welcome to the hell of lighting. it's somewhere between the hell of paedophiles and the hell of male cheerleaders. if there is supposed to be color in there, you need to go for a "whiter" light, or at least avoid yellow incandescents. also, control the ambient light. close the shades, shut off the cieling light et cettera. this gives you more control. a reasonable set up might include two halogens (or "color balanced photo floods" if you feel like spending ten bucks on a light bulb to last you 2 hours...) positioned at hald the height of the painting, both offset from you by 45 degrees. this helps reduce the unevenness and should get you even contrast across the entire frame. if you are using your digital, check to see if you can set it's iso. the concept is a bit odd with dig cams translated from film, but it should help increase your range of contrast and give you a bit more detail in the highlights and shadows. if your camera has a manual mode, try to get a light meter reading on the white and on the darkest region of the painting and average them and set the aperture manually. yeah its a pain in the ass. you could also just open all the shades and use natural light. it tends to be pretty even outside of penumbra. ymmv.
i'm really not very happy with the digitization of this one. i followed emile's <a href="http://thraxil.org/nodes/4798">advice</a>, but i couldn't get it very evenly lit or perpendicular to the center of the canvas (which meant that i had to crop it in a way that i don't really like.) i did as much as i could in the Gimp to fix it, but the top half is still too dark, the lower part is washed out, and the right edge is cropped far enough in that, IMO, it interferes with the composition i had in mind. if i can track down a big ass scanner, or talk one of my photography buff friends into helping, i'll upload a better version sometime.
Mmm. I agree with Emile. He sounds like he's taken some photography, or read up on it, or just sits around and thinks about it enough to have figured it out. The only thing I disagree with, but you probably don't care to hear anyway, is that unless you have a fabulous freak'n digicam, you're better off with a decent film cam. Why? For $300, a photocam will be much more responsive to light composition than a $500 digital camera. Why? You can control the film stock, which means you can frig with the color temperature of the finished product in both its capture and development state. The only other thing to do is find yourself a copy of Photoshop, and run some layers over it that will correct the problem. Or find yourself a big-ass scanner. I know someone that can help with that. He works for a poster company, and scanned a painting the size of a poster, to make more posters. Damn it.. after five minutes, I cannot find his email address. I'll get back to you on that, if you want.
comments
emile - Mon 10 Nov 2003 21:21:19
welcome to the hell of lighting. it's somewhere between the hell of paedophiles and the hell of male cheerleaders. if there is supposed to be color in there, you need to go for a "whiter" light, or at least avoid yellow incandescents. also, control the ambient light. close the shades, shut off the cieling light et cettera. this gives you more control. a reasonable set up might include two halogens (or "color balanced photo floods" if you feel like spending ten bucks on a light bulb to last you 2 hours...) positioned at hald the height of the painting, both offset from you by 45 degrees. this helps reduce the unevenness and should get you even contrast across the entire frame. if you are using your digital, check to see if you can set it's iso. the concept is a bit odd with dig cams translated from film, but it should help increase your range of contrast and give you a bit more detail in the highlights and shadows. if your camera has a manual mode, try to get a light meter reading on the white and on the darkest region of the painting and average them and set the aperture manually. yeah its a pain in the ass. you could also just open all the shades and use natural light. it tends to be pretty even outside of penumbra. ymmv.lani - Mon 10 Nov 2003 21:22:19
can't wait to see it in person...kah - Mon 10 Nov 2003 21:23:19
gorgeous! i also have a 'nuit' painting that i did around this time last year.. i'll try to get an image of it posted here.anders pearson - Mon 10 Nov 2003 21:24:19
i'm really not very happy with the digitization of this one. i followed emile's <a href="http://thraxil.org/nodes/4798">advice</a>, but i couldn't get it very evenly lit or perpendicular to the center of the canvas (which meant that i had to crop it in a way that i don't really like.) i did as much as i could in the Gimp to fix it, but the top half is still too dark, the lower part is washed out, and the right edge is cropped far enough in that, IMO, it interferes with the composition i had in mind. if i can track down a big ass scanner, or talk one of my photography buff friends into helping, i'll upload a better version sometime.Thanh Christopher Nguyen - Mon 10 Nov 2003 21:25:19
Mmm. I agree with Emile. He sounds like he's taken some photography, or read up on it, or just sits around and thinks about it enough to have figured it out. The only thing I disagree with, but you probably don't care to hear anyway, is that unless you have a fabulous freak'n digicam, you're better off with a decent film cam. Why? For $300, a photocam will be much more responsive to light composition than a $500 digital camera. Why? You can control the film stock, which means you can frig with the color temperature of the finished product in both its capture and development state. The only other thing to do is find yourself a copy of Photoshop, and run some layers over it that will correct the problem. Or find yourself a big-ass scanner. I know someone that can help with that. He works for a poster company, and scanned a painting the size of a poster, to make more posters. Damn it.. after five minutes, I cannot find his email address. I'll get back to you on that, if you want.