Photographing artwork

[Rider]

I am looking for advice on photograhing artwork.

It's mostly flat artwork (drawings and paintings), although it includes some fabrics.

What kind of lighting should I use? Will two lights do, or are 4 necessary? Diffuser boxes or umbrellas? From what distance, and what focal length?

Should I treat oil paintings as flat or textured? Do photos of oil paintings typically use flat lighting, or do you try to throw a bit of a shadow?

I do not have a budget at the moment. If the equipment ends up being too expensive, I will rent. So please advise me without (much) consideration of cost.

Thank you!

[Greg Lockrey]

I am looking for advice on photograhing artwork.

It's mostly flat artwork (drawings and paintings), although it includes some fabrics.

What kind of lighting should I use? Will two lights do, or are 4 necessary? Diffuser boxes or umbrellas? From what distance, and what focal length?

Should I treat oil paintings as flat or textured? Do photos of oil paintings typically use flat lighting, or do you try to throw a bit of a shadow?

I do not have a budget at the moment. If the equipment ends up being too expensive, I will rent. So please advise me without (much) consideration of cost.

Thank you!

A good place to start is to use quartz halogen type lights at 3200 degree kelvin. I can't prove it, but the wavelength of light seems to work the best both with tungsten film and digital capture. I use Lowel Totas 750 watt. Depending on the size of the work two on each side will do a decent job of covering the artwork. One on each side will work if you move them far enough out, but then you'll need more exposure time. Also with the Lowels, have a set of polarizing filters in front of the lamps far enough away as not to burn them. I use a brand made by Roscoe that I get in 10' x 19" rolls from B&H Photo Video for about a $100.00 per roll the last time I bought some. (Sometimes they send a 20' roll instead, but don't tell anyone) I have found that these seem to work the best of all the brands I have tried. Also you need a polarizer on the camera set so that it bisects the polarized axis of the lamps. This is called "Cross Polarization". Try to set your lights to cover the work form each side at an angle from 30-60 degrees. 45 degrees being the ideal. Textures on oil paintings can be played with here. A good referance source for you is the Kodak Series Books and get the one on Copying and Duplicating. I seem to have misplaced my copy of it so I can't give you the exact title. Most photo stores have a Kodak How To library. FWIW I have a picture of my old set up on my website. You will need to go to the "Demonstration Page". I have an old Beseler 45 Enlarger frame with a digital camera and lighting set up. My current camera now is a Canon 5D married to a Sinar P. Most of my art copy is done with a scanner anyway, but if texture is a problem with the scanner, I then go to the camera to elliminate the shine on the texture. Hope this helps.

[Walter Calahan]

If the weather is fine, you can take the art outside in open shadow (filter for the color of the open shade). Use an angle finder, bought at a hardware store, to make sure the art and the camera are parallel. I try to use a macro lens for they are usually engineered to reproduce flat surfaces better.

[Jack Flesher]

FWIW I just posted a set of high-end professional copy lights in the Buy&Sell forum: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=20961

[Greg Lockrey]

Jack's lights are a GREAT deal. These are high end pieces of equipment.

[Doug Howk]

Frank van Riper has recent article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103100648.html) on photographing flat art.

[tim atherton]

also some here (though I don't agree 100% with all he says)

http://www.kgear.com/copywork.html

[TLGG1]

If using the tungsten lighting you might need to match the 3200K film to the artwork being photographed. Fuji and Kodak copy tungsten films give different results with oils, pastels and watercolors as well as various types of cloth.

Get some of both films and do some testing and see which gives the greatest fidelity in use. Don't have my shooting notes handy but if memory serves the Kodak is better with oils and Fuji with watercolors and chalk. Can't remember on the cloth right now.

[Roc Chan]

Coping 2D/3D artworks and artifacts are part of my duties for the last 30 years.As a government organization we got equipment for the job.You could do the job with less.With lighting the key is for EVEN lighting over the image field,no hot spots,no shadows and no glares.4 -300watts construction light will do,better then 4-1000watt fuse blowing, hot ,cooking Pro lights.Remove the protected screen on the worklight,since they produce a color cast and shadows.Lights 5ft.-15ft from the artworks are good.Large room are good since reflection from colored wall are bad.Lens?use 3X normal for good working distance.
Use a 3/4" plywood 4ft.X8ft. This will be your copy stand/easel for the artworks.Drill rolls and colum of holes,2"-4" apart into the plywood.With pegs in these hole,your artworks would set on the pegs and centered related to the camera and lens.Use mirror to center your camera.Maintain this allinement-center of plywood=center of artworks=center of camera system.Include a scale(for size)grey scale(for exposure) and color patch(for color reference) in the photos.Free color chips from paint stores will do.Pick the bright RGB and CMY chips and the grey scale.This is a relative references to check your final prints for color changes,unlike the Kodak color which are universal standard but expensive.With roll film ,I would just shot 3 photo of color and grey bars in mid roll to check film,lighting and processing.
Different use of negatives-duping,coping,printing,and projection require different exposures.Tonal range of the artworks may be greater than the tonal range of the film,so bracket.Cross polarization is flat,too flat and lifeless .For some artwork its great ,but for other no.There are no one setup for all artworks.Sometimes shadows and glare are needed ot bring some features of artworks,sometimes -not.Again bracket exposure and set ups,play with the lights but EVEN lighting.