 BetterPhoto Member |
how to take photos of children's paintings I want to know: how to take photos of children's paintings? Background: To encourage students to draw and participate in local & international environment painting contests. We at Future Scientists Clubs established new programs called "Arts for Science" and "Arts for Earth" Founded by two of our members Hashim & Ghadeer Al-Awami. A call for schools and youth groups has been issued to participate on the For this purpose, we need to take photos of children's paintings. Best regards,
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Robert E. Gaughan |
if they are daring on 8.5 x 11 inch paper.. I would suggest scanning them into a computer.. if they are larger, I suggest lighting them to where there is no hot spot ( too mich light in on area of the art ) and then place them vrtical on a esal and take a photo with out flash, but set the WB to what ever light soure you are useing. That is what I would try doing my self. Good luck
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Alan N. Marcus |
Hi Muneer, Your best bet would be to place size limitations on the kids. As suggested, a computer with flatbed scanner would be ideal. The limitation as to maximum size accepted will be the maximum that the scanner will accommodate. Suggested is A4 210x297mm or US standard 8.5x11 inches. Combine this with a good graphic editor and you’re on your way. If you can’t enforce size limitations, you will need a copy setup. Such units are commercially available and consist of baseboard, camera mount and lights. In this setup the camera is mounted on a column at one end of the baseboard, the mount allows easy camera height adjustment with the ability to center the camera over the work. The copy stand provides uniform illumination, most likely using tungsten photo flood lamps set at a 45° to the baseboard. Some have polarizing filters mounted over the lamps for glare suppression. Don’t under estimate the value of a good copy stand if you are to make lots of copies. Besides the stand, you will need a scheme to hold the artwork flat. This can be a challenging. The tried and true method is a cover glass. This works but you must carefully position lights to avoid reflection. Best is a vacuum easel. This is a flat hollow box that sits on top of the baseboard. The top surface is perforated with many small holes. A fan exhausts the box and the perforations become input points for make-up air. The net result, artwork placed on the easel will be held flat and undamaged. I think this project will be benefited by a commercially available vacuum easel or a handy person can make one out of plywood and a small cooling fan. Working on a shoestring budget, you can mount a digital with zoom macro on a tripod, looking down at the floor. Art work is placed on the floor between the tripod legs. Lighting is supplied using simple hardware store pin-up lamps with 150 watt flood lamps. Art supply house sell tacky board and/or glue like substance that you smear on a easel to temporally hold artwork flat without damaging. Camera to have a white balance adjustment to accommodate the tungsten illuminate (most all do). Most digitals sport a zoom with micro mode thus they are well suited for copy duties. A polarizing screen (filter) mounted on the camera would be helpful to counter glare and reflections. This may be a little challenging but worth the extra effort.
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John H. Siskin |
Hi Mureer, I put this article on BetterPhoto about copying artwork: http://www.betterphoto.com/article.php?id=170. But the previous posters are right if you want to limit the artistic work of the kids you can make doing the copy work much easier. In addition to keeping the size to something you can scan if you work with watercolor the final images will generally be flat, as in non-reflective and flat as in not bumpy. Both of these conditions make scanning and copying with a camera easier. A couple of other things, this would probably be easier to do as a batch, all at one time. It will also be easier if you group by size. Finally you can do copy work in open shade, the lighting works wee. The color doesn’t work so well, best to do a custom color balance. Thanks, John
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