How to present your traditional art

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DanielaIvanova
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PhotographyGuide is a group for photographers, of all kind. This means that it is also for traditional artists, because often, they rely on photography to present their work. Not too long ago, we have started a new project within the group, just for traditional artists. If you have ever tried to present a physical work digitally, you'll know how hard that is. You will know how tough it is to get the lighting right, to get the angle right, to smooth out the paper, and many, many more things that are involved in photographing your art. Within the project, personalized tips and tricks are offered, because no piece of art is the same, and they all need to be presented in their own unique way. To learn more about this project, please check out this article: Traditional Art at PhotographyGuide. Hopefully it will answer your questions, and if not, feel free to ask some in the comments!


Photographing


When you go about photographing your work there are a few things to keep in mind that are explained in more detail in these tutorials:
  • - diffuse, even and sufficient lighting
  • - angle of the camera
  • - proper focus

 - a detailed step-by-step diagram guide
 - another detailed step-by-step guide including photographing and editing in Photoshop.
 - a few basic tips on photographing with a watercolor painting demonstration.
 - a diagram showing the placement of light source and camera
 - a step-by-step guide with some specific camera adjustments and tips
 - a specific trick on avoiding glare on the darkest areas of graphite drawings.



Editing


Once you have your photo or scan file you might notice that it doesn't accurately represent your artwork - maybe the contrast is too low, maybe the whole picture is too dark or the colors are off, or the edge of your table is showing. All of these problems are easy to fix in an image editor, be it Photoshop, GIMP, SAI, FireAlpaca among others. In the tutorials below you can find detailed instructions on some of the basic adjustments that you can do:
  • - cropping
  • - fixing distortions
  • - adjusting the brightness/contrast/values
  • - tweaking the colors
  • - cleaning up mistakes
  • - toning lineart

- a list of free photo editing software (doesn't include drawing software like FireAlpaca and PaintTool SAI)
- a series of tutorials by LateStarter63 detailing each step of editing the scan/photograph of a B&W pencil drawing from fixing distortions to fine-tuning values in GIMP.
- includes cropping, distortion correction, value and color adjustments, sharpening - demonstrated on a watercolor painting.
 - includes cropping, value adjustment, error clean-up, texture correction - demonstrated in FireAlpaca on a colored pencil drawing.
 - includes photographing tips, cropping, distortion correction, value, color and texture adjustments - demonstrated in Photoshop on an oil painting.
 - includes contrast, color and texture adjustments and lineart toning - demonstrated in Photoshop on a colored mixed media marker drawing.
 - includes line color/value adjustment, burn/dodge tool corrections, liquify filter corrections, digital toning, texture addition - demonstrated in Photoshop on a B&W comicbook page.
 - includes cropping, value and texture adjustments -  demonstrated in Photoshop on a B&W drawing.
- includes fixing distortions and cropping - demonstrated in Photoshop on a color painting.
 - includes cropping, fixing values, sharpening, adding a border - demonstrated on a B&W drawing.
 - includes cropping, use of dodge/burn tools, texture adjustment - demonstrated in GIMP on a watercolor painting.
 - includes value adjustment, burn/dodge tool and brush corrections - demonstrated on B&W drawing.
 - includes value adjustments and watermark addition - demonstrated in Photoshop on a B&W drawing.
- includes color correction - demonstrated in Photoshop on a colored pencil drawing
 - includes cropping and contrast correction - demonstrated in Paint Tool SAI on a B&W pencil drawing
 - includes value adjustments and toning - demonstrated in Photoshop on a B&W pencil drawing.
 - includes value adjustments and lineart toning - demonstrated in Photoshop on a B&W lineart drawing.
- includes demonstrations in Photoshop and Neat Image (free)
 


Youtube tutorials







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Yuukon's avatar
Yuukon
You've put together a great list dear! Thank you for doing that for PhotographyGuide :heart: