Photographing Art for Reproduction

[Glimpse]

Hi, new member so please go easy and excuse my lack of knowledge!

I have a picture framing business and reproduce quite a lot of photos and art for customers. I use an Epson V550 for smaller stuff, and can "stitch" scans together for bigger items but it's not very practical.

I'd like to invest in a set up to photograph artists' work (larger paintings, oils, print, collages etc) but only have a basic understanding of photographic equipment. I have an aging Canon DSLR but it's nowhere near high enough resolution, so needs replacing.

I've done a bit of research, but would welcome any advice from people who have done this sort of thing. I come from a print/design background, so have a good understanding of colour repro etc, so if I can get the right equipment, I should (I hope!) be able to achieve reasonable results. I understand that cross polarising would be beneficial, so I'd like to choose equipment that would work well for this.

So, main questions are:

• Is there any benefit with a full-frame for this type of work? Or would I be better spending the money on the lens?
• Is a 50mm prime the best lens for this job?
• What type of lighting would be best for cross polarising filters?

Any other advice would be hugely appreciated!

Many thanks in advance...
Adam

 

[Phil V]

I’m no expert:
You shouldn’t need full frame, but any fairly modern sensor will do.

Macro lenses generally have the flatter field of view making them more suitable for copy work.

Flash is best for colour stability, you shouldn’t need to spend a fortune. 2 fairly cheap softboxes or shoot through brollies if necessary.

 

[Kodiak Qc]

You shouldn’t need full frame, but any fairly modern sensor will do.

Right, sencel count is key here.

more suitable for copy work.

Must be macro like =/> 55mm — if we are talking 2D.
For 3D, =/> 85mm.

For paintings with no severe relief or texture, bare flash is ok.
If not, strips are the better option as for 3D subjects.

Given the incidence of light in 2D repro-work, CP not needed.

 

[droj]

Many 'standard' (ie 50mm on a 35mm film camera) lenses, especially if wide aperture like f/1.4 and up, have barrel distortion. This can be compensated for in digital processing to a large extent, but a macro lens will be more reliably rectiliniar. This might or might not matter to your purpose.

 

[HoppyUK]

Welcome to TP

<snip>
So, main questions are:

• Is there any benefit with a full-frame for this type of work? Or would I be better spending the money on the lens?

Macro lens for a sharp, flat field and no distortion, and full-frame would be nice, but that's about image quality and the standard you should aspire to there depends on the final use/output. If you want to make high quality prints and posters, then FF; if it's just for on-line, then not necessary.

• Is a 50mm prime the best lens for this job?

What size are the works? How are you planning to shoot them? I'm assuming they'll be wall-mounted with lights either side, camera on a tripod. Distance is your friend for controlling reflections, so ideally I'd say 100mm on FF (or equivalent) would be good if you have enough working room with big works. Macro lenses tend to be 90-105mm.

• What type of lighting would be best for cross polarising filters?

Studio flash with softboxes, one each side. Maybe two to get even brightness over a very large works. Cross-polarisers probably necessary for shiny/textured works like oils. Polarising sheets should cover the whole softbox front, then a polarising filter on the lens.

Any other advice would be hugely appreciated!

Many thanks in advance...
Adam

Edit: include a colour checker and grey card for exposure and colour reference in post processing.

 

[chris malcolm]

I'm not a professional photographer, but I've always tried to earn enough from my photography to pay for my gear, and the bulk of my paid photography work has consisted of photographs of art works, from big murals to small paintings, drawings, etc.. Since converting to digital in 2007 I've never bothered reaching for full frame bodies, on the grounds that I would always be able to shoot at the lowest ISO, which is where the differences between full frame and APS-C sensors are the hardest to see, and the image quality of the best APS-C sensors is usually a little better than the best full frame sensors of five or so years earlier. Plus I'm still convinced that given a certain budget, that the best possible image quality will always be got from an APS-C camera body and a better lens, rather than the more expensive full frame and a cheaper lens. Although I now have a big collection of lenses, if someone gave me a present of enough money to buy the best full frame camera, I'd still spend the money on a top lens, or possibly a top photo editing computer and high quality display, rather than a full frame camera.

I started off doing most of my artwork photography with a 50mm f1.4. For big works in cramped conditions I found I needed (with an APS-C camera) a 35mm f1.8, and then a 24mm f2.8. For some murals I needed the widest good quality rectlinear lens I could get, which ended up being the Sigma 8-16mm. Very important was using image editor capable of fully correcting the geometric aberrations of any of my lenses to perfect linearity, plus being able to do accurate perspective adjustment. For a long time I was happy with PTLens as a supplementary editor for that, but I'm now shifting to DxO Optics Pro. For detail in some high church murals I needed the best long lenses I could get, which have ended up as a 90mm f2.8 macro, and an 80-200mm f2.8. I'd like to add a 500mm f4 prime for church mural detail, but it's outside my budget at the moment, and wouldn't often be needed anyway.

In a studio setting and where possible I like to use the standard two brollied flashes from 45 degrees each side and up a bit or bouncing off walls and ceiling if those are reasonably white. It's often useful to have a big black cloth sitting behind the camera to stop any direct reflections back from glossy surfaces. In getting white balance right it's important to check over all coloured surfaces near the art work for their possible contribution of a tint gradient over the image. That's very tricky to correct in post, much better to avoid.

When photographing paintings etc. on walls or an easel it's good to line the camera up exactly in the middle and perpendicular to the plane of the painting. That's so useful it's worth spending the time getting it as right as you can. If you can find one cheaply a big copy stand which can wind a big camera up and down without disturbing orientation is very useful.

 

[GTG]

Whatever lens you use, research a review or test of its vignetting characteristics at different apertures.

You need to use an aperture free from vignetting for art reproduction in my opinion so it needs consideration.

The picture bellows demonstrates how vignetting ( on the left ) will ruin artwork reproduction by darkening the outer parts of the image.

You need vignetting free artwork ( on the right ) or you will be a laughing stock.

Simple but I just mention it because you say your a beginner.

 

[Glimpse]

Thanks for all the pointers, it's all very helpful advice... I have a *bit* of understanding as I've working in graphic design for 25 years, but I don't have the experience or knowledge of equipment that some of you guys obviously have!

As this is something I plan to do commercially, I want to get the equipment right so I can hit the ground running and be confident that my customers will be getting results they'll be happy to pay for.

My premises aren't huge, it's a traditional mid-terrace cottage that has been converted into a shop, so I have around 8 meters in length, but only around 4 meters width - I'm not sure if this will pose problems setting up lighting at 45° to artwork, but I can probably set up on the diagonal to improve this.

I plan to go to the Photography Show at NEC to see what's available and start doing some sums! It's useful to hear that full-frame might not be strictly necessary, although a quick look around reveals plenty of Nikon D610s for around £800 whcih would leave more funds to spend on lens and lighting...

 

[woof woof]

Just a quick idea.

You may be using manual focus for this and if so you may want to look at a mirrorless camera as you can do very accurate manual focusing with these cameras and their magnified view.

I use a film era 50mm f2.8 macro with my Sony A7.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I would tend to get a mirrorless camera, as a mirror is counter productive for such work. ( increases camera shake and unsharpness) A Fuji Xe2s would be a good candidate, and from their refurb store comes in at under £550 with an 18-55 lens.
which has the benefit of automatic correction for distortion and vignetting.
However a true macro has a flatter field and just about any one you can find, at a reasonable price, can be used with an adapter on the FUJI X system cameras.
In actual practice you would probably find that the ultra sharp 18-55 lens gives as good results.

Lighting is a problem with heavy impasto oils and for collages, as the depth creates cross shadows and large specular highlights on the raised details, which can look unnatural,
It is often better to turn the lights away from the subject to light the whole space (room) and just use the general reflected light that comes back, for a more natural effect
things like Silk screen prints are the easiest, and are best lit with 2 or 4 lights at 45° .
Soft boxes are rarely the best choice as they create nasty reflections, on semi gloss paint surfaces.

Traditionally, hard tungsten lighting was used, as you can see the full effect before you shoot, and they are extremely easy to balance. Flash works well but you have to do it by trial and error, as you can not see what you are going to get in advance.
A set up using four ordinary domestic anglepoise type lamps works exceptionally well. as the power of the light is totally unimportant, and they can be positioned precisely
You should not need cross polarising if you lights are positioned correctly. They can be useful in some circumstances, but they are difficult to use correctly, and can make matters worse.

It is important not to place the lights too closely, as the inverse square law kick in, and you get uncontrollable fall off in the light across the artwork surface.

 

[HoppyUK]

I would tend to get a mirrorless camera, as a mirror is counter productive for such work. ( increases camera shake and unsharpness) A Fuji Xe2s would be a good candidate, and from their refurb store comes in at under £550 with an 18-55 lens.
which has the benefit of automatic correction for distortion and vignetting.
However a true macro has a flatter field and just about any one you can find, at a reasonable price, can be used with an adapter on the FUJI X system cameras.
In actual practice you would probably find that the ultra sharp 18-55 lens gives as good results.

Some mirrorless cameras have more shutter-shock problems than DSLRs have with mirror-slap. The key to eliminating camera vibration is an electronic first-curtain feature, eg Canon DSLRs, used in live view mode with self-timer. Using post-processing software like Lightroom automatically corrects for vignetting, distortion and CA with any camera/lens.

Lighting is a problem with heavy impasto oils and for collages, as the depth creates cross shadows and large specular highlights on the raised details, which can look unnatural,
It is often better to turn the lights away from the subject to light the whole space (room) and just use the general reflected light that comes back, for a more natural effect
things like Silk screen prints are the easiest, and are best lit with 2 or 4 lights at 45° .
Soft boxes are rarely the best choice as they create nasty reflections, on semi gloss paint surfaces.

Reflections are the main problem with lighting. Watercolours on matt paper are easy, but glossy oils with a raised surface texture, or anything mounted behind glass (will reflect everything, like a mirror) are a completely different matter. Light must be tightly controlled and softboxes are better for that, the whole studio area should be darkened, and cross-polarisers may be necessary.

Traditionally, hard tungsten lighting was used, as you can see the full effect before you shoot, and they are extremely easy to balance. Flash works well but you have to do it by trial and error, as you can not see what you are going to get in advance.
A set up using four ordinary domestic anglepoise type lamps works exceptionally well. as the power of the light is totally unimportant, and they can be positioned precisely
You should not need cross polarising if you lights are positioned correctly. They can be useful in some circumstances, but they are difficult to use correctly, and can make matters worse.

Tungsten is best avoided. Seriously Flash is far better and studio heads have good modelling lamps so you can see exactly what you're getting. Cross-polarisers are easy to use, just an extra stage in setting up, and extra cost.

It is important not to place the lights too closely, as the inverse square law kick in, and you get uncontrollable fall off in the light across the artwork surface.

Yes - understand the inverse square law, and also remember that light reflects off a surafce at the same angle it strikes - like a snooker ball off the cushion.

The camera/lens side of this is pretty straightforward but the lighting may not be, depending on the size and nature of the work which the OP has not described. Width of the studio area could be an issue, in which case consider reverse-firing softboxes (like umbrellas, but with a diffuser front panel) that can be positioned close to the walls and gain a precious extra couple of feet.

 

[woof woof]

Some mirrorless cameras have more shutter-shock problems than DSLRs have with mirror-slap. The key to eliminating camera vibration is an electronic first-curtain feature, eg Canon DSLRs, used in live view mode with self-timer. Using post-processing software like Lightroom automatically corrects for vignetting, distortion and CA with any camera/lens.

And some mirrorless cameras do indeed have an electronic first curtain shutter.

Given the choice of back screen shooting and looking through a VF I'll choose the VF route every single time.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I have done a large amount of copy work in the past I will stick with my comments.

 

[Glimpse]

I'm certainly open to the idea of mirrorless, but I would imagine I'd have to spend a lot to get a high enough pixel count... It was mentioned elsewhere that customers equate higher resolution with higher value with this sort of work, and whilst I'm not in a position to splash out on a 50meg super camera, I think I would need a minimum of 24meg...

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I'm certainly open to the idea of mirrorless, but I would imagine I'd have to spend a lot to get a high enough pixel count... It was mentioned elsewhere that customers equate higher resolution with higher value with this sort of work, and whilst I'm not in a position to splash out on a 50meg super camera, I think I would need a minimum of 24meg...

That depends entirely on the magnification and/or print size you want to end up with. 16 mpx would be more than enough for excellent A3 prints.
unlike ordinary photography you can fill the frame very tightly with out any problems. If it is just for record purposes for viewing on a computer, you could manage with even less.
There is very little difference in 16, 18 and 24 Mpx in real life work. But as they say bigger is better... but not necessarily good bang for your buck.

What is important is not the size of the painting but the size of the image you want to end up with. if you want wall sized prints then you will want to max out the MPX. But those situations are best left to the specialist Art printer to deal with.

Everyone expects such images to be sharp, full of detail, and more importantly a close match for colour, so it always helps to take a second shot with a colour and grey scale patch in the centre of the frame to use for matching. even then it will never match all colours perfectly. This is one occasion when working Adobe RGB or wider gamut gives you a better chance. But I rather doubt you could afford to go to the extreme lengths that a reproduction studio would think normal. At best your aim is more likely to be no higher than a commercial studio level.
You will not be able to compete in quality with the very best, nor would it be profitable for you to do so.

You must also think in terms of the return on your investment of equipment and time.
How long will it take to cover this, with the work that is realistically available?
If you have to price it too high few people will take up your offer to shoot their work before you frame it. (You certainly want to shoot before you glaze)

 

[Nod]

Asked a mate (professional artist who sells prints of his work) how he got his originals into digital form and he told me he uses a flatbed scanner and stitches the results in PS. He used to photograph them but found that it was close to impossible to get the colours as close as the scanner does so went back to scanning, even for relatively low res use like catalogues.

 

[Glimpse]

I just thought I'd post a quick update to let you know what I've been up to based on the advice kindly given by those on the forum.

I begged and borrowed several cameras and lenses to try and learn the pros and cons of various set-ups and soon realised that I needed as much resolution as I could possibly afford.

So I managed to find a (very lightly) used Nikon D800 with 36mp and I've teamed that up with a 50mm f/1.8G AF-S lens. I already had a very heavy Manfrotto studio tripod and I've bought a pair of daylight flourescent soft boxes and a cable release.

Next on my shopping list was a Canon imageprograf Pro-2000 printer.

I've still got a lot of testing to do, but initial results seem outstanding! The camera is wonderful and the detail/sharpness is faultless at 24" size-for-size, and I'm confident I could easily go to twice that before I get anywhere near the limits of the camera.

I'm colour-correcting using a grey card which is giving excellent results, but I've bought X-Rite Colourchecker Passport Photo to nail the RAW profiles and improve colour accuracy across the board.

The only problem I've got is that my Photoshop CS6 refuses to update to Camera Raw 7.4 so I'm unable to open NEF files on my work Mac.

If anyone knows if it's possible to update Camera Raw manually, please let me know, it's had me tearing my hair out!

Or if there's a decent RAW processing software that runs on an aging OSX 10.4.6 Mac, I'd be very grateful for any information!

So a big thank you to everyone, I'm skint, but I'm up and running!

 

[Unlocker]

Interesting thread @Glimpse as we are almost in exactly the same position as you are, so hope you don't mind if I join in!

We have a framing business too and we're getting asked a lot to reproduce artworks so would like to be able to offer the same service.

The photography side of things I'm getting there building up a kit, so far we have:-

- D810
- Looking at the 60mm Macro for the lens
- Tripod
- Godox trigger, TT685N x2, AD200 x1
- 2x Manfrotto light stands with 54cm square soft boxes
- Spyder 5 Studio and Spyder Colour Checkr
- Canon iPF 6450 printer
- Photoshop CC

Didn't know about cross polarising 'til I read this thread, so guess I can add another polariser to my existing Lee Filters kit and use that?

Another AD200 will be added soon, so I think we are good to go with kit, just got to get on with the learning and practising side of things!

The part I'm least sure of is the business side so any help here would be appreciated:-

How much to charge?
Do you sell the files or keep them so printing can only be done in house?
etc.etc.
We are limited for space so I would need to set this up each time so I need to take that into consideration.

Any tips here would be appreciated and on the lighting side, should I be fine with what I have modifier wise or should I be looking to add something different?

 

[HoppyUK]

Good to hear Adam

The weakspot in your rig is the 'daylight balanced' fluorescent lights that won't be very close to real daylight for critical work. If you have the opportunity to compare to flash, which is pretty much a carbon copy of daylight, you'll notice an improvement.

The spiky graph is a daylight balanced fluorsecent softbox (4607 K, CRI 84%) and studio flash (5881 K, CRI 97%). In theory, bright sun should be around 5600 K and 99-100% CRI.

 

[Unlocker]

Good to hear Adam

The weakspot in your rig is the 'daylight balanced' fluorescent lights that won't be very close to real daylight for critical work. If you have the opportunity to compare to flash, which is pretty much a carbon copy of daylight, you'll notice an improvement.

The spiky graph is a daylight balanced fluorsecent softbox (4607 K, CRI 84%) and studio flash (5881 K, CRI 97%). In theory, bright sun should be around 5600 K and 99-100% CRI.

Hi Richard, thanks for the charts, definitely shows that flash is the way to go.

Do you think that 2x AD200s is enough for this kind of work (for me, mainly flat artworks upto A2ish) and if so are 2x 54cm square softboxes ok or would you recommend different modifiers (Both AD200s will have Bowens brackets)?

 

[Glimpse]

Interesting thread @Glimpse
How much to charge?

As much as I possibly can!

I've been scanning/stitching a lot of smaller stuff for a while and buying in prints. I usually charge my normal hourly rate for scanning, or £10 per scan if it's a straightforward scan/balance/print.

I will formulate a price list for large format photographing which I'll aim to cover 1.5 or 2 times normal hourly rate.

To be honest, the main benefit for me as a business will be speed, convenience and lower out-going costs from keeping it all in-house.

I come from a graphic design background - I still run a design business as well as the picture framing shop - so I'm fairly well versed in Photoshop, colour profiling etc. I will give copies of the final file to artists on disk - at the end of the day, if they're paying you to create the file, they own it. By offering a decent printing/mounting/framing service, i would hope they'll feel the benefit of a one-stop-shop and keep coming back for prints.

 

[HoppyUK]

Hi Richard, thanks for the charts, definitely shows that flash is the way to go.

Do you think that 2x AD200s is enough for this kind of work (for me, mainly flat artworks upto A2ish) and if so are 2x 54cm square softboxes ok or would you recommend different modifiers (Both AD200s will have Bowens brackets)?

Plenty

 

[riddell]

There is a lot of conjecture in this thread and a lot of guessing without experience.

I'm a professional commercial photographer and I've shot absolutely hundreds of works of art for various retailers, personally I wouldn't even try to do it without a top quality camera, lens and lighting. I normally use a 1dx. Lighting is absolutely crucial and needs careful setup, control, adjustment. It will be different for every piece dependant upon such factors as surface, media, texture, lustre and several similar factors. Plus of course whether or not it is framed, mounted or behind glass or acrylic or not. When I'm on an artwork shoot I'm adjusting the lights all day long between pieces and what shot I'm shooting.

 

[HoppyUK]

There is a lot of conjecture in this thread and a lot of guessing without experience.

Its an internet forum

I'm a professional commercial photographer and I've shot absolutely hundreds of works of art for various retailers, personally I wouldn't even try to do it without a top quality camera, lens and lighting. I normally use a 1dx. Lighting is absolutely crucial and needs careful setup, control, adjustment. It will be different for every piece dependant upon such factors as surface, media, texture, lustre and several similar factors. Plus of course whether or not it is framed, mounted or behind glass or acrylic or not. When I'm on an artwork shoot I'm adjusting the lights all day long between pieces and what shot I'm shooting.

Threads from newcomers sometimes give the impression that it's simply about buying some gear and getting instantly amazing results. It's rarely like that, but the OP needs to start somewhere. What would you advise?

 

[riddell]

Its an internet forum
but the OP needs to start somewhere. What would you advise?

If I was in the situation where all my equipment was destroyed and I had to quickly buy replacement kit on minimum budget, or if I was forced for business reasons to buy budget kit to allow my junior photographer to shoot I would ideally like to get a Canon 1dx, if budget did not allow that, then a 5d iv, if budget was that tight then a 5d iii. I wouldn't buy anything else. I'd find the money somehow.

Lighting. budget setup would be 4 elinchrom Brx500's, 2x 1m square softboxes and a couple of reflectors. Again if money was super tight I'd buy dlites, but it would be totally in the back of my head that that would be a temporary solution as I'd expect them to fail soon with pro usage.
Ideally I'd want a 1.5m Octo and a set of grids in there too.

 

[Birdy06]

If I was in the situation where all my equipment was destroyed and I had to quickly buy replacement kit on minimum budget, or if I was forced for business reasons to buy budget kit to allow my junior photographer to shoot I would ideally like to get a Canon 1dx, if budget did not allow that, then a 5d iv, if budget was that tight then a 5d iii. I wouldn't buy anything else. I'd find the money somehow.

Lighting. budget setup would be 4 elinchrom Brx500's, 2x 1m square softboxes and a couple of reflectors. Again if money was super tight I'd buy dlites, but it would be totally in the back of my head that that would be a temporary solution as I'd expect them to fail soon with pro usage.
Ideally I'd want a 1.5m Octo and a set of grids in there too.

Just out of interest, why would a D800 D810 etc not be as suitable compared to the Canons you have listed? This isn’t a Nikon v Canon post but I am interested as I have a need to photograph artwork too and already have Nikon lenses.

 

[HoppyUK]

If I was in the situation where all my equipment was destroyed and I had to quickly buy replacement kit on minimum budget, or if I was forced for business reasons to buy budget kit to allow my junior photographer to shoot I would ideally like to get a Canon 1dx, if budget did not allow that, then a 5d iv, if budget was that tight then a 5d iii. I wouldn't buy anything else. I'd find the money somehow.

Lighting. budget setup would be 4 elinchrom Brx500's, 2x 1m square softboxes and a couple of reflectors. Again if money was super tight I'd buy dlites, but it would be totally in the back of my head that that would be a temporary solution as I'd expect them to fail soon with pro usage.
Ideally I'd want a 1.5m Octo and a set of grids in there too.

Cheers. When would you use the big octa? And lenses?

 

[riddell]

Just out of interest, why would a D800 D810 etc not be as suitable compared to the Canons you have listed? This isn’t a Nikon v Canon post but I am interested as I have a need to photograph artwork too and already have Nikon lenses.

To be honest I'm sure the Nikons would be fine. Quite honestly I know little about them and see only a small percentage of commercial photographers using them. Canon have got it sewn up and we stick to what we know it's as simple as that. Nikons have a much bigger following with press photographers. But everyone I've seen using the likes of a d800 is producing good solid work, same standard as us Canon guys. Friendly revialery aside there is still respect there.

 

[riddell]

Cheers. When would you use the big octa? And lenses?

Lenses mostly as 24-70 L or the 28-105L having a 50 on there would be ok for bigger pieces, 100 or 105 macro for detail shots. I've seen others using the 70-200L , which works very nicely too.

You need the big Octo when working with large pieces, or to balance out reflections with lusturous items.