How to photograph artwork: flat light, square on, true colour

Artwork is the opposite of most products. A mug or a jacket is a shape in space, and you can photograph it from several angles until one looks right. A painting, a print or a drawing is a flat surface, and a good photograph of it is mostly about the surface staying flat: lit evenly, seen square on, and recorded in colours that match the real thing. This guide covers that setup for a phone, then the crop, and then the narrow set of cases where a cutout helps. For the general home setup of window light, a card and phone settings, how to take product photos at home comes first, and this page picks up where a flat piece of work changes the rules.

Say the limits first, because they decide what is worth doing. getPNG removes a background; it does not straighten a skewed photograph, remove glare or correct colour. All three are decided at the camera. A cutout is useful for one job on this page, which is taking the wall away from around a framed piece, and a plain crop does the same job for an unframed canvas.

Why flat work is hard to photograph

A photograph of a painting has four ways to go wrong, and none of them is about the subject being difficult.

• Uneven light. A window on one side lights that side of the canvas more than the other, so the picture fades across the surface.
• A tilted camera. The edges of the work lean inwards, and a rectangle becomes a trapezium. A buyer reads a slanted photo as a slanted painting.
• Glare. Varnish, oil, glass and a glossy print all reflect the light source back at the lens as a bright patch.
• Wrong colour. The camera chooses a white balance for the whole scene, so a picture shot under a warm lamp comes out orange, and a picture shot in blue shade comes out cold.

Everything below is a way of removing one of those before the shutter.

Light: even and soft, from two sides

The best light for flat work is the least interesting light: soft, and equal across the whole surface.

• Two sources, one each side, about forty-five degrees from the work. Each lights the surface at a shallow enough angle that the light does not bounce straight back into the lens, and together they cancel each other’s shadows. Two matching lamps do it, as do two matching windows’ worth of daylight.
• Or one window and a white card. Put the work beside a window, out of direct sun, with a large white card on the other side to lift the shadow. Product photography setup describes the fill card.
• Overcast beats sunny. A bright overcast day is one huge soft light. Direct sun makes hard shadows from the frame and the texture of the paint.
• Keep to one kind of light. A lamp and a window together give two colours on one surface, which shows as a tint across the work. Turn the lamps off if you are using daylight.
• No flash. It makes a hot spot in the middle and glare on anything glossy.

Raking light, from a very low angle, is a deliberate choice for showing thick paint. It is a good second photo for a textured piece and a poor first one, because it makes the surface uneven by design.

The angle: square on, and from a distance

The camera has to be parallel to the surface, with its lens pointing at the middle of the work.

1. Hang it or lean it flat. Hang the work on a plain wall, or lean it so it does not tilt backwards. A painting resting back at an angle gives a tapered photo however carefully you stand.
2. Put the lens at the middle height. If the phone is above the centre it looks down, and the top edge is the wider one. Level with the middle keeps both ends equal.
3. Use the grid. Switch on the camera grid and line the top and bottom edges of the work up with the grid lines. Move until they are parallel.
4. Stand back and crop in. A wide lens close to a canvas bends the edges, and digital zoom softens the detail. Take a step back, and let the photo have a little wall around the work to crop away afterwards.
5. Check the corners. Zoom into all four at full size. Each should be a right angle with the frame or canvas edge running parallel to the picture edge.

Glare: move the reflection, not the picture

Glare is a copy of the light source in the surface. It comes from varnish, from the gloss of a print, and from glass in the frame. It is part of the photograph once it is taken, so the answer is to stop it forming.

• Light from the sides, not from behind the camera. A lamp or window behind you reflects straight back to the lens, especially off glass.
• Check the glass for yourself. Look at the work from the camera position. Anything bright you can see in it, a window, a lamp or your own shape, will be in the photo.
• Take the glass off if you can. For the sale photograph of an unsold piece, taking it out of the frame is the simplest fix. Do it on a clean table, and put the glass back after.
• Dim the room. Close curtains on the windows that face the work, and turn off lamps that are not part of the setup.

A cutout cannot remove glare, for the same reason it cannot remove a reflection from a mirror: the glare is inside the outline of the work. The page on photographing a mirror to sell explains the same limit from the other side.

Colour: trust a card, then check the screen

Colour is the complaint a buyer is most likely to make about artwork, and the one a photograph can most easily avoid.

• Set the white balance on a neutral card. Put a plain white or grey card beside the work, in the same light, and tap it to set the colour in the camera app. The wall will then look like a wall and the paint like paint.
• One light, one colour. Mixed lighting gives mixed casts that no setting can fix.
• Do not let the phone beautify it. Switch off any filter, “vivid” mode, or portrait mode. They change the colour on purpose.
• Compare with the real piece in daylight. Look at the photo on the screen next to the work. If the blues are off or the whites are yellow, adjust and shoot again.
• Check on a second screen. Phones and laptops differ, and a buyer will look on theirs. A listing can say that colours may vary slightly between screens. It is true, and it is fair to the buyer.

Keep the file at the size the camera made it. Etsy product photos gives the pixel sizes that marketplace asks for, and a large original can always be reduced, where a small one cannot be enlarged without softening.

Crop to the work, not the wall

Once the photo is square and evenly lit, the crop decides how professional it looks.

• Unframed canvas or paper: crop to the edge of the work, with a thin margin so that a corner is not clipped. A painted canvas edge is part of the piece; show it.
• Framed: crop to the outside of the frame, so the frame is part of the object. A buyer is judging both.
• Not the wall. A photo with a third of the picture taken up by wall makes the work look small. Fill the frame with the work.
• Square crop, square edges. Crop in a tool that lets you keep the edges parallel with the crop, and not at a slight angle.

Take a second photo of the work on a wall, a shelf or a table, so a buyer can see how large it is. A lifestyle photo helps scale; a cropped photo shows the work.

Where a cutout helps, and where it does not

A rectangle on a plain wall does not need a cutout. A crop does the job, and a crop is exact.

A cutout earns its place in three cases.

1. A framed piece you want on white. Cutting out the frame removes the wall and the floor, and the work sits on a plain background in the same way a product does. Product photos on a white background covers what the main marketplaces ask for.
2. A piece with an irregular outline, such as a ceramic, a mobile, a cut-paper piece or a hanging, where a crop would still leave wall around it.
3. A set of pictures that need one consistent look across a shop, each on the same plain background.

Three places to look in the compare view.

• The corners of the frame. A mitred corner is a sharp point, and a cutout can round it a little. If a corner has been clipped, Edge shift grows the outline by up to five pixels, and the brush paints back anything that is still missing.
• A frame the colour of the wall. A white frame on a white wall has almost no edge to follow. A wall of a different tone gives the cutout something to find, and this is worth knowing before you shoot.
• A thin fringe of wall. If a rim of the old wall clings to the frame, Clean edge colour takes it back out, and the white halo guide explains why it forms.

Leave the edge soft. A frame edge photographed at full resolution is a gradient a few pixels wide, and getPNG keeps that softness rather than cutting it hard, so do not sharpen it back.

What usually goes wrong

• Slanted edges, from a tilted camera. Reshoot square, with the lens at the middle height.
• A bright patch, from glare off glass or varnish. Move the light, or take the glass out.
• A tint across the surface, from mixing lamp and window. Use one kind of light.
• Colours that do not match, from a white balance set on the wall instead of a card, or from a filter. Set it on a neutral card and turn filters off.
• A small work in a large wall, from not cropping. Crop to the frame.
• A frame that disappears, because it is the colour of the wall. Change the wall.

None of this needs a studio. It needs a plain wall, two soft lights or one good window, a camera held square to the middle of the work, and a crop that shows the piece. The cutout is the last and smallest step, and only when the work is framed or oddly shaped.

The steps, in short

1. Put the work flat and plain. Hang or lean it on a plain wall with nothing else in frame. Take glass out of the frame if you can, or plan for the reflection.
2. Light it evenly from both sides. Use two matching lights, or two windows' worth of soft daylight, one each side at about forty-five degrees. Aim for no bright patch and no shadow gradient across the surface.
3. Put the camera square to the middle. Level the phone at the height of the centre of the work, parallel to the surface. Stand back and crop in, rather than using digital zoom.
4. Get the colour right. Switch the flash off, set the white balance on a plain white or grey card in the same light, and compare the result to the real piece in daylight.
5. Crop to the work. Trim to the edge of the canvas or the frame. If you want the piece on a plain background, cut it out, check the edge and save it at full size.

Questions

What is the best light to photograph a painting?

Even, soft light from two sides at about forty-five degrees, so no part of the surface is brighter than another and brush texture is lit gently rather than raked. Without lamps, a north-facing window or a bright overcast day does it, with the work beside the window and a white card on the far side to lift the shadow. Avoid direct sun and avoid mixing a lamp with daylight.

How do I get rid of glare when I photograph a framed picture?

Glare is the light source reflected in the glass, so move the light or move the camera until it no longer lines up. Light from the sides at an angle, turn off lamps behind the camera, and stand to one side of the lens line if you have to. If a frame holds glass and the work matters, take it out of the frame for the photograph. A cutout cannot remove glare, because the glare is part of the picture.

Why do the edges of my artwork look slanted?

The camera was not square to the surface. If the phone is tilted up or down, or off to one side, the top becomes narrower than the bottom, or one side shorter than the other. Put the phone at the height of the middle of the work, parallel to it, and use the grid in the camera app to check the edges against it. getPNG does not straighten a skewed photograph, so fix it at the camera.

Should I shoot artwork with the flash on?

No. A flash is a small, hard light right next to the lens, so it puts a bright patch in the centre, glare on any varnish or glass, and a cold colour cast. Daylight or two soft lamps give an even surface and colour you can trust.

How do I make the colours in my photo match the real painting?

Light the work and the reference card with the same light, set the white balance on a plain white or grey card, and then compare the photo on a screen with the real piece in daylight. Phone screens differ, so check on more than one. Small differences in a saturated colour are normal, and a listing can say the colours may vary slightly on screen.

Should I crop artwork to the frame or leave the wall in?

Crop to the frame, or to the edge of the canvas if it is unframed, so the buyer sees the work and not the wall. Leave a thin margin so you do not clip a corner, and keep the crop square to the edges so the piece looks straight. A lifestyle shot with the work on a wall is a good second photo, and a cropped one a good first.