How to Photograph your Art for Print On-Demand

Setting up your space   

When photographing art, you’ll need to ensure you get a clean space with even white but natural lighting for the best results. Some people photograph outdoors, but interiors can also meet ideal conditions with some modifications.  

Ideally, you’ll want to avoid any harsh lighting that can create glares or bright reflections on the surface of your art. You can get special equipment and lights, (such as soft box lights or shoot through umbrellas) to help diffuse the lights but you can also use a simple white sheet to cover stronger bulbs. Another option is to use a simple piece of white foam core as a ‘bounce board’ if you find your lighting uneven around your piece.  

Natural light is also going to be around 4,000 – 4,500K (kelvin), while anything lower will begin to be a more yellow and anything higher will appear bluer. Some lights, such as ring lights, have multiple settings that let you cycle through different settings, so be sure to double check them before you begin. 

Photographing

For best results, set your camera or phone on a tripod and angle the lens at the artwork as straight on as you can manage. Next, if you’re shooting digital, shoot at the highest resolution that your technology can manage. Digital zooming can distort an image, so be sure to place the camera the appropriate distance away from your work so that it takes up as much space in the view finder as possible.  

While it is possible to do this with a phone, a professional camera will always be better at capturing details.  

Scanning 

If you’re working with a flat piece, and you have access to a large enough scanning bed, scanning is a good option as well. Again, make sure to capture the highest resolution that you can. This may be a hard option to work with if you have work that is highly textured or has a glossy finish. These can work against you as the texture could compress against the glass in the scanner, or the light from the scanning bed can reflect on the glossy surface.  

Editing and Uploading

The easiest aspect to overlook is editing. Mostly you want to focus on making sure your photo is cropped to an appropriate size with a ratio that matches your desired print, and you can usually find sizes available on the printing service website.  

For example, if you have a painting that is on an 11x17 canvas, you’ll want to select the same size for your print or something that scales up or down proportionately. You can use a tool, usually available for free, like a ‘scale conversion calculator’ to help you. While it doesn’t have to be exact, the more inconsistent in terms of ratio your image is compared to the final print size, the more will need to be cropped down for the best look. 

You’ll also want to pay attention to DPI, which stands for “dots per inch” which indicates the resolution of your image. Usually, 300DPI is the standard for most prints, but the best information will be found on the print on-demand website you’re using.  

Other things to consider when editing are any distortions from the camera, as well as exposure and contrast. Most photo editing programs, like photoshop, have these adjustment options available in their menus. 

Lastly, consider if your print is going to be under a matte, in a frame or printed on canvas and wrapped around stretcher bars. All options will require different measurements and specifications that are dependent on what the final physical options are. For example, if you choose canvas on bars, part of the image will be on the ‘wrapped’ section of the bars. Which means you’ll need to account for the depth of the bars and expect your image to bend around that. Or you could add an additional border that keeps your image from being wrapped at all. The best place to check is with the manufacturer’s website, and they will likely have specific guidelines for each type of print or product they offer.