Preparing Digital Entries for Shows Post 1

Greetings CAG Members and Friends,

A few days ago, as I was cruising the internet I found an article about preparing digital images to enter shows.  Because this is a must nowadays for us artists, I will be running a series of posts to help teach us how to take digital photos of paintings,  then preparing the digital images  to be compliant with guidelines to enter shows.  This guide written for members of the Pastel Society of American was copied, with permission, from the author, Sallie Atkins of the Southeastern Pastel Society.  Sallie your work is greatly appreciated!  So artists, get ready to learn and have the ability to get your artwork into more shows!!!  I will be dividing Sallie's  information into 5 posts over the next few weeks. Check back often or sign up for emails and be sure not to miss out! 

Happy painting....

Gail Watford

Cheyenne Artists Guild Blog Editor

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FROM FINISHED ARTWORK TO CD

Preparing Digital Entries for Shows

Preface:

As painful as it might be for some of us working artists, we've got to face the fact that we're in the digital age -- slides are going away. Many juried exhibitions accept only digital entries! Pastel Society of America is making the transition from slides to digitals submitted on CDs. While we will accept slide entries into our 2010 exhibition, eventually we have to bite the bullet and go totally digital. To this end, we have prepared the following document, From Finished Artwork to CD, as a guideline for those making this daunting change. Each person's computer and its programs may be somewhat different. So in following these guidelines, you may have to hunt for a particular function. This document was designed by a pc user. 

PAINTING/CAMERA SETUP:

1. Painting flat against a wall.

2. No glass between painting & camera.

3. Digital camera on tripod.

4. Position camera pointed straight at center of painting. The line of “sight” of the camera should be a perpendicular to the canvas.

5. Lighting should be uniform on the surface of the painting and should not contribute a color. Indirect, but broad spectrum if possible. Camera flash is usually not a good idea because it is a point source. (One artist uses her studio ceiling lights which are 5000K florescent tubes evenly distributed in the room. Available at Lowe’s.)

DIGITAL CAMERA SETTING:

1. Quality setting at highest value.

2. Use white balance if you have it. (This is usually set with a white sheet of paper in the same position and lighting as the painting you are going to photograph.)

3. Automatic settings best for light, focus, etc.

4. Use timer to take the picture. (To avoid camera vibration from pushing shutter release.)

TRANSFER FROM CAMERA TO COMPUTER:

This is an individual process that will depend on what kind of camera, what “media” your camera saves the images on, what computer you have. Sometimes this is done with direct cable from camera to computer. At Office Depot, Staples, etc., you can find card readers that will read most camera media cards and plug into the USB ports on computers. (Make sure your computer has an available

USB port before you purchase such a reader.) Newer computers have built-in media card readers.,

ADJUSTMENT OF PICTURE FILE ON THE COMPUTER IF YOU ALREADY HAVE SOFTWARE:

If you already have software that will adjust pixels and resolution, and know how to use it, this is the best approach.

Adjust your image file to be 900 pixels on the longest side with a resolution of 300 dpi. (Software that you may already have: Photoshop; Photoshop Elements; two programs that may have come with Windows XP on your computer are Microsoft Photo Editor and Photo Impression 4.) An explanation on how to use Photoshop Elements follows later in this document.