How to photograph (and scan) your art for prints

A print can only be as good as the file behind it, and the file is decided at the moment of capture. Everything you do later in software is damage control. So the goal of photographing or scanning artwork is narrow and unforgiving: record the piece flat, evenly lit, in true colour, at enough real resolution to print at the size you want. Get those four things right and editing becomes light touch-up. Get them wrong and no amount of Photoshop rescues the result.

The first decision is method. Scanning is best for flat, matte, highly detailed work like fine line drawings, watercolours, and prints, because a scanner captures every nuance at high resolution with consistent light. Photography is best for glossy, heavily textured, or large pieces, where a scanner cannot fit the work or where surface texture and reflections need careful handling that only a camera setup allows.

Scanning: the simplest route to a clean file

If your artwork fits on a scanner bed and lies flat, scanning is usually the easiest path to a faithful reproduction. The single most important rule is to set resolution at capture. Scan at 600 DPI or higher for print, and if the final print will be larger than the original, scan at 800 to 1200 DPI so you have real pixels to enlarge into.

Realform composes a creator’s existing artwork onto made-to-order products and checks the print resolution of every file you supply, flagging images that are not suitable before they reach production. The AI runs the business; the human keeps the art. Realform composes the files you provide. It never generates, copies, or imitates artwork.

Set the DPI in the scanner, never in your editor afterward. Increasing DPI after the fact, called upsampling, does not add real detail; the software interpolates, guessing at pixels it never recorded, and the result is soft and degraded. Save the scan as a TIFF, which is lossless and preserves every detail without the compression artefacts that JPEG introduces. Work and archive in TIFF, and export a JPEG only when a specific use demands it.

Photographing: the camera setup that matters

When the work is too large, glossy, or textured to scan, photograph it. Mount the artwork flat, parallel to the camera sensor, and put the camera on a tripod so the frame is square and shake-free. Use a two-second timer or a remote shutter to avoid nudging the camera at the moment of exposure.

• Shoot in manual mode at ISO 100 to keep noise minimal.
• Use an aperture around f/8 to f/11, the sharpest range on most lenses.
• Shoot RAW, not JPEG, to retain the fullest colour and tonal data for editing.
• Set focus manually and confirm sharpness in live view at high magnification.
• Keep the sensor plane parallel to the artwork so edges stay straight, not keystoned.

RAW is not optional for serious reproduction. It preserves far more colour and tonal information than a JPEG, which means white balance and exposure can be corrected later without tearing the image apart. A phone may be fine for a quick web listing, but it is rarely enough for an expensive full-size giclée print.

Lighting: flat, even, and glare-free

Lighting makes or breaks art photography. You want even illumination across the whole surface with no harsh shadows and no reflections. Soft, indirect light is the target. Outdoors, shoot on an overcast day or in open shade, where the cloud cover acts as a giant diffuser. Indoors, work near a window with indirect daylight, but keep direct sun off the surface because it causes glare and hotspots.

For a controlled setup, place two soft-box or LED lights at 45-degree angles to the artwork, one on each side, so the light meets in the middle evenly. Never fire the camera’s direct flash at the work, which guarantees glare. For glossy surfaces, cross-polarization eliminates reflections entirely: put polarizing sheets over each light and a circular polarizer on the lens, then rotate the lens filter until the reflections vanish.

Colour accuracy: matching the original

Colour is where reproductions most often fail, and it is fixable with discipline. Light the work with neutral, daylight-balanced sources so no colour cast creeps in. Then give yourself a reference: include an 18 percent gray card at the edge of the frame. A neutral gray card costs about ten dollars and lets you set white balance precisely, either in-camera or later in editing, so whites read as truly neutral and every other colour falls into place behind them.

Finish by comparing the file to the physical artwork side by side, ideally on a calibrated monitor, and nudge until they match. Edit in Photoshop or Lightroom to neutralise any remaining cast. Keep in mind that screens display in RGB while presses print in CMYK, so colours can shift at the print stage; if your printer requires it, convert to CMYK and proof before committing to a large run.

Resolution for print: the number that decides size

Print resolution is the rule that decides how big you can go. The standard for quality printing is at least 300 DPI at the final print size. That phrase matters: a file is not “300 DPI” in the abstract, it is 300 DPI at a particular dimension. An image with enough pixels to print a sharp 8 by 10 will look soft stretched to 24 by 36, because the same pixels are spread thinner.

Work backward from your largest intended print. Multiply the print’s width and height in inches by 300 to find the pixels you need, then capture enough resolution to clear that bar with room to spare. Real pixels recorded at capture are the only ones that count. You can always scale a large, clean file down for a smaller print; you can never honestly scale a small one up.