Move the phone until just one yellow cross shows – you’re now level – the same plane as the floor Then, when you’re looking down on an image, two crosses will appear in the centre of your phone display You have to go into your settings to find the Grid function and the steps below are for an iPhone, (but most smartphones will have a similar function) If you’ve laid your painting on the floor and you’re shooting down on top of it, there’s built-in help on an iPhone to make sure you’re aligned. In this example, the canvas has been propped against a wall at an angle and then photographed from a different angle. If you have two angles out, it can distort the edges quite dramatically. The key is making sure the angle of your painting and the angle of your phone are the same. It could create an elongated face in a portrait or short legs or arms on a figurative piece. When your painting looks out of perspective, it takes away all the hard work you’ve put into creating an accurate drawing or painting to start with. This means you can handhold your phone without using a tripod, and there won’t be any camera shake or blur. Natural light is so much brighter in illuminance than your household bulbs it enables the camera to use a fast shutter speed automatically.
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Pro tip: Remember the small sensor in your smartphone camera? For this to work properly, the light shining on the surface in the first place needs to consist of all the visible wavelengths. Photographing your painting under low colour rendering household bulbs indoors, will prevent the camera from capturing all the different colours in your picture.Ĭolour is caused by the absorption of certain wavelengths of light by a surface, and the reflection of others.
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If the light that is shining on the surface doesn’t contain allof the visible colours (full spectrum) they can’t be reflected, so your camera won’t be able to record them.ĭaylight is called full spectrum lighting because it contains all the different coloured wavelengths some artificial lights have missing colours and ‘spikes’ in the spectrum. The daylight is being diffused by a window blind in this example (yay Ikea!) Why natural light?Ĭolour is created on a surface by specific wavelengths being absorbed and others being reflected. If you paint with texture and want to show depth and brush marks, the side light coming in from the door/window is called a raking lightand will enhance the details.Īlternatively, you can place your painting flat on a table next to a window and hold your phone above. Here is the final cropped version of my photograph, notice how the colours look pretty accurate, the entire painting is evenly lit and you can clearly see the impasto marks This is my view when I’m standing over the painting and holding the phone directly above it Placing your painting on the floor by an open door will give you good illumination, even on a rainy day!
Turn off all the other lights in the room and position your canvas roughly 60 cm away from the bottom of the door frame, stand directly over it to take your shot. Or lay your canvas on the floor inside, next to an open door, this will be your light source.
You can either hang your canvas on a wall outside, preferably not in the glare of direct sunlight to avoid any reflection and hold your phone level and shoot. Taking your painting off the easel away from standard household lamps and placing it in natural daylight will make the biggest difference to almost every aspect of the photography process but primarily colour accuracy. The most straightforward fix if you’ve been taking your photographs indoors, is to move towards the light. I appreciate how frustrating it can be to spend all your time on your painting and then when you want to share your work, the colours look off, or too dark, the image is slightly blurry or distorted. Photo taken indoors with the lights on in comparison to natural daylight Issue #1: The colours don’t look accurate Photographing with your phone in natural light There are two main approaches, natural light or artificial light, depending on what lighting conditions you have available to take your photos in. I’ve put together a guide below which addresses some of the most common issues and the simplest way to fix them. The larger the sensor, the bigger the surface area available to capture light on, so to get the best out of your phone and get great exposure on your shots, you need to follow a few easy steps.
I see a lot of fantastic success stories from the tutorials on the blog and one of the most common footnotes is, “‘my painting looks better in real life than it does in the photo.”ĩ0% of them are taken on a phone or iPad and over the last couple of years, I’ve found smartphone cameras are getting better and better, as long as you bear in mind their sensor size.Ī traditional camera has got a much larger sensor, in comparison to a smartphone.