Digital Abracadabra: Posting Your Art on the Web

[scottb]

Hope you guys enjoy this article... Just a quick tutorial on some of the techniques I've used in photographing my art, and then using the computer to clean up the images to add some "pop" to those dark and blurry photos...
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles/Scott_Burkett/105

Cheers.
Scott


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B. Scott Burkett
Founder, WetCanvas!
http://www.scottburkett.com

[tammy]

Thanks for the article Scott. The only problem I usually have is actually taking a decent photo of my paintings. I'm hoping that your suggestions in that regard will help me.

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Don't worry, its gonna be all right....
Tammy's Home for Artists

[ArtyHelen]

Scott! You are an angel!
Thanx so much for that!
(That is some camera you've got!!)

Helen

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http://pencilartist.50megs.com

[Reye]

Really a good article Scott. I have a 8 1/2 x 14 in. scanner and, although cannot get an entire painting onto it, generally I can get most of it for showing to someone over the net....that is for paintings to about 11x15. But where I work we have a large format scanner so I can use that in the off hours. One of the features of PaintShop Pro (software which I use) is the ability to rotate the image along with cropping, which is nice. I think most programs have that as well.
I still see some shows require slides but that will surely go away in the near future. Thanks for a great article .
Jerry

[pixelscapes]

Great article, Scott!

The rotate tool can definitely be a big help, as previously mentioned. I have one suggestion to add, though -- when you talk about how important it is to "square off" with your images, I wanted to mention that Photoshop has a tool that can help you make non-square images square: use "distort".

Since it's a bit tough to explain, I stole... er, APPROPRIATED a photo from the article and used it to illustrate, here: http://www.pixelscapes.com/tutorials/parallax/

(Scott, if you mind me posting it like that, just let me know and I'll use one of my own images instead! I just used yours because it was convenient, really.)

Make sense?

-=- Jen "Photoshopper" de la Cruz

[scottb]

Good info, Jen!

One thing to keep in mind though, if you are using Jen's rotation tips - if you have to rotate too much to get a good square alignment, you may end up actually distorting the content of your art. Same for distorting. Experimentation is the key!

BTW, Jen, did you see my thread on Chuck Roberts? :-)

Cheers.
Scott

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B. Scott Burkett
Founder, WetCanvas!
http://www.scottburkett.com

[pixelscapes]

Huh... The way I was figuring it, if you remove the perspective effect (via the distort technique), and assuming it was rectangular artwork to start with... the end result /wouldn't/ be distorted(?). Of course, I could be wrong.

Also of course if you don't have a really high res photo, the stretched-out area may actually look wrong due to a lack of data for the in between points... (or maybe that's what Scott was talking about and I'm just confused).

Anyway! No, I didn't see a thread on Chuck Roberts. Please point me in the right direction?

-=- Jen "Thanks again for the article" de la Cruz

[scottb]

From Photoshop Help (6.0), under "2D Transformations", which covers scaling, rotating, skewing, etc.:

Pixels are added or deleted during transformations. To calculate the color values of these pixels, Photoshop and
ImageReady use the interpolation method selected in the General Preferences dialog box. This option directly affects the
speed and quality of the transformation. Bicubic interpolation, the default, is slowest but yields the best results. (See
Choosing an interpolation method.)

So, be careful. If you are manipulating a high resolution image, these tools have more pixels to work with, and can interpolate accordingly. If you are rotating a lower resolution image, experimentation will be key.

Jen - the thread for Chuck Roberts is here in Digital Art ("Welcome, Chuck Roberts!")...

Cheers.
Scott

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B. Scott Burkett
Founder, WetCanvas!
http://www.scottburkett.com

"Old tankers never die, they just lose track..."

[Reye]

Another point on rotating too much...depending on your memory...when doing a lot of rotating, you may get a nasty message on the screen telling you that you are "dangerously low on virtual memory"...or something like that. Do not worry, nothing will happen, but you may have to do a warm boot and start over. Rotation takes lots of memory because every pixel is moving and, as Scott points out, the higher the resolution of the image, the more pixels are involved.
This hopefully is not redundant to other notes.
Jerry

[scottb]

To clarify the error that Reye pointed out: The image editing program you have may be buggy (check your vendor's web site to see if there is a newer release). Also, if your computer doesn't have much memory to begin with, you can get this error with all sorts of operations. Image editing can be pretty memory intensive, depending upon the size of the images you are working with.

Cheers.
Scott

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B. Scott Burkett
Founder, WetCanvas!
http://www.scottburkett.com

"Old tankers never die, they just lose track..."

[xvallarta]

Scott:

I am anxious to get a digital camera but I hate to "overbuy." My main uses will be to take pictures for the following reasons.

1)Post my art to wetcanvas
2)Post my art to internet galleries
3)Snapshots to send to relatives/friends.

now here is the biggy:

4)Take pictures that can be converted to slides to send to contests that don't take email submittals.

Second Question:

Do you know of any contests that are now taking email submittals and if so what format is required/desired?


Please post a reply also to my email at exvallarta@cox.net

Thanks

Myles

[rigadon]

Rigadon says...I use a large BLACK felt,42x42 inches ant I tack it up on a panel the same size. Then as is mentioned,the whole thing is placed outside in a shaded spot.Then two small "C" clamps are placed in position holding a strip of wood one inch square to act as a shelf to hold the paintings.Oh yes, paint the wood BLACK. Then set up the camera on a trypod and SHOOT.

[rigadon]

Posting your art on the web!!!!!! How the stink do I do it?

[Bars]

Greatly appreciate your article, as I am totally new to all this Bars

[Rob Hendriks]

Thanks for the info!
Rob


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