Selling Your Art

Upload your work and start selling to collectors as well as sharing with our community. We provide you access to collectors and art lovers around the world. You can sell original works and you will receive 75% of all profits on any work sold. We will promote your artwork and we will pay for the shipping and handling.

How To Take Great Photos Of Your Artwork

Follow our expert tips for presenting your art in the best possible way:

Getting Ready to Photograph your Artwork

You will need a Digital Camera.

  • Make sure your camera is fully charged and don’t forget the memory card.
  • Your camera should have a few basic settings:
    • Ability to select ISO (always use the lowest ISO setting. The higher the ISO number the grainier the image. Some recommend a setting of 200 ISO)
    • Good Auto Focus
    • Ability to adjust white balance – The type of light you’re shooting in may produce white light with slightly different color tints. The white balance setting make white objects appear white in your images.
    • The auto balance setting is the simplest option

To keep fixed your camera is essential to taking a good in-focus photograph of your artwork

  • The ideal way is to use a Tripod and you to make sure that your camera is aligned to your artwork
  • Make sure to have zero camera movement which in turn will result in the sharpest image possible

Setting the Scene to Photograph your Artwork

 

Positioning

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Pay attention to the way you position your work

  • Pay attention to the way you’re positioning your artwork.
  • Avoid shadows and messy framing, by making sure that the piece is level against the wall.
  • Whenever possible, you should fill the frame with your work, trying not to show any background.
  • When your artwork is non-rectangular or 3-D keep the background simple without distractions.
  • Frame the piece against a neutral color – white is the perfect background. Colorful backgrounds can alter the color of your piece by reflecting onto it.

 

 

 

 

 

Lighting

Lighting is extremely important when taking a high-quality photograph of your artwork. It can have an enormous impact on almost all aspects of the resulting image.

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An out of focus photo does not show a true representation of your work

  • Use bright, indirect natural lighting.
  • Natural light fluorescent bulbs can also be a good choice,
  • Avoid deep shadows and dappling effects.
  • Position the lights and the artwork carefully before taking the photo.
    • Make sure there are no shadows concealing parts of the piece, and that there are no problems with high contrast, which will give you an image with very dark or very light patches that will detract from the impression of the work itself.
  • Soften the glare and intensity by diffusing the light source.
  • Avoid direct sunlight; aside from the fact that it’s probably not good for your artwork, direct sunlight can create what are known as ‘hot spots’ on reflective surfaces.
  • Do not use a Flash – Flash can also create a reflective “Hot Spot”. It is extremely difficult to predict the full impact of using a flash, and you don’t want to risk highlighting the wrong areas of your images.
  • Avoid mixing light sources, as different style bulbs give off different colors.
  • If the work you are photographing is behind glass, it is best to take out of the glass. If you can’t you will need to angle the light and camera to minimize reflection and glare.
  • You can purchase professional lighting sets at most online retailers, which include light stands and umbrellas to reflect and soften the light.

 

Setting Up Your Camera to Photograph Your Artwork

  • Be sure to clean your lens. Having a speck of dust on the glass can mess with your camera’s automatic focus in the most annoying of ways.
  • The tripod should be set so that the camera is the same height as the center of your artwork.
  • If your work needs to be on a slant to stand up against the wall – tilt your camera to match the angle.
  • Set the zoom lens so that there is minimal distortion (For two-dimensional art wide angles distort the images).
    • Position the camera at some distance from the object, and then zoom in as necessary. This might not sound obvious, but it will give you far greater control over the images you can take and will help you maintain your own perspective.
    • You can try different levels of zoom for different shots. However, note that when your camera switches over from optical zoom to digital zoom, you may be risking the sharpness and overall quality of the image.
  • Set the ISO to  the lowest setting
  • Using the RAW setting of your camera. You can read more about the different options here, but essentially RAW will mean that you have all of the information saved, in as high a quality as possible. From there, you can work with the images and re-size them or make other changes, if necessary.
Very Good photo – closest to representing the actual work

Very Good photo – closest to representing the actual work

Photographing your Artwork

  • Make sure the camera is firmly attached to the tripod.
    • It doesn’t matter how steady your hand is, or how nicely the photos from your mobile phone come out, you need to ensure that the camera stays particularly steady if you want to get a really good photo of your work.
  • Use the timer so that the shot is taken shortly after you’ve pressed the button so that you won’t accidentally cause the camera to shake. 
  • The best way to ensure consistency throughout your portfolio is to take the photographs of each piece in the same photo-shoot. It may be tempting to snap your pics the minute each piece is complete, but when you aren’t taking each photo under the same conditions, you’ll find a noticeable inconsistency throughout. Similar exposure, contrast, lighting, and color correction means there’s less to distract the person leafing through your portfolio so that they can concentrate on the works themselves.
  • Take lots of shots – and choose the best
    • With digital photography, you can take many images without adding to the expense or even the difficulty of the session. It’s a good idea to take a lot of photographs so that you can choose the best ones later. You might have thought you got the perfect shot, but it could turn out to be overexposed, or perhaps a movement somehow ruined the image at just the wrong time. Don’t trust the preview on your camera’s screen – this preview is often too small to show some of the most important details.

Label Your Photographs

Make things easy for yourself; label each image clearly, consistently and with full detail while you still know all these things without having to think about it. Title, medium, dimensions and year are all pieces of information you’re likely to need to be attached to these images at some point, so if you include them in the image title or description now, you’ll save yourself time and effort later.

Now that you know how to take great photos of your artwork, you are ready to submit your Artwork at www.SaccoArt.com

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