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Help with photography
wicket - 26/6/15 at 08:04 AM

My wife is a watercolour artist and we always have a copy of the painting made before framing, usually a scanned imaged by our local print shop. We then us these copies for producing prints or greetings cards.

We have tried to take photographs at home instead of scanning but they have never been very successful as the white always comes out grey. We have tried a Sony point and shot digital and recently a Nikon D50 digital SLR with the same end result.

Any suggestions to over come this problem would be appreciated.

The photos have been taken indoors and out in natural light with the same end result.

[Edited on 26/6/15 by wicket]


coyoteboy - 26/6/15 at 08:32 AM

You need some post-processing skills and/or to learn to use the custom white balance option (with a correct grey card) I suspect. Colour matching is a tough job at times!


dubzter - 26/6/15 at 09:11 AM

quote:
Originally posted by wicket
My wife is a watercolour artist and we always have a copy of the painting made before framing, usually a scanned imaged by our local print shop. We then us these copies for producing prints or greetings cards.

We have tried to take photographs at home instead of scanning but they have never been very successful as the white always comes out grey. We have tried a Sony point and shot digital and recently a Nikon D50 digital SLR with the same end result.

Any suggestions to over come this problem would be appreciated.

The photos have been taken indoors and out in natural light with the same end result.

[Edited on 26/6/15 by wicket]


Definitely sounds like a White Balance issue, and as mentioned this can be sorted in post processing or by setting a custom white balance on the camera. Very rarely do the pre configured or auto settings on the camera duplicate real life as there are so many variables.

This link may help you with the custom white balance set up.

http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/Advice/Search-Results/Techniques/Setting-custom-white-balance/


snapper - 26/6/15 at 02:19 PM

A simple copy set up uses 2 soft lights at 45 degrees either side of the subject
Colour balance set to the light source, tungsten ( bulb symbol) or flash if you have 2
The problem from here on is usually the colour calibration of the computer screen you are working on and the printer
It's relatively simple to set the screen by eye ( if you have Apple) then the printer needs calibrating to the paper your using

You should be able to get passable results using the printer software if you match the paper to the printer
I shoot Adobe 1998 not sRGB, I set the computer to Adobe 1998
Try photographing a white sheet of paper and printing that out


wicket - 26/6/15 at 02:24 PM

Thanks for the info. I have read the details in the link so I'm about to go and have a play.


sky12042 - 26/6/15 at 08:09 PM

Look at the histogram of the image. Then adjust the end points.