Affordable Photography and Scanning for Artists

Make a good impression by showing your work at its best!

Do you have a show submission coming up, or need to create art cards and prints? Are you preparing your portfolio or looking to promote your artwork online? I can create finest quality scans and photos of your original 2-dimensional artwork. As a working artist and designer I know the needs of both the artist and the print business.

Here is a real-world example comparing an artist’s own photograph of her artwork and the results I was able to provide when better quality was required to make art cards and prints. First, the artist’s photo: Muir-Creek-diy

It’s not a terrible photo, but it was taken with a compact digital camera under typical lighting conditions. The colours are not quite right, and it would be difficult to correct them to match the original. The image is slightly distorted and blurry in places because of the limitations of the camera’s tiny lens and sensor. Below is the photograph I took, with accurate color rendition, low image distortion, and much higher resolution:

Muir-Creek-pro

Close up, the difference is dramatic:

Muir-Creek-SxS

The artist’s own photo is on the left, my photo on the right (and reduced in size to match). See how much better this beautiful art looks now? A high-quality reproduction does your work the justice it deserves and will help you sell that card, get that commission or have your piece accepted into that show! My colleague Joanne Thomson showed good judgement when she hired me to photograph her work, as this is one of her best-selling cards. I like to think I helped a little with that.

Some works may be challenging to photograph or scan, especially those which are highly textured or varnished to a high gloss. For both photographs of work on canvas and scans of work on paper, I have developed techniques to mitigate glare and unwanted texture artifacts. It is also possible to scan or photograph larger works in sections and stitch them together if you require large, high-resolution reproductions.

On the other hand, some works benefit from the textures being accentuated as an important feature — I can help with that, too.

Price List

SCANS & PHOTOS (2D works)
Assuming you require actual size images at 300 dpi for full size printing, here is a rough price guide:
Size category 1: up to 18″ × 24″ = $40
Size category 2: up to 24″ × 36″ = $50
Size category 3: up to 30″ × 40″ = $60
Size category 4: up to 40″ × 60″ = $70 … etc.

Artwork must be unframed. For pieces that include metallic or iridescent pigments, a surcharge will be added for the extra work that is required to separate the shiny bits you want (metallic areas) from the shiny bits you don’t want (glare).

PHOTOS (3D works)
The studio setup and lighting for sculptures is a much more involved process than for drawings and paintings, so rather than a “per piece” rate, I charge $75 per hour. My in-studio size capacity is for pieces up to 36″ × 36″ × 36″. The artist is encouraged to participate in this process to both save time and ensure you get the results you want.

ADDITIONAL SERVICES: $75/hr
• Line art and blemish cleanup
• Adding “gallery wrap” edging to photographed paintings. (This makes your giclée print on canvas appear to be painted around the sides. Some printers “reflect” the image at the edges to achieve gallery wrap edging. This is not that.)
• Photo restoration
• Converting hand-drawn art to Adobe Illustrator format (vectorization)
• Design of show posters and invitations, art cards

DELIVERY
Images can be delivered on a thumb drive that you provide at time of artwork drop-off, or via internet download service such as WeTransfer. What you’ll get:
• A small JPEG for web/social media/email use
• A full-resolution JPEG for printing
• A full-resolution TIFF for publishing (on request — large file!)
More specific requirements can be met, just let me know.

You retain all copyrights to the images.

Kudos from customers

“Thank you so much for your awesome job and expertise in scanning my original painting for my upcoming art prints series on canvas. Gonzales Bay looks so good at 26.5 x 36″. Great colours and wonderful detail.” — Barb Weaver

“I picked up the banners yesterday — they’re spectacular, truly. They knocked me out! I can’t thank you enough for your creativity on this project. It was a lot of fun working with you.” — Aliza Allen

“You have done a great job with such a challenging task! Thank you, without your help this project wouldn’t be a success.” — Aliza Souleyeva-Alexander

“I want to thank you for all the extra work & time you put into helping my business become more successful. You really are the guy to know! People have asked who does my beautiful photography!” — Debbie Bernier

Email me using the form below if you would like to discuss what I can do for you. (The password is artists.) Or call my landline at 250-704-0011.