Transformation when put online - Help?

[Julie Deane]

Hi -

I have been trying to post pictures of my art on this site, and am not happy with the results. Maybe someone can guide me to do a better job.

I did all the color balancing on my image in Photoshop, got it to where I was happy with it, but when it posted, the darks got extremely dark. The lighter skin tones were okay.

At first I thought it was because I had not changed my colors while in JPEG format, so that when I saved the file as a JPEG, it would compress. Then I tried doing the whole color balancing on a JPEG , and it made no difference.

Is there anything I could do to make my colors more accurate? Does the fact that I have a low pixel digital have anything to do with this?

Thanks in advance for any "light" anyone can shed on this!

[Linda Brandon]

Julie, how do you go about shooting your paintings?

Play with different light, camera setups and locations when you do the shoot itself. Eventually you'll find one that works around your home with your camera and light conditions. Photoshop adjustments to photos of paintings seem to me to be akin to trying to desalinate your soup after you've added too much salt.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Does your camera have a white balance setting? Did you try taking different exposures? Did you save your image in the sRGB format which is the most appropriate for web.

Jpegs are a lossy file format. Every time you re-save a jpeg it loses data. Can you shoot in tif or raw format? Then you can do your corrections and convert to jpeg.

Is your monitor calibrated? This is an important consideration as well.

If you can get the correct white balance, this should go a long way to achieving better images.

[Julie Deane]

Thanks, Linda and Marvin -

I shot the last set of photos in full sunlight, which made the colors bright, but some of the colors were too bright and needed adjusting to match the way I view this painting indoors in cool light. When I tried to shoot it indoors in the same light, the colors that are there did not show up properly.

I have white balancing, and an added feature that allows several exposures to be taken at once with different white balance settings. It works like bracketing.

I shoot in RAW format. When I put it in Photoshop, a quirk in my camera's conversion program doesn't allow me to transfer directly - it freezes up my computer. So I go to another supplied program, turn the RAW file into a TIFF file and save it onto my computer. Then I can open it up in Photoshop and do my adjustments. I do use RGB.

My monitor has never been calibrated - maybe that is the culprit? And how do you go about calibrating it?

I also just noticed that my camera's file menu has a place where I can adjust the color saturation and contrast, so I may play with these two to see if I can match better without the need for Photoshop as much.

Do you think I could run tests here? I am thinking of shooting some standard color samples if I can find them, plus my gray card and gray scale.

[Mike McCarty]

http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=1899

Julie,

You might get some insight from the above thread started by Karen Wells (who I mis).

I think if you are going to photograph outside you should place your painting in the shade (under a patio roof)and not in direct sunlight.

[Julie Deane]

Hi Mike -

I've done that with film cameras and it has worked fine. But for some reason it didn't work to my satisfaction with the digital, which is why I tried full sunlight. But I will try it again. It might have been a cloudy day with less light. The only place I have available to me at my home is an area under heavy shade.

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

I have somewhat the opposite problem in that when the picture looks right on my monitor, saving it as a jpeg for the web seems to wash it out. This occurs whether it's a perfectly balanced photo from my Nikon 35 mm that I've scanned in or a digital photo that I have to doctor in Photoshop. For me, shooting paintings outdoors with my Canon G2, or even in too much light in the studio, means that I'll have a sort of pebbled, light and dark checkering look on the canvas where the illumination was slightly brighter. To avoid that I have to shoot those indoors in quite even, rather dull light and then massage them on the computer.

A photographer suggested that I not choose "Save for Web" but simply change the resolution of the image to 72 pixels per inch and upload the picture that way. It does seem to result in truer color. I don't know whether that helps.

[Julie Deane]

Thanks Leslie -

I had a much higher pixels per inch ratio - I'll try your suggestions and see if they help.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Julie,

We had a professional photographer in our home today taking photos of our kids so I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about lighting. I was having trouble getting what I considered 'true' or real color with my digital camera. The first thing he suggested was that I use my 'white balancing'. I had no idea what that was or even if my camera had it.

Well, my camera has it. It might help you, my manual says "when the white balance mode is set to match the light source, the camera can reproduce colors more accurately." That sounds good,doesn't it?

I wish I could tell you more about it and/or if it'll really help, but that might be something for you to experiment with.

Good luck,

Joan

[Julie Deane]

Hi Joan -

I'm still learning my camera too. I just checked my manual - and - by golly, besides the automatic setting for white balance, which is what I guess I have been using, it has settings for daylight, cloudy, tungsten, flourescent, flash and custom. I had no idea!

Thanks!