Whether you are creating your own website or being asked to submit your work to an artist's database or gallery, you are going to have to make a good quality reproduction of your artwork.
I first tried taking photographs of my paintings, and scanning in the prints. I found that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the painting absolutely straight. Also, although I tried different kinds of lighting, the color never seemed right.
I recently bought a new scanner, a Hewlett Packard ScanJet 5370C. To try it out, I decided to scan in one of my paintings directly. Of course, since each of my paintings is 16 inches x 20 inches, I scanned it in quarters. I then put it together in PhotoShop. This method worked so well that now I have used this method for all the paintings that are on my site.
The following is an exact description of this method:
Take the cover off the scanner
Place painting face down on scanner. I'm starting with the lower left hand corner of the painting. Note: Make sure to line up the edges of the painting with the edges of the scanner
Scan in the first quarter at 100%
Move the painting towards you so that the top left in now on the scanner surface
Scan second quarter at 100%
Rotate painting so that top edge is now facing you
Scan third quarter at 100%
Move painting backward so that top edge is now on scanner bed
Scan at 100%
The four quarters of the painting look like this:
Open each of the quarters of the painting in Photoshop
Reduce each of them to 25% (this gets rid of any patterns of the canvas, etc.):
Go to Image
Go to Image Size - the window will look like this (Note: Make sure that Constrain - Proportions box is checked:
Change inches to percentage by pressing the triangle next to the word inches
Change Width to read 25% (when the Proportions box is checked, both the width and height will be reduced by 25%
The Image Box now looks like this:
Press OK
Make each of the quarters 25%
You will notice that two of the quarters are upside down. Go to Image - Rotate - 180 degrees so that it will right side up
Now it is time to put your painting together
Go to Image - Canvas Size - Change the width to 5 inches and the height to 6 inches. This will give you enough room to assemble the painting
Next add 3 more layers to the image, one for each of the quarters
Make sure the Layers Palette is open
If it isn't, go to "Window - Palettes - Show Layers" to open it
Press the triangle until the menu pops out and choose New Layer
Using the Marquee tool, move the Bottom Left Side of the painting to the bottom left side of the screen
Copy each of the remaining quarters and paste it into its own layer in your assembled image file
You can now move around each of the quarters until they all match up with each other by selecting the layer that it is on and using the Move Tool (Hint: You can use the arrow keys to move each section by a very small amount
When you are happy that all the quarters line up, go back to the Layers Paletter and Press the triangle again. This time choose "Flatten Image" and your quarters will now be pasted together
At this point, you can handle this image like any others you have edited: you might need to trim it a little, sharpen it, adjust the colors, change the size to fit your web page, etc.
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