Roses: photographing artwork and problems photographing coloured pencil work
Blowsy Rose, mixed media, approx 11x9 ins, Vivien Blackburn
I find work in coloured pencil very hard to photograph or scan. The subtle paler marks tend to look faded and the white paper glares a bit too much. I don't like to burnish as I like the marks left, though I realise that would solve the problem.
I find that putting a folded paper tissue over the flashgun, if using flash, definitely helps with photographing any work. Often the results using this are better than I get with natural light.
This one is a mixed media piece with some watercolour underpainting with cp over. This, I find easier to photograph and actually prefer to work this way.
The top layer below shows the untouched photograph using flash, with next to it, the image adjusted in photoshop to match the original as closely as possible.
The second row shows the natural light photograph and its adjusted image.
The one in the top row is closer and has, in my opinion, made a better job of picking up the colours in this case.
flash vs natural light comparisonI adjusted it using Levels - tweaking the dark/midtones/light. Then I adjusted the colour balance, tipping the lights and the midtones a little yellower and the darks a little bluer and greener. This brought it very close to the original.
Sometimes I find it works better to duplicate the layer and multiply it, altering the percentage until it looks right. Then it may need brightness and contrast and colour balance adjusting a little.
Next decision - to crop as below or to leave the ragged edges - as at the top? what do you think?
Meanwhile ..... please keep work coming in for the tree challenge - a post linking to all participants at the end of the month :>)
................ and Jeanette has a rock challenge starting up - take a look and join in?
and Katherine has a very good post about adjusting for those using Elements here
Comments
Interesting to see the comparison of photograph techniques. I often have problems with the colours in my photographs so will try playing around with the levels in photoshop.
Some of my cp work photographs quite well and then other times not so well. I do wish the subtle nuances of colour were more obvious but then again considering I compress my images, I guess that is expecting a lot. I imagine painters showing large oil paintings with gorgeous brush strokes suffer from the same frustration. Getting something to look as good on a blog as it does in life is probably an ongoing struggle. :-)
:)
annie
And the trees? Still getting there, but suddenly realised I need to do more prints for next month. I'll get something on my blog by end of month.
it seems to be the uncropped version winning :>)
I appreciate your demo of the adjustments you made, Vivien. I had a very frustrating time recently trying to get true colours and white paper, even though I've been photographing my work, and been reasonable happy with the results for the past 4 years. I'm starting to think it's a problem with my monitor. That could be why I think your No4 example looks best.
Also just noticed I can't read all the text in your banner - have you changed the text colour recently?
Your rose is gorgeous :)