Okay, so you want to put your drawings or paintings online. This lesson will be have multiple parts. First I'll cover photographing the work, then move on to editing in photoshop (cropping, fixing exposure, etc.), then actually getting the work on a website (free or paid, or your own).

So, on with part one. Let's first talk about how to photograph a piece of artwork. This will cover both drawings and paintings, but I'll give specific tips for each. The first thing you want to do is figure out where you will photograph the artwork. You could do it yourself or you could pay a professional to do it for you. At a local print shop, they will scan or photograph your work for you and hopefully put it on a disk as well so you can upload it to your computer. At least, that's what one of the local shops here does. Anyway, if you want to do it yourself read on.

First place the work where you want to photograph it. Your camera should be decent. I say go for a SLR camera with a nice lens, and use the highest settings possible. For example, you can use the hightest jpeg setting if all you want to do is display the work onine, but for print, consider a raw (like nef) setting. Portable cameras with a small lens tend to distort the image and you'll have slightly rounded edges that'll have to be cropped in photoshop. For a painting put it either flat on the floor or on an easel or other surface that'll hold it upright at about eye-level. Don't let the easel cover the edges of the painting as those will have to be cropped off later in photoshop, and you'll lose part of the painting. Putting it on the floor is a good option, but it can be hard to photograph large paintings that way. You also must consider your lighting. An oil painting or heavy pencil drawing will have glare from the light. That will ruin your darks. What happens is your darks become lighter, and that is hard to fix in photoshop.

So, get some good quality lights, preferably white lights. Regular bulbs give off a yellow light. Now, you can fix the color in photoshop, but it's best to get it right before then so you won't have to. Also, do it in the daytime so you can get some more light in the room if possible, but not direct sunlight, that is usually too bright (though you could always try direct sunlight). In any case, position the lights to the side at an angle to minimize glare. Experiment with the distance from the painting as well to see if that helps glare. Also, make sure the surface is evenly lit. In person, it may look fine, but a drawing that has more light shining on it on one side will look "odd" in a picture, paintings as well, but drawings tend to have more white in them so it is more noticeable. I somtimes use two or more lights in a room, plus the light coming in from a window.

Get as close to the image as possible. Try to use around 35mm on the lens to avoid distortion. Zooming in too much or zooming out to see more might distort the image slightly. Use the edges of the painting as  guide to line up your shot. I use the edges of the picture through my viewfinder as guides and try to line them up with the edges of the painting without cropping off the edges. Remember two things about lining up a shot. You can rotate the camera on a horizontal axis. Plus, you can rotate on a vertical axis. When the camera is not lined up with the painting, in the photograph you will see one side of the painting look smaller than the other. If the right side appears slightly smaller than the left, then you know that you didn't properly line up the camera horizontally. If the bottom is smaller than the top, you didn't line up the camera properly on vertically.

Put one hand underneath the camera to steady it. Keep you elbows in. Breath out to relax your muscles and then take the shot. Take about 5 to 10 pictures. Vary the lighting in the room or adjust the camera settings to see what works best. When you review the pictures on your computer, they may look different that what you thought, so having more to choose from is always better.

You may need to put the drawing or painting is an area of less direct light if you are getting too much glare. It can be very difficult sometimes to get the drawing to be free of any glare at all if it looks really glossy. Spend more time playing with the lighting and changing the angle of the drawing or painting until you get the least glare possible. Try putting something under the drawing to set it at an angle. You may have to settle with a picture that is slightly too dark, but that can be fixed in photoshop.

Stay tuned for part two!