[Indian_Prophet]

What are the steps in making prints of one your oil, watercolor..etc paintings? Do you have to take a picture of it and create a slide or....
Note: If it is too big to fit on your scanner.

How?

TY
IP

[Indian_Prophet]

Ok, perhaps this is a lame question that could be researched elsewhere, but I was hoping to get a response from artist who have found a certain way of doing this and getting the best results. So as they say "Bump".

Is this a too basic of a question???
or perhaps too stupid?

TY

[hunter_rose0]

here are some options best to worst(I use #2)

1. shoot photographs with a digital camera

2. Scan your art in pieces and paste the scaned parts together again in photoshop

3. shoot slides and then scan the slides

4. shoot photographs and then scan the photographs

[BlackPool]

You probably already know this, but depending on the quality you want in the print and the number of prints you want to make, you might consider taking your work to print shop.

[wayfinder]

if you want to print poster size, digital photography is NOT the way to go�(too small resolution).
you can get the best picture quality from a dia-positive film in a top quality camera, which you can get scanned in professional places. the quality of these scans is awesome and surpasses anything digital cameras can do today.

[Dan]

I heard that the new digital cameras measure resolution in megapixels. thats millions of pixels right. I mean that's gotta be pretty high res once you get into megapixels.

[StrangeFate]

???
It has been always megapixels and has directly nothing to do with the actual res. of the image.
If's the amount of pixels the CCD chip has and each pixel collects the info on color and lighting, so the more megapixels you have the more image info you get and therefore the higher res images you can take keeping a minimum of info for a good pic.

Still digi cams are all around 2500-3000 pixels res, too low yet :/

[Indian_Prophet]

I have a professional Canon eos rebel slr camera. Has anyone ever tried to go this method instead of a digital camera.


I don't like digital cameras...too salty for what it can do.

Peace

[Frog]

For large reproductions a film camera is still the way to go for now, current digicams still can't compete with film in terms of absolute resolution. Besides, you already have a good quality camera, so that's obviously the easiest/cheapest route.

Slide film will give you the best results, you can use neg film too but slides are best for scanning. For the sharpest image get Fuji Provia, for sharpness and very saturated colours get Fuji Velvia. If you want to spend a little less you can also use Kodak EBX (extra colour), which is also sharp and vivid but a little cheaper. These are all slow films, so handholding the camera indoors will not be an option if you want sharp pictures.

Your EOS will be fine. The best method will be to use your sharpest lens, preferrably a 50mm prime if you have one, stop it down to f8 or so and support the camera, ideally with a tripod but you can do it on a piece of furniture if that's all you have.

Then take the film to a decent photo store and they should be able to offer a scanning and printing service at an affordable price.

I know quite a bit about photography so if you have any specific questions or there is anything in this post that isn't 100% clear feel free to email me.

[edraket]

I use a digital camera to make pictures of sketches and stuff to post online. I'ts always a hassle to get the colors somewhat right. But you do see what you are doing. You can see the pictures on your screen straight away etc.
If I were to go for a completely professional approach at that size though I'd probably use my slr and get the negatives/slides digitised.

[Frog]

I just wanted to add a couple of points to my earlier post: you need to carefully consider the lighting that you take your pictures in.

The best setup IMO would be to use natural light which is diffused, daylight coming through a window with the curtains shut would be ideal. This would give you flat-ish light that wouldn't cast highlights or shadows on your artwork, and would reveal the detail in your paintings.

What you should definitely try to avoid is using on-camera flash as this will probably create a large highlight right in the middle of your picture. Also try to avoid using artificial light such as that from lightbulbs, this has a different colour temparature to daylight and causes colour casts in your images where everything shifts towards the red/yellow end of the spectrum (our eyes tend adjust without us really noticing, film is less forgiving). You can work around this by using tungsten-balanced film if artificial light is your only option.