Pictures of... pictures

Help!!

This is perhaps a bit off topic, but sincethere are some really talented and professional photographer here, I think I will ask.

I have recently decided to put some of my art for sale on line, and would like to also make prints of my paintings. Now all is fine with smallish ones that can be scanned, but for example a painting of 50cm x 50 cm of a rigid, wooden support is a bit of a problem. The scanning shop where I went in my old town could not scan it. Of course there may be better equipped shops out there... do you know?

I have tryed taking a good photograph of it but I cannot get enough definition for a large print (My camera is just a toy, every pic is some 800 kb or so, so up to A4 is ok but over that prints would not do justice to artwork). I would really like to print some 50x50 poster. DO you know if one of the better machines, and the RAW format would allow me enough definition to print so large?

If you have any idea please tellme, I am out of my territory here, and I don't even know what to look for!!

 

Actually I was ready to employ him, but he lives too far

But I am confident he will read these panicked lines and save the damsel in distress with good advice :D

 

Erm, this is my very tiny gallery (uploading things to this site takes ages, a ton of information tofill in) so far, just to give you an idea of what kind of definition I can reach with my tiny camera.

http://www.artistrising.com/galleries/KatiaVioli

 

Hi Ivory,

Not sure if this is the thing that you're after: http://www.photo-canvas.com/

I have used them in the past for creating canvases of some of my favourite pics and they have a very good service.

 

Thank you for the link I will look it up and ponder on the possibilities.
Actually what I am trying to do now is a bit different, I just need a a picture of my somewhat larger paintings wheter a photograph or a scanning with enough resolution to reproduce them more or less true to size on paper.
The website where I put my stuff for sale is just one of several who do the same thing (showcase the work of living artists), I chose it because it offers a great search function, it seems destined to remain online for a while, and because it offers a print service, meaning that once the work is uploaded they take care of taking orders, printing on demand, and shipping. The royalties for the artists are rather meagre, but once the work is up there is nothing else to do, and that would be very good (if it works at all), if like it may be the case I decide to embark in a extensive "travelling period" in the not so distant future.
I am very curious to see if it works. I used to sell prints of my flower paintings on flower shows, it was fun, and rewarding, this is a completely different way to approach the business, curious to see how it works.

 

What you need first of all,is a camera that churns out photos,in RAW format somewhere in the region of 30-48mb per image.
This is how i do it.
Take a few pictures,process in a RAW processing program,and save the image as TIF.
Open the saved TIF file in photoshop,and make any adjustments that you wish.(brightness, contrast,straightening), etc.
When happy,go to file,click on "save as", NOT "save for web".Rename the file if you wish,select jpeg in the box beneath and save the file where you want it.This is then a High Resolution image and should be printable,and uploadable to the size that you require.

Alternativly.....go to your local photography shop and say that you need high resolution copies of these paintings.Most shops will do that for you,but i really dont know how much it will cost.

By the way,i'm not a professional photographer as such,not yet.I work as a stock photographer when i get a chance,but i havn't declared myself pro.

 

Declared or not, you know your business, and that is enough for me!

Thanks for the info. It is only a couple of painting in a size to require such trouble, do I guess I will enquire how much it costs to have a photographer doing it, it cannot cost me more than getting that kind of camera plus the software...

 

Just had another idea.:dh:

email me one of the photos that you have taken.
I'll then print it,photograph it,and return a hi res copy by email to you.
If that looks well,then we're sorted.

Hows that sound?

jjdecay@arcor.de

 

How about I mail you my two paintings and enough stamps to send them back, so you can photograph the real thing?
Il'pay for the service of course!

 

Just email me a picture to start with.I dont have the proper copying equiptment,so we'll need to check for quality etc.
I'm not sure about mailing the paintings themselves,i'd hate for them to get damaged or lost in the post.

 

Picture on the way!