Until Further Notice, Our Meetings & Programs Will Be Held Via Zoom On The Regularly Scheduled Day And Time (1st Tuesday of the month at noon)
After our 2021 March Zoom Membership Meeting, Club Member Debbie Horne will give us an oil painting demonstration.
After our 2021 February Zoom Membership Meeting, we had professional photographer Ray Pfortner give us a presentation about marketing ourselves as artists.
Below is a YouTube link to an online program that one of our members Paul Illian presented for Highline Heritage Museum and Burien Arts Association in August 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAFQrwiBSys&feature=youtu.be
Below is one of our programs that was presented before the pandemic started.
February 2020 Program - Artists United Member Clare Parfitt gave a talk on printing your photography.
Guidelines for photographing and printing your artwork
Camera
For ideal quality, use an SLR camera with a variety of shooting settings that are customizable. Cell phone cameras are getting better, but you will have the highest quality quality images if you use a digital SLR camera.
Most important camera settings you need to configure manually:
- Make sure your flash is turned off
- Select a higher resolution image setting. Higher resolution equals more pixels and a larger file size, which results in a higher quality photo with more detail. If you are intending on printing at 8 x 10 size, the file size should be a minimum of 8 megabytes. The longest pixel dimension should be 3,000 pixels. If you are printing much larger, file size should be the highest resolution available on your camera.
Other optional settings:
- You can choose to use the camera’s auto feature for all of the settings below, with usually a satisfactory result, but if you want more manual control you should select these options:
- Set white balance to daylight or cloudy day
- Shutter speed should be 100 or 200
- Turn setting to distant focus (may be called landscape. This is used to capture a large still area with the entire image in focus.) It should not be a closeup, portrait, action shot, or night setting
- It’s optional to use a tripod. It is not required though to get a good shot.
- If a tripod is not used, your camera should be placed level on a flat surface so no camera movement unintenionally occurs.
- To produce the highest quality and caputure the most color and detail in your art, rent photographers lights. Set them up on the sides of your art so they are not shining directly on it and provide diffuse light. The lights can be rented from Glazer’s camera for a day for around $65.
Setting up your art:
- Art should be unframed and unmatted
- Tape your art with artists tape, or put it on a shelf or other surface so that is flat against a blank white wall, taking care to make it as straight as possible.
- Make sure there is nothing casting a shadow, reflection or glare on your art
- The area where you photograph should be a room with bright natural, diffuse window light.
- Direct sunlight should not be shining on your art
- To retouch your image you will need photo editing software. The most expensive and comprehensive option is Adobe Photoshop. There are many other inexpensive options available for less then $50.
- Basic retouching includes adjusting the color balance, lightness and darkness, sharpening, and cropping. These functions are fairly intuitive and easy to perform.
Sizes for printing:
- For easiest matting: save your image at the desired size you would like it to be printed, plus about 1/4 inch of overlap (bleed) on all sides. So if you want to produce an 8x10 print, save the final digital photo at 8.5 x 10.5.
- Standard image sizes with pre-cut mattes: include 5x7, 8x10. If your original art is not proportional to any of these sizes and you use pre-cut matts, either some cropping may be necessary or white space will appear between the print and border of the matt. If you cut your own mattes, you can cut the window any size to fit your print, as long as the outer dimension of the matt corresponds to a standard frame size.
Printing Options-from lowest to highest quality:
- Laser prints: (can be done at the King County Library for free!) Lower quality then other
options but quick and easy. These prints should be sold for less. - Home inkjet printer: Inexpensive to buy. (under $100) decent quality, but ink jet cartridges run out quickly and are expensive to replace
- Costco photo prints: Nice quality and very inexpensive. You go to the Costco photo center and take your photos on a flash drive, print them right there and choose what size.
- Giclees: These are archival quality prints and can be printed on a variety of surfaces- different papers, canvas, metal, etc. They have to be ordered online and are more expensive. These prints can be sold for a higher price.