How to Photograph Artwork, Part 2: How to Set Up a Home Studio & Shoot Your Artwork

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Күн бұрын

How to photograph your artwork at home to a professional standard using a 2 light set-up. A video in 3 parts. Updates below
Part 2:
How to set up your camera, including focus and exposure
How to set up a photography studio in your home using 2 lights
How to use cross polarisation to remove glare from oil paintings
Parts 1 and 3:
Part 1: • How to Photograph Artw...
Part 3: • How to Photograph Artw...
UPDATE
As per update in Part 1 - if your work is sculptural, you should consider getting softboxes or translucent umbrellas to soften the shadows.
You can use an iPad to monitor your shots using Canon Camera Connect. It’s not as good as using tethered capture on a monitor though, because you’re viewing a jpeg, not a raw file, on an uncalibrated screen.
Whilst you can adjust the colours in post when shooting raw, it’s still good practice to use lights with a good CRI rating and to correct your white balance at the start.
Move your lights as far back as you can, in order to light your piece as evenly as possible - light falloff reduces with distance.
Make sure to remove the reflector, if your light has one, otherwise it won’t light your piece evenly.
I was wrong to say that phone camera don't produce bokeh - they do, just not very much.
There are so many great resources for learning about the technical aspects of photography - never stop learning! Adorama TV is a good place to start, especially for lighting (link below),
Links:
The Exposure Triangle: photographylife.com/what-is-e...
Adorama TV: / adoramatv

Пікірлер: 63

@JaimeHaney 3 жыл бұрын

This is the best explanation of how to do photograph my art than any I've run across. Very well done. I feel like I actually can do this, I usually glaze over when talking f-stops, ISO etc. Thank you for an excellent and easy to understand video Will Bailey!

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Jaime, I really appreciate that! 😊🙏

@zedascouve2 3 жыл бұрын

I appreciate very much, Bailey, for the thorough and comprehensive explanation. How much knowledge you have!

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Ah, thank you! 😊🙏

@stephaniepaints 3 жыл бұрын

These videos are fantastic. Thank you SO much. I have trouble focusing on small technical details, so putting it in a step by step format like you have is so helpful. I am so glad I stumbled upon your channel!

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Stephanie! 🙏😊

@jeffreylbfd 5 ай бұрын

Great video! Just what I needed needed to learn.

@fneeee 2 жыл бұрын

Again, EXACTLY what I needed, extremely helpful! Thank you for this.

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thanks! 😊

@peressinichristina Жыл бұрын

Fantastic explanation. Thank you for this!

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thank you! 😊

@nicklambvideo 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the advice - much appreciated!

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

😊🙏👍

@no_name4aday 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for explaining this in a clear way it is helpful 😊 👍

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! 😊🙏

@Ian-mq6bg Жыл бұрын

Excellent! Thorough! Many thanks

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thanks! ☺

@milktoastgregg 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for this. My wife does oil paintings and I used to shoot professionally. I've been wanting to do her copy work for her for a while now and I believe this will finally put me in the right direction!

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

Ah, thanks Alfred! Good luck! 😊

@bennydsa2292 4 ай бұрын

Thankyou very useful

@carmenbootArt Жыл бұрын

Amazing video😮🎉❤. Thank you very much. You give away so many good information. Your way of explaining is greatly appreciated, perfect timing, lots of valuable tips. Great 😊. Thank you again. Greetings from Holland.

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thank you!! 🙂

@Michael-NZ 7 ай бұрын

really excellent, learn't a lot

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thanks! ☺

@garyrowe58 8 ай бұрын

I use two flashes/speedlights for this, and have cut up a small sheet of polarising screen into the 2 pieces for the lights - each only needs a couple of inches of screen, taped to the head of each flash. Where the work has a reflective material like gold foil in it, try adjusting the polarising fliter on the lens to still allow some reflections ... and to allow some specular highlights to exist, if they picture is textured.

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Thanks Gary! I also do that now, having upgraded to Godox AD200 Pros, but my previous speedlights weren't powerful enough to get correct exposure at the optimum aperture. Good idea with adjusting the filter to allow some reflections from gold leaf - this will be painting-specific though I think. With some work, ugly glare will creep into the rest of the image. Shooting them separately and combining in post takes longer but gives you more control. I'm still perfecting my process for shooting gold tbh.

@allandiaz2830 3 жыл бұрын

👌👌👌

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

😀🙏

@carolinecoyner 4 ай бұрын

Hi! Could you share the name of the polarizing sheets you use? Many thanks!

@txlcdg 3 жыл бұрын

I have that Keller auditorium poster! hahaha

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Love that poster 😁

@miltk8922 2 жыл бұрын

i've been doing what will does for years. i was amazed at how many "pros" didn't know how to shoot oil paintings without glare. someone finally told me about using plane and circular polarizers ... will,,,i would like to ask. polarizers saturate color and boost contrast. what do you do to allow for this? i lower contrast and do a "-10" on saturation.

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Milt! I don’t use the contrast slider tbh, I prefer to control contrast using the tone sliders. I don’t use any kind of formula, but treat each piece completely separately - I place the piece, properly lit by my SL60Ws, next to my calibrated monitor and make adjustments until I get it as accurate as possible to the original. 😊

@user-hr6hi2pu7v 3 жыл бұрын

Will, great videos! If I am shooting pen and ink art, which is all black and white, do you think shooting in RAW is still a better choice than JPEG?

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! If you want to improve your photography skills, give yourself the most flexibility and get the best possible image quality out of your camera, then definitely shoot in raw, whichever type of photograph you’re doing. Personally my EOSR is always set to raw, fully manual. The only reason to shoot jpeg really is to save time (and I guess hard drive space), in which case it’s important to get the settings (white balance, colour profile etc) correct in camera first. As long as you do set up everything correctly first, jpegs can look fine - just not as good as raw.

@miltk8922 2 жыл бұрын

if you want to get dead center on the artwork, get a small mirror, like an 8x8 and anchor it flat to the wall. if you think you are centered, look though your camera to the mirror. if you see your camera in the reflection you are dead straight. it's a picky thing because most image editors have a perspective function that realigns your photo

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

Nice tip, thanks Milt! 😊

@FatihahK 3 жыл бұрын

can you explain more about the polarization? can i use LCD polarizing film for the lighting? how many degree angle should i choose for the polarized sheet?

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Sure thing. You need a polarising filter to screw on to the end of your camera lens. A linear filter works best. You can use a circular filter, but it just eliminates most glare, rather than all glare. In conjunction with this you need a sheet of linear polarising film to go in front of your lights. There’s a link to what I mean at the bottom of the description on the first video. Remove all incidental light (I always shoot at night) and find a way to secure the film in front of your lights (this will vary depending on your lights - if they're hot lights, you can't put it too close). Also make sure the linear direction of the sheets are the same on both - this will be obvious if you cut them from the same sheet, but you can also test it looking at a light through them and turning them as I do in the video. That's it. Turn the filter on your camera lens to see the amazing effect!

@FatihahK 3 жыл бұрын

@@WillJBailey thank you so much for your videos. it is very well presented to a beginner like me :)

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

@@FatihahK 🙏😊👍

@_rhapsodist Жыл бұрын

What's the reason I cannot use a circular polarizer only on the lens, will that be not the same result when trying to get rid of glare?

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Hey. For cross polarisation you need to use a filter on the lens and on the lights, because physics! 😊

@83jarm 8 ай бұрын

Does the polar filter need to say linear on the description before I purchase?

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Hey. I've tested linear and circular filters since making this video. Linear gives *slightly* better results, but not by much, and linear ones are increasingly hard to find. I use a circular filter for my work now.

@queenbeaver 3 жыл бұрын

If I have 2 strobes do you recommend lights modifiers like standard reflectors or soft boxes? Thanks!

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Rexy, that's a really good question, and something I should have addressed in the video. For photographing heavily impasto painting, modifiers could be useful to soften any potential shadows. For normal/flat pieces, the softness of the light isn’t really an issue. It could potentially have an effect on the way metal leaf reflects, and this is something I plan to experiment with and report back on, but I’ve photographed several gilded pieces with hard light, which you can see on my website, and I think they look good. There is an argument for using modifiers to make the light source bigger, as light travelling to the edges of the piece has to travel fractionally further from a smaller source. However I haven't been using modifiers so far, and as you can see in Part 3, the light is evenly distributed (the slight shadow at the bottom was caused by the paper curving). So as long as you can move the lights far enough back, and the piece isn't massive (mine is 50x70cm), I think you can do without modifiers. That said, whilst I haven’t actually photographed any really big pieces (I’m limited by my studio size), theoretically I think modifiers could be a good idea if you work really big, and in which case rectangular softboxes would be a better choice than umbrellas, though they are of course more expensive.

@queenbeaver 3 жыл бұрын

@@WillJBailey Thank that makes sense. I paint with acrylic with a light impasto so I will see how it goes without before purchasing a modifier. This is a such an amazing series you put together with specific advice. I felt so overwhelmed before watching and now I feel like I can put steps into place and start to gather equipment. Much appreciation.

@WillJBailey 3 жыл бұрын

@@queenbeaver Thanks, I really appreciate that! Good luck! 😊🙏

@ianbailey2785 2 жыл бұрын

Hi Will - I am photographing larger glossy acrylic paintings. Do I need to find larger linear polarizing sheets for my Neewer 24x24 softbox lights? Do you also encourage using light meters?

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

Hi Ian. You only really need to use softboxes to control shadow, so unless your paintings are so impasto that shadow is an issue, for flat reproduction you can just use bare lights and place your polarising sheets in front of them (combined with a linear polarising filter over the lens). For larger pieces you just need to move your lights back far enough to control light falloff between the centre and the top. Softboxes can theoretically help with this too, of course, if you're shooting in a tiny space, but personally I haven't found this necessary in practice - I mainly use mine for photographing prints in frames and other product shots.

@ianbailey2785 2 жыл бұрын

@@WillJBailey A number of my pieces are impasto. So that I can better understand: Will the softboxes alone handle both shadows and highlights caused by impasto+glossy acrylic?

@WillJBailey 2 жыл бұрын

@@ianbailey2785 Hi Ian. The function of softboxes is to shape light and soften shadow (ie so shadows don't have a hard edge, but are soft and gradual). So you only really need them for art reproduction if your work involves shadows, otherwise you can just use bare lights. They might help a bit with reflection, but cross-polarisation is by far the best way to eliminate that, and it works best without them. If you paintings are glossy I would recommend trying cross polarisation first - buy filter sheet/s, place it directly in front of your both of your bare lights, combined with a circular polarising filter on your lens - as per the video. Get the lights back as far as you can. Turn the filter and watch the reflection disappear. Softboxes are amazing - I use mine all the time for product shots, for example when shooting a framed piece in a room. I'm going to make a follow-up video on all of this soon 😊

@languageweb2432 Жыл бұрын

It would be really helpful if you could showcase your content. Very complex to follow so much spoken content.

@jennifertate4397 Жыл бұрын

Where do I purchase oversized fiber board, 37"x37" +? Is it heavy?

@WillJBailey 6 ай бұрын

Oh, I'm not sure, sorry!

@jennifertate4397 Жыл бұрын

Hello. A lot of my major work is done on paper of varying thicknesses. What method do you recommend for mounting them level and straight for photographing? Also, my works which are abstract mechanical drawings, have only between 2 and 4 colors, and I'll be able to get a desktop computer, Photoshop and Lightroom later (I won't be making pristine reproductions at this point), so I think I can use one of the higher-end free editing software packages like RawTherapee to basically crop, color-correct, resize, and do a few other basic edits for now, for one of my websites. Will taking the best raw photos that I can, be the key to getting the most out of the aforementioned free software? And maybe I missed it: how far apart should the lights be from each other--I'm going to use the same Godox lamps that you have? Thanks.📷 And your painting with the Cervidae (?) creature and human/rabbit is awesome. I found it striking from the moment I first saw it.

@WillJBailey Жыл бұрын

Hi Jennifer. Yes, getting paper-based work to lie completely flat for photographing can be a challenge. Ideally you’d use spray mount on the rear and stick it to a board, but this not suitable for original work and will write off a print. Putting it behind glass is not advisable. In the video I use low-tack painter’s tape onto a board or wall - this isn’t perfect but usually it’s good enough. You need to be very careful when removing it though - even then, on certain types of paper (Hahnemuhle Photorag for example) it will still leave a mark, so definitely do tests. Software-wise, I’m not familiar with RawTherapee, so can’t comment. But consider getting Affinity Photo - I think I was a bit unfairly dismissive of it in the video - other people rate it, it’s only £50 and should do everything you need. I’m going to do a follow up soon, so stay tuned for that. Good luck.

@jennifertate4397 Жыл бұрын

@@WillJBailey Thank you.🙂

@jennifertate4397 Жыл бұрын

@@WillJBailey Hi Will. I've invested in the SL60Ws and the ball head tripod you recommended!😊So I'm going to experiment by cutting four long very black thick sheets of paper or museum board, laying and adjusting them slightly over the edges of each drawing. On my website I will of course give the exact dimensions.📷

@WillJBailey Жыл бұрын

@@jennifertate4397 Awesome - the SL60Ws and tripod are both brilliant - I use mine almost every day. Good luck! 😊

@zubek59 2 ай бұрын

I know this technique, but polarization won't cope with shiny frames. The framework is the biggest problem. Polarization changes color, e.g. the gold frame turns orange and the silver frame turns blue.