Getting your images Showcase ready

Getting your images Showcase ready need not be an ordeal. We’ve already covered the subject of how to get your painting into a digital format here: How To Get Your Artwork into a Digital Format however, what the article doesn’t cover is how to fix common scanning/photographic problems, such as skewed perspective, unsightly backgrounds that need cropping and images that are too dark or look a bit lifeless.

Having had a career spanning 25 years preparing artwork/logos etc. for lithographic and digital print, I could start a tutorial here explaining how I fix these common errors but unless you’re using the same software/operating system as me the instructions may not make much sense.

What I can tell you is that all your images are checked before going ‘live’ and where necessary, ‘tweaked’ to display them at their best. However, I do understand that it’s vitally important to you the artist to keep the image as true to the original as possible.

Obviously, I haven’t seen the original so I won’t boost any colours or make any drastic changes. I will only fix obvious errors such as skewed perspective and crop out bits of background that look out of place etc. Before I do any of this I place all your original images in a temporary folder in case you are not happy with the finished results, so we can always revert back if need be.

The only image touch up involved would be to make a particularly dark image a tad lighter.

Example 1

Here’s an example of an image with a skewed perspective and unsightly background that has been fixed. Nothing else has been done to the image.

Example 2 – click on images to see larger versions

Here’s an example of an image with a skewed perspective and unsightly background that has been fixed and then slightly lightened. As you can see, the image looks a bit too dark even after lightening. Unfortunately, without seeing the original I can’t take the risk of boosting the exposure and colours as this may not reflect what the image of the original painting looks like in reality.

Now, having the original in front of me whilst making the edits, the picture should actually look more like this:

As you can see, it’s really important to try and capture as much of the original as possible. Perspective and cropping I can help with but as far as image quality matching the original, that task must be left to yourself.

So, if you have been struggling with getting your images up to scratch don’t worry as I’m sure between us, we can achieve acceptable results for displaying on your Showcase Gallery page.