Whats the best way to copy paintings ?

My nextdoor neighbour has asked me if I can copy and print some of his oil paintings which are stunning. I have never done this before and was wondering what the best way was to get a digital copy of it is. Is it to photograph it or get it scanned some how?

Cheers

Andy

Hmm, for genuine oil paintings I'd be nervous about the scanning idea since you would have to not just take the painting down but also likely un-frame it. Plus, for a typical oil painting you may need a big scanner! I've scanned and stitched things that were larger than my flatbed, but not actual oil paintings. People do photograph hanging art work, setting up a camera positioned properly and lights to illuminate without bouncing reflections back to the camera. It works!

How big is the print that he wants? Why not take a picture and print that? So long as you get the angles of your lights right it should be fine.

The pic is about 30" x 16" so its not big. he has just painted them so they are not framed.

I was planning to set my lights up and use my canon 50D and then print from that, but as I have never had to do this before I thought Id ask to see how others have done it.

I will give it a go tomorrow night

Cheers

Google for images of "photographic copy stand" and you will get lots of ideas as to how to set up your camera and lights to do this. If you have a tripod that will allow you to invert the center column so that you can place the camera underneath, between the legs, that will probably work for the camera support. As far as lighting goes, it's important to light the subject as evenly as possible and at an angle that avoids glare. For photographing artwork do everything you can to ensure faithful color reproduction -- at least set a custom white balance and shoot some "calibration" shots of something such as white/black/gray cards with known RGB values or a ColorChecker Passport if available.

In my experience it seems to be easier to do this with the copy or artwork flat on a table and shooting from above, rather than trying to photograph something hanging on a wall.

Nice job on those fjords, by the way.

This is actually covered in detail in chapter 4 of "Light, Science and Magic" (just pulled mine off the shelf to find it) :http://www.amazon.com …&sr=8-1#reader_0240812255
Interestingly enough, most of the information the OP needs is available in the preview.

Shooting artwork(paintings)