Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
How to Straighten Photos of Art in Photoshop: Directions for DIY Artists
Once your digital photos of artwork are transfered onto your computer from your camera, you may need to straighten the shot in photoshop. Here's the time to adjust the brightness and contrast as well. To straighten the edges:
1. Open your document in Photoshop
2. Crop pretty close to the image - leaving a little room around all sides of the artwork (using the crop tool in the tool bar)
3. Edit/Select all
4. Using the "Skew tool" - Edit/ Transform/Skew - grab each corner to straighten your art - this works amazingly well for straight edged art, but can help with 3D art as well to get your image as close as possible to your original form
5. Keep adjusting each corner until you are satisfied, then select the crop tool again to crop as close as you can around your artwork - all done!
1. Open your document in Photoshop
2. Crop pretty close to the image - leaving a little room around all sides of the artwork (using the crop tool in the tool bar)
3. Edit/Select all
4. Using the "Skew tool" - Edit/ Transform/Skew - grab each corner to straighten your art - this works amazingly well for straight edged art, but can help with 3D art as well to get your image as close as possible to your original form
5. Keep adjusting each corner until you are satisfied, then select the crop tool again to crop as close as you can around your artwork - all done!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
How to Touchup Photos of Art in Photoshop: Directions for DIY Artists
After bringing your photo into Photoshop from your digital camera:
1. Decide if the photo needs the brightness (lightness) adjusted: look to your white background for reference - it should be white in the photo and and also check the digital image against your original piece of artwork.
2. If photo needs to be lighter, go to Image/adjustments/brightness and contrast and move the top knob to the right while keeping an eye on the image. Move it until your white background looks whitish, and your image looks close to the VALUE of your original. You may also have to move the brightness down a little if your image is overexposed, which should not be a problem as long as you don't take the photo in the glare of full sunlight.
3. Next decide if your image needs color adjustment.
4. Go to Image/Adjustment/Hue and Saturation in Photoshop. Play with the Hue if color is off while watching the preview of your photo. Usually the hue does not need any major changes, but possibly a little tweaking. Watch as the Hue of the entire photo changes from green to red and goes through the whole color spectrum to adjust the image. Again compare the photo to your original art.
5. Don't forget to save your image as you go!
That's usually all I need to do to the image to get what I need. The camera with the right outdoor light does most of the work for me.
Next post: how to skew and crop your image in Photoshop.
Friday, December 10, 2010
How To Take Digital Photos of Art: Directions for DIY Artists
Assuming you can get your hands on a decent digital camera, preferably one that has an automatic setting for light and focus, this post is going to give you basic instructions on how to photograph your work outside using natural mid-day light.
I work in a small to medium-sized format (4x4 to 36x48 inches), but the same principals apply for larger pieces.
1. Choose the best time to do your photography. 12- 1pm usually works best when the sun is highest in the sky (for your location and the time of year) to avoid glare and shadows on your work. Full sun is best, rather than a cloudy day, when you'd have to change the brightness later in Photoshop.
2. Create a white backdrop on a table or chair brought outside.
3. Prop your artwork up on the chair or on the table with something behind it to make it stand up vertically. You can also use the side of a building, attaching the white sheet or foam core to the wall. This method is useful for larger work.
4. Point the camera at the piece making sure to be level with the center. Line up the sides of the artwork in the viewfinder on the camera, making sure to get the art as close to the edges (as large as possible). It's usually difficult to get the piece to line up exactly right in the shot, so do your best and correct alignment later in Photoshop.
5. So here's what your set-up looks like, being careful to avoid any shadows from trees, buildings, etc:
I work in a small to medium-sized format (4x4 to 36x48 inches), but the same principals apply for larger pieces.
1. Choose the best time to do your photography. 12- 1pm usually works best when the sun is highest in the sky (for your location and the time of year) to avoid glare and shadows on your work. Full sun is best, rather than a cloudy day, when you'd have to change the brightness later in Photoshop.
2. Create a white backdrop on a table or chair brought outside.
3. Prop your artwork up on the chair or on the table with something behind it to make it stand up vertically. You can also use the side of a building, attaching the white sheet or foam core to the wall. This method is useful for larger work.
4. Point the camera at the piece making sure to be level with the center. Line up the sides of the artwork in the viewfinder on the camera, making sure to get the art as close to the edges (as large as possible). It's usually difficult to get the piece to line up exactly right in the shot, so do your best and correct alignment later in Photoshop.
5. So here's what your set-up looks like, being careful to avoid any shadows from trees, buildings, etc:
6. Here I used a cardboard box and 2 white garbage bags - works great for small pieces!
7. Load onto your computer and import into Photoshop to brighten photos using the white of the bags as a value marker.
Next post: how to adjust color and square up your image...
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
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