Attempting to pick your brains!

I have been making some Giclee prints for a local oil painting artist. Suddenly she think she needs to build up the textures on her paintings to give a sculpted look. This has caused problems scanning so I sent the image to a friends company to have a high resolution shot made and have been working with the digital file. Where the relief is greatest there is so much reflection that it looks like a crack or sometimes a bad reflection when printed. I think if that were done in natural light it would not be so reflective. Most of her work is done 16 X 20 inches.

I would like to set this up myself and save the bucks involved with sending it out. I have an 8 megapixel DSLR that takes good shots. Does anyone have any advice on how best to do this? Is 8 MP enough? Do anyone know of a tutorial on how to build a box to enable shooting? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jac

I am not a professional photographer so please don't take this as the last word. I can only let you know what has worked with my wife's oil paintings.

I've always managed to avoid those sharp reflections off the edges of the paint relief by using diffuse light. In my case that means bounced flash. I do this at home and don't have room for umbrellas or other equipment, I only have a white room and I bounce flashes off the ceiling and walls. Your requirements are different than mine, I have to add, since I presume your client is aiming for accuracy in a reproduced print, whereas my wife only needs the pic to look nice on a web site for casual viewing. I have found that judicious sharpening in software adds the 3D sculpted look that my wife likes. The degree of sharpness can be fine-tuned by the artist herself and depends on the final size of output. With some luck, this might work for you (and her) and is simple to do.

The most important thing is to start with diffuse even lighting. The beauty for you is that since her paintings are uniformly sized (order of 16 x 20), once you have found a light setup that works you won't need to change it much from one shoot to the next.

I would guess that 8 mpix is fine for those reproductions, even if they are the same size as the original (16x20). I am guessing that what you'll find is that you don't need the same level of detail (300 pixels per inch) to make a good print as you would with a photograph where you want every leaf in a tree in the background to look "real", but that really depends on image content too. Some paintings have more fine detail than others.

I'd say it's worth a day's experimenting with the equipment you have. Chances of success are good, is my guess.

Also meant to say that differing stengths of local contrast enhancement can add to that 3d effect in photos of paintings.

We do a lot of this, and I agree with Robert. Rather than flash we close shears over the windowed shooting room in our studio and shoot in the afternoon so there's no direct sunlight striking the window. Good point on the post processing.

I'm not claiming it's due to our photography, but the pro artists we shoot for win lots of competitions via submitting the photos we shoot. Think of as if our results are good enough that the photography is not getting in the way of some great artwork. And yes, several of our photographed versions have been used by the artists to have LE prints made.

8 MP is sufficient but you probably will need several exposures with about 30% overlap to obtain the file of sufficient size for the output print. Then stitch in Photoshop Photomerge. The usual stitch caveats apply. Ensure camera back is aligned with painting. Transform is OK to correct small errors . To allow for this produce a file a bit bigger than required so any transformation squashes rather than expands the file.
Diffuse light will reduce saturation , which is usually correctable in Photoshop.It helps to compare the screen softproof with the actual painting, which requires a profiled monitor and correct lighting, say with Solux lamps, to illuminate the painting.
If texture is not too great direct light that is cross polarised is a fairly standard industry approach.
This will eliminate all reflections. To bring back some highlights rotate the lens polariser slightly. It takes a bit of experience to get it right. Now Polaroid (and analogue) has gone down the drain , observation on a tethered monitor is a good idea. If using a laptop for this just take notice of reflections and sharpness, not colour.
To assist colour matching include both a grey scale and colour patches in the photo.
HTH
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au

def. an artform to photographing artwork.
to cut glare we side light... (w/ tungsten and boxes shooting w/ a 4x5 w/ scanback in a studio)
although if its heavily textured that will create shadows
in which case we diffuse the light to the walls ceiling and floor
and use 4x8 sheets of white foam core to reflect light around evenly.
this cuts shadows giving a more natural lighting

8mp is cutting it close
but for what you are doing size wise you could probably get away with it
though you will compromise tonal transitions and color blends within the piece.
the MP rating is relative to the cameras ability to distinguish color..
so a lower rating means less variant color coming through.
which = less range when it comes down to printing.


does this make sense?
I really need to go to bed... the computer glare is burning my eyes

I guess the point here is that the art work is no longer a flat thing; it's sculptural. The way the image will be used might change the way it's lit. For insurance documentation purposes a reflection and shadow free photograph is probably the most useful. For catalogue and book reproduction the photograph might work better if it shows some of the 'character' of the art. You can almost be sure of one thing: the traditional left-right, 45 degree lighting set up will never look right, in real-life we see most wall art lit from the top with 'fill' from the rest of the room. If the lighting set up is left-right start by turning the art 90 degrees.
Wollom

...and I can't resist. "...making Giclee prints...' Man! Those old Iris machines are nothing compared to even a cheap modern pigment printer. Get with the new millennium, eh? Giclee

...and I can't resist. "...making Giclee prints...' Man! Those old Iris machines are nothing compared to even a cheap modern pigment printer. Get with the new millennium, eh? Giclee

[/quote]

OK Precious (Sorry that's Gollum) I have an HP Z3100 which isn't too bad. I think it's an educational thing. I could go gallery by gallery and spend my time convincing all these 60+ something artists the Giclee´is passe´but then I wouldn't have time to do the work.

Here's my new problem (a good one though). One of the wealthy artists thought I did a good job with her oil painting. I told her with the proper equipment I could do even better. So, if any of you guys are specialists with OPM (other people's money) what would you buy with $12K (to spend) give or take a few Ks. Include the camera, lighting and accessories. She has some much larger originals that she wants done too!

Thanks,

Jack

Jack,
Consider a Better Light Scannng back, perhaps refurbished, on a sturdy 4'x5" with the best flat field lens you can get. Use Solux lamps for illumination. Buy a Macbeth color chart or equivalent.
Use Joseph Holmes colour spaces. Make sure you have an accurate screen e.g. Eizo CG series, which is profiled. Have your printer paper combination custom profiled. Avoid OBA papers for gallery/museum display, but consider low OBAs for domestic display where diffuse daylight and/or fluoros may be used. For very smooth papers use slowest printer speed and max resolution. Max resolution puts down more ink, e.g. for Epson mono directional spray at 2880 dpi.
HTH
Brian,
www.pharoseditions.com.au