the light across the surface. Move one of your two lights lower and further to the side, so it skims the painting rather than facing it. The small shadows it casts are what make the texture visible.
Keep the second light where it is. Without it, the raking light turns the piece into a relief map and the colours go wrong.
Watch for glare. Gloss paint and varnish throw a bright spot straight back at the lens. Move the light, not the camera, until the spot leaves the surface. A polarising filter removes what is left.
Shoot square on, and check it twice. Raised paint casts a shadow that grows towards the far edge, so texture makes even a small tilt obvious.
Do not use a scanner. A scanner lights the surface from one fixed angle and presses the work flat, so the relief disappears. A camera keeps it.
One thing to expect: the print is flat. Your photograph records the texture as a picture of texture, and that is what the print reproduces. It will not have relief you can feel. Order a sample of one piece before you commit a whole textured collection to print.
Editing your photos
Now that the photograph is taken, editing brings it closer to what the painting looks like in person.
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are the popular professional tools for adjusting colour, contrast and brightness. They cost money and take a little learning, but in time they make it easy to fine tune an image for print.
If you want a free alternative, VSCO is a good option. It is known for its filters, but it also has manual editing tools strong enough to correct colour without over editing.
Download VSCO on iOS or Android, or use it online, then import your photograph and go straight to the editing tools.
Brightness and contrast will balance the image, and the white balance settings correct unwanted colour shifts.
If the photograph looks too warm and yellowish, slide the temperature towards blue to neutralise it. If it looks too cool and bluish, move it slightly towards yellow. The tint slider refines this further by removing green or magenta casts.