Oil Paintings On Canvas | World of All Kinds of Art

Oil Paintings

November 26th, 2009 admin No comments

Oil Paintings
Oil paintings reproduced in print form, best quality?

I've tried many ways to copy my oil paintings into print form, with minor success. A format camera was suggested?

Some of my friends who are painters have asked me to photograph their paintings for the exact same reason you are wanting to photograph your paintings.
Because my friends are usually going to print really large, poster size and above I use a "large format" view camera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera using what is refered to as chrome or slide film. In particular I use Fujifilm Velvia 100 because of its fine grain and accurate color reproduction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvia. As for the format of the film I use, I use 4x5. When you are reproducing paintings you want to use a camera which yields the largest negative possible(there are cameras which make 8x10 negatives, but I don't have access to an 8x10), and use a camera which is able to correct for parralax which does come into play when you are photographing really large paintings.
Regarding the lighting, this really depends upon how textured the image is. However, in general what I do if the painting isn't overtextured with things like wax, and gobs of paint I use sort of a standard copystand technique except on a larger scale and horizontal with two equally balanced strobe lights fitted with large softboxes on either side of the painting http://www.marietta.edu/~mcshaffd/macro/copy.html. Like I had mentioned this technique works well if you don't have too much texture, but it your painiting does have a lot of texture then what you want to do is to move one of the lights in close and sort of strafe the edge of the painting so as to create shadows and deliniate the textures. Anyhow, I know this probably all sounds foreign but to be honest this is the only way I know to accurately reproduce a painting photographically. However, it really isn't all that hard to learn how to photograph your paintings, more than anything it is getting access to the equiptment, which if you live in a major metropolitain area is available for rent at large professional photo stores.