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Scanning vs Photographing
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Message
Posted
I'm sure this topic has come up before, but I have noticed that when I take digital photographs of my pictures, white paper looks grey. When I scan the picture , white paper looks white. Clearly the camera is applying a filter, but I can't seem to figure out how to turn it off. I've tried my mobile phone camera, (Samsung A10) and an older Panasonic digital camera and get the same result, regardless of the ambient lighting.
Any ideas how to make white look white and not grey when photographing paintings and drawings?
(I can't scan everything as I only have an A4 scanner)
Any advice gratefully received. Thanks .
Posted
Do you have photo editing software? If yes the white point is easily altered by selecting levels and using the eye dropper tool in a place that you know to be 100% white. If you don't have software already Gimp is free and excellent. In Gimp: you go to colours, then levels and use the white eyedropper to select the white area in your photo. Sorry can't help with phone apps, I don't use. If you just want a few photos altered and really don't fancy installing stuff I'm happy to do them for you.
Posted
Hello Andrew,
I think you should look at the settings on you camera. I had a problem a while ago (not so much with the whites, but with photos having a blue tinge), and it was simply a case of changing the camera settings (many thanks for the advice I received from people on this Forum).
I also looked online for camera settings advice.
It's harder to try to 'fix' the problem on a computer I think.
I wouldn't recommend a phone camera for taking your pictures (though some phones have pretty good cameras these days).
I use an old digital SLR (about 15+ yrs old)
Posted
I’ve been using the camera on my iPhone for some time now, the quality seems to be better than my Nikon camera, takes some believing I know!
All the photos for my many features in The Artist are taken on the iPhone, pin sharp and no colour issues.
I agree with Helen here, get any issues sorted on your camera, then fine tune in Photoshop!
Posted
It's my bet Andrew, that your problem is more to do with the lighting conditions. No professional digital photograph ever comes, so-to-speak, straight from the camera; some tonal adjustment—as Collette refers to—is always necessary to get the best from an image. In my view (and Collette's) Levels is the minimum. It takes a little studying to understand the principle but it's worth it.
Some while ago I put together this—
https://www.painters-online.co.uk/blogs/editing-your-photographs-part-1/
in the blogs, taken from my time when I taught digital imaging to graphics students. Only one picture allowed per 'blog' so it's in four parts.
Posted
Even without changing the white balance on my Nikon, I am amazed at how different aperture and speed settings affect the end result. I usually take a number of shots at different aperture/speed settings then choose the one closest to the original. Sometimes I do use GIMP (which is free) to do the final tweaking but I only use the brightness/contrast tool (in the colours drop down menu) rather than do any fancy colour adjustment.
Posted
Even without changing the white balance on my Nikon, I am amazed at how different aperture and speed settings affect the end result. I usually take a number of shots at different aperture/speed settings then choose the one closest to the original. Sometimes I do use GIMP (which is free) to do the final tweaking but I only use the brightness/contrast tool (in the colours drop down menu) rather than do any fancy colour adjustment.
Posted
I use an app called PhotoScan it takes 5 pictures and amalgametes them into one. You can also take flash photos through glass and get no reflections great for in a gallery or if you need to photograph a picture after framing, it also pulls the picture square if your not spot on with the phone + it's a free app.
Posted
Thank you all for the great advice. Plenty to absorb, clearly it's not just a case of point and click - I currently don't have a camera that allows for the fine level of adjustment required. Maybe I'll get a better one now - thanks for the heads up on exposure and aperture Tony. I normally take my photographs in full daylight and up to now have had reasonable results from my phone which has a better resolution than my old Panasonic.
I'll also spend some time and investigate Photoshop and adjusting the levels as per John's blog (v useful - thanks).
Finally - I have just installed Photo Scan on my phone and it's quite remarkable what a difference it can make to the white levels, so thanks for the pointer Bari (I do love a free App!).
Thanks again everyone !
Posted
As a supplementary question, I'm about to move from A4 to A3 (trumpets sound etc :-) ). Up till now I've been scanning my A4 watercolours in order to share. If I try to photograph any picture, it's always wonky, unsquare, with converging verticals etc. I have Photoshop elements (old old version) but wonder if there's something new cheap and FAST which helps to create flat digital images of a painting. I have various cameras from digi SLR to phones and in between. Do you lay the picture on the floor or on an easel?
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