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Artists have both strived to embrace, and to free themselves from the linear perspective that has been prominent in works since the renaissance. Photographers have to be really clever to side-step perspective, and in the video below I'll show you how.
I loved that I got to work with the producer and musicians of Studio Sassafras for this video - please check out their pages in the links below...
www.instagram.com/hannah_jans126
This is my process to produce beautiful inkjet prints. We will cover preparing the images on the computer, setting the parameters for printing, picking the best printer and the most appropriate paper types, and I’ll show how the images are matted ready for delivery.
If there’s anything you’d like me to cover in more detail leave a note in the comments below and I’ll try to put together a more detailed tutorial for you. There’s a video version of this blog post you can view at the bottom of this page.
I’m printing one of my open-edition images – this one is from near Halifax, my hometown in England. The Yorkshire landscape is stunning and I want people to feel the texture of the rock, the rugged terrain and the weight of the sky.
I’d like to print out an 8 x 10 to be installed in a 16 x 20 frame - it gives a lovely wide border separating the image from anything else that is close by on the wall that it will eventually hang on.
Fine print of Sheep near Top Withens, Halifax UK.
Here’s how the dimensions break down – I have an 8x10 piece of paper, but the mat window has to be smaller else the paper will fall through. So the window is 7.5x9.5 inches for a ¼” overlap. I also like to leave a small gap between the printed area of the image and the matte cutaway, just to make things look tidy. In this case the printed area is 7 x 9 inches to leave a quarter inch gap around the printed image.
There’s a whole bunch of parameters to set for the printing including the paper size the print area size and the printer profiles so that the program is aware of how my printer treats colors and also how the selected paper is going to affect the colors. I also like to leave a think black border on the prints so that any whites in the image remain separate from the white of the surrounding paper.
I use a color calibrated monitor so that the colors that I am looking at what will be printed and so I don’t have to do any second-guessing or run a large number of test prints because the colors will be pretty much what I see on the screen.
With prints that are for sale we can’t cut any corners when it comes to quality. The printer (canon pro-10) uses pigment inks which are the most archival inks available. I do not risk using lower quality third party inks – I use the manufacturer’s inks which are some of the most expensive liquids in the world.
I limit my paper choices to the most appropriate matte paper and semi-gloss paper. These are top-of-the-line acid free papers - resistant to possible to yellowing overtime.
Once the print is created, the date and the name of the print is written directly on the back of the paper with an archival quality pen and I’ll also write my name there. I’ll also sign the mat but the mat might be replaced one day so writing the information on the print is much more secure.
I go to the effort of cutting my own mats for a couple of reasons. The first of which is because I like an 8 x 10 to be framed in a 16 x 20 frame and that combination is not easily found in pre-cut mats. There’s also my preference for bottom waiting the mat. That means placing the window higher than center by having a wider bottom boarder than the top by a very specific amount. This is called the optical canter and is an illusion that human brain finds satisfying. Find out more on how I cut mats in this detailed blog post.
The image is attached to the mat using a single piece of acid-free tape at the top of the image. You’ll notice that it is not all the way around the image because the paper on the mat will expand and contract at different rates over time - if they were permanently attached the picture would buckle. Attaching the image with just one piece of tape allows the picture to move independently of the mat.
I found that people have very specific frame preferences depending on their own décor and tastes. Providing a frame that will be eventually discarded would be wasteful. So instead I deliver matted prints that are ready for framing and this has the added benefit of lower shipping costs.
When I do frame the prints I’m a huge fan of a thin simple black frame. It will never go out of style.
So there’s the final piece. From preparing the image to hanging it on the wall - This entire process is based on the principle of doing things simply and doing them right to make the best and longest lasting print possible.
This is a broad overview of the scanning and printing process for artists working on flat surfaces (though 3d art or sculpture could be captured in a similar way). If you have questions or would like more detail on a certain section, always feel free to comment below, or contact me directly.
When you buy through affiliate links on the blog post, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
Flat-bed scanners are a low-cost way of digitizing your artwork, but you’ll find that it will only work for relatively small pieces. A more flexible solution is to use a digital camera on either a copy-stand, or a tripod configured to mount the camera below where the legs meet. This will suffice for pieces up to 16 or 20 inches across, but you can also mount larger work on a wall or table stand and take the pictures perpendicular to it. Another option is to take many overlapping images of your work and stitching them together in software. The epic resolution is amazing if you can cope with the epic file size.
I find a hot-shoe mounted spirit level is very useful to make sure the camera is perpendicular to the work, though you can also use a mirror - if you can see back down your camera lens in the mirror, the camera is in the correct orientation.
You can use any lens you have, but a macro lens has the benefit of having a flatter plane of focus that is just what you need for copy work. Don’t forget to use lens corrections in your editing software. This will counter any pinch or barrel distortions your lens might render.
Tethering the camera to the computer makes like so much easier. And if you have a series of works to scan, you can do it in a batch using guides on the live-view so that you can crop them in one action when editing. Capture One is well known for it’s tethering prowess, but I find the tether software your camera manufacturer provides is generally pretty good. I use the EOS utility for my Canon camera and was surprised by how good it was. Very underrated.
A grey card is a valuable tool for setting a good exposure and for setting the correct white-balance in editing software. Use a low ISO like 100 for the least digital noise, a middle-aperture like f8 to get the best sharpness from your lens, and then pick the shutter speed that centers the exposure needle. Low shutter speeds are fine because your camera is not hand-held and your subject isn’t moving.
Shoot RAW for the most flexibility, but if you are confident with your exposures and white-balance, shooting JPEG will save a lot of time and require simpler software.
Better still is to use a color-calibration tool like the Spyder Checkr. This matches a calibrated color-swatch to the pixel readouts on your computer monitor for the most accurate color reproduction of your work. It will save a lot of printer ink compared to a trial and error method.
Light sources can be tricky so remember these concepts:
The farther away the light-source the more even it will light your work. A well lit-room usually works, but setting up continuous or strobe lighting gives you more control.
The larger the light-source relative to the work the more gradational the transition from highlight to shadow.
Like in billiards, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Have the light angled so it doesn’t reflect straight back into the camera. A 45 degree angle to the camera is a great place to start.
For even light, use a light source both left and right of the work, the same distance and power setting.
If you want a more textured result, lower the lights so the light skims across the surface of the work, and play with altering the relative power of just one of the two lights. The relative orientation of the relief in your piece and the lights will make a big difference.
If the work is behind glass, remove the glass from the frame to prevent unnecessary glare or reflections. If you are competent with vector-graphic software like Affinity Design or Adobe Illustrator, you can mock-up a mat or a frame so that you can create a digital final-product image rather than mount all your work by hand. See the images in my Print Store as an example.
A good print starts with an accurate representation of your scan on your computer screen. You can calibrate your monitor for accurate color using a tool such as these from Datacolor and Calibrite.
A good global edit usually means setting your brightness slider so that the histogram is centered. Then set the black and white points so that are almost, but not quite, clipping. Of course, if you have a very dark, or very bright piece of work, your histogram should reflect that. Most software have lens-correction and perspective-correction tools to make sure the angular relationships in the final image honor that of the original piece.
Crop the image to the edge of the artwork, or to a desired aspect ratio for printing. If you are matting the prints, you’ll have to use a standard aspect ratio to fit store-bought matts or you can make custom mats to best honor your art.
You can use local editing tools like a spot healer to remove any dust or a gradient tool to remove any uneven light. I’d avoid removing imperfections of the artwork itself as you want to avoid misrepresenting your work to your buyer.
Two options here. Cheap and cheerful, or pricy and archival. Be clear with your buyer about which they are receiving. Cheerful means you can use a dye-based printer (vibrant, but will fade relatively fast) and low-cost photo paper which may yellow with time. Archival means using pigment-based inks and acid-free paper. These prints are the best we have at present, and the technology hasn’t existed long enough to know if they will last as long as the old darkroom prints.
Owning a printer is a lot of work you might not be expecting. They need to run constantly to avoid costly clogs, and some use a good amount of ink just for cleaning cycles. The ink ranks among the most expensive fluids in the world, and you need to use your manufacturer’s ink. Third party ink may seem like a bargain, but they will fade faster than OEM and will be less color accurate. You can’t do that to your buyer. Also, the 13x19” and 16x20” printers you are likely to choose take up a lot of space and are heavy.
But printing at home has some advantages - you can experiment, print on demand and sign your work before shipping. These things are harder to do with a drop-shipping service.
Cutting a custom mat for your photographs or artwork is simple and requires only a few specialized tools. I recommend a good mat cutter such as a Logan 2000, and a compatible straight edge which can be used as a guide for the mat cutter (see recommendations at the bottom of this post). Last, you need some scrap mat board for support underneath the mat you wish to cut, and a healing cutting mat to protect your table surface.
Before you begin to cut your mat, you need to figure out the size of the window that will hold the print. I like to have the window a quarter of an inch smaller than the paper sides along each side. So with an 8 by 10 piece of paper I would cut a window 7 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches to leave a quarter of an inch overlap so the print does not fall through the window. Sometimes I like to print my image smaller than the window so there is a quarter of an inch gap between the image and the mat (in which case I would print the image 7 by 9 in).
Work on the back of the mat.
1. Starting at the top left of your mat you can mark out the window width across the top of the mat. The remaining width represents both the left and right borders. So to figure out only the right border, divide this remainder by two and draw a vertical line with your pencil at that position.
2. We can do the same for the bottom border by marking the window height from the top left and then dividing the remaining highlight by two. Draw a horizontal line at this point.
3. Now that the right and bottom boarders are marked, we can use the intersection of a lines as of the bottom-right origin from which we can mark out the window height and the window width. Mark out the final lines for left and top borders.
4. The window is now ready to be cut out with the mat cutter. The image is perfectly centered in the mat.
The problem is that a centrally placed image looks poorly balanced to the viewer. This is an optical illusion. It looks more balanced if the image is placed a little higher than center. When an image has a thicker bottom border than at the top, we call it a” bottom weighted” mat.
5. A simple way to increase the bottom of border in proportion to the size of the image and the size of the mat is to draw a line from the window height mark on the left hand of the mat to the original bottom border line intersects the right hand of the mat.
6. The bottom-right origin point for the window is now where this diagonal line intersects the vertical line.
7. The bottom weighted mat is more visually satisfying and looks distinctly better than any mats you’d find in a commercial frame.
This construction technique is useful for the first mat you cut for a given mat and window size. You now have the border measurements for any subsequent identical mats you need to cut.
When you look up, the parallel sides of tall buildings seem to converge into the distance due to perspective.
A large format camera, as used to take this picture, can correct the verticals back to parallel for a more stable-looking architectural picture.
But in shots such as this, the camera is too close to the buildings to completely correct the lines. As a remedy, the image has been scanned and a second correction is made digitally to finish the effect.
Digital and film are working hand in hand here because the camera wasn’t able to complete the correction, and a digital correction alone would have degraded the image quality dramatically.
An interesting paradox of architecture photographs is now uncovered – what we call ‘corrected’ is actually a highly processed and distorted view that never existed in reality.
Below are a few examples from my series of Houston architecture images ‘Dueling Towers’. Fine-art pigment prints using high quality metallic paper are available for collectors - contact me for more information.
Is a picture of a building to the credit of the photographer, or the architect?
I’ve struggled with this question. It’s the same problem I have with taking pictures of a sculpture or fountain.Should I get the credit for a creative photo, , or should the creator of the photo’s subject be the hero? Can I claim credit for someone else’s art?
If someone took a picture of one of my pictures, is it my art or theirs?
There are ways to avoid this problem of pure documentation, all of which involve some added input from the photographer. Dramatic weather, unique light and shadows, creative composition or additional composition elements to name a few.
So during the winter of 2018/2019 I explored Houston’s architecture with an aim of avoiding pure documentation of any single structure. The images juxtapose two or more buildings while at the same time avoiding street-level noise of people, cars and lamp posts. I also tend to avoid the tops of buildings. This simplifies city-scapes into their simplest shaped and lines. Perspective becomes illusive as it is sometimes difficult to tell which building faces which direction. Sometimes the buildings are lined up in such a way that they almost look like a new single structure.
Even in a city as large as Houston, there are finite pairs of buildings that can be photographed in this way. Even so, I don’t think I am anywhere near a complete set.
Below are a few examples from this series of images ‘Dueling Towers’. Fine-art pigment prints using archival paper are available for collectors - please visit the Print Store for more information.
Portrait and Headshot Photography in Marblehead and the North Shore, MA
