How to photograph or scan your paintings for print reproduction

A print can only be as good as the capture it came from. You can have the right paper, the right frame and a perfect file workflow, and if the photograph of your painting was taken under a kitchen downlight with a phone, the print will tell everyone. This guide is for painters, illustrators working on paper and anyone with a physical original who wants to sell prints of it. It covers the two routes, photography and scanning, the equipment that matters, the mistakes that show up in print, and how to decide when it's worth paying someone else.

Why capture matters more than anything downstream

Printing is faithful. Whatever is in the file, the printer reproduces: the colour cast from a warm bulb, the glare on a varnished surface, the slight keystone from shooting at an angle, the softness from camera shake. None of that can be fully corrected later. A good capture makes every later step easy; a poor one makes every later step a compromise.

Print Punch reviews files before production and will flag visible resolution problems, but we can't see a colour cast against the original we've never seen. Your capture is the only link between the painting on your easel and the file on our screen. Once you have one good capture, you can sell prints of that painting for years, so it's worth doing properly once. The file preparation guide picks up from the moment you have the capture.

Route one: photographing the painting

Lighting

Even, diffuse, colour-neutral light is the whole game. The simplest reliable setup is outdoors in open shade on a bright day: no direct sun on the painting, no coloured walls nearby bouncing light onto it. A north-facing wall under an overhang works in most of Australia.

Indoors, use two matched lights at 45 degrees to the painting on either side, at the same distance and power, with the same colour temperature. Daylight-balanced LED panels are ideal. Turn off every other light in the room, including the overhead, because mixed light sources create casts you can't easily remove.

Glare is the enemy on glossy or varnished work. If you see hot spots, move the lights further to the side, raise them slightly, or use a polarising filter on the lens. Cross-polarising (polarising sheets on the lights plus a polariser on the lens) removes almost all surface reflection and is worth the cost if you sell prints of varnished paintings regularly.

Camera and lens

Any interchangeable-lens camera from the last decade will do, and a modern phone can produce a usable file for smaller prints if you follow the rest of this guide. For large prints you want pixel count: a 24 megapixel camera gives about 6000 × 4000 pixels, which is 300 ppi at roughly 50 × 34 cm and 200 ppi at 76 × 51 cm. For a 100 × 130 cm print you'll either accept a lower ppi or stitch multiple frames (more below).

Use a lens in the 50 to 85 mm range on a full frame camera (35 to 55 mm on crop sensor). Wide lenses distort straight edges; long lenses make it hard to fit the painting in a small room. Shoot at f/8 for sharpness across the frame.

Setup and alignment

Hang or prop the painting perfectly vertical and put the camera on a tripod with the lens exactly perpendicular to the canvas centre. Any angle produces keystoning, which can be corrected in software but costs you resolution and edge sharpness. A spirit level on the camera and a quick check that the painting's edges are parallel to the frame edges in the viewfinder saves a lot of correction later.

Fill the frame with the painting but leave a small margin so you don't clip an edge. You'll crop to the artwork afterwards.

Settings

Shoot RAW. Set ISO to the lowest native value. Use the self-timer or a remote release so pressing the shutter doesn't shake the camera. Set white balance manually to match your lights, or shoot a grey card in the first frame so you can set it precisely in processing. Bracket exposure by a third of a stop either way; one of them will hold the highlights in a pale sky without blocking the shadows in a dark corner.

Colour reference

Photograph a colour checker card in the same light, in the same position as the painting, before you shoot the artwork. In processing, use it to build a camera profile or at least to neutralise the white balance precisely. This is the single step that separates a "close enough" reproduction from one that matches the original. If you don't own a checker, a plain mid-grey card still fixes white balance.

Route two: scanning

For work on paper up to A3, a flatbed scanner produces excellent files with no lighting setup at all. Scan at 600 ppi for anything you'll enlarge, at 400 ppi if the print will be close to the original size. Turn off every automatic correction in the scanner software (auto exposure, sharpening, dust removal, colour restoration) and save as TIFF. Lift the lid slightly or use a book to flatten a cockled watercolour; a sheet of glass over the artwork can introduce Newton's rings, so test first.

Larger works can be scanned in sections and stitched. Overlap each section by at least a third, keep the orientation identical, and let stitching software (Photoshop's Photomerge, or dedicated tools) align them. Stitching works best on flat, matte originals with plenty of detail; it struggles on large smooth gradients.

Scanning rarely suits canvas or heavily textured paintings. The texture creates shadows under the scanner light and the surface won't sit flat. Photograph those.

Stitching photographs for very large prints

If you want a 100 × 130 cm or 120 × 150 cm print to be truly sharp, a single frame from most cameras won't get you to 200 ppi. The answer is to shoot the painting in a grid of overlapping frames, moving the camera on a rail or re-aiming carefully from the same distance, then stitching. Four frames roughly doubles your resolution. Keep exposure, focus and white balance locked across all frames, overlap by 30 to 40 percent, and expect to spend time correcting small alignment errors. It's work, but it's the difference between a large print that holds up to a close look and one that doesn't.

Processing the capture

In your RAW processor: set white balance from the grey card or checker, correct lens distortion, straighten and crop to the artwork edges, and adjust exposure so the whites in the painting match the whites you see in person. Resist the urge to "improve" the painting. The goal is the original, as it is, in good light.

Export a flattened 8-bit TIFF in sRGB with the profile embedded as your master, then make a high quality JPG for upload. Check the file at 100 percent zoom for dust, hot pixels, glare patches and soft corners. The colour management guide explains how to judge the result on screen and why a paid test print is still the final check.

Common mistakes we see in files

• Warm or green cast from household bulbs or fluorescent tubes. Fix the light source, not the file.
• Glare patches on varnished work, often in the top corners. Move the lights or polarise.
• Keystoning from shooting slightly from below. Square the camera to the painting.
• Soft edges from a wide lens or a large aperture. Use a mid-length lens at f/8.
• Over-sharpening that leaves halos around brushstrokes. Sharpen gently for output only.
• Crushed shadows from exposing for a pale background. Bracket and choose the frame that holds detail.
• Phone HDR and "enhance" modes that change colour and contrast. Turn them off and use a proper camera app with RAW if you can.

When to hire a professional

If your paintings sell for hundreds of dollars and you plan to sell prints of them for years, a professional art reproduction photographer is a sound investment. They bring calibrated lights, cross-polarisation, a high resolution camera and colour management, and they usually deliver a file matched to the original under controlled light. One session can cover a whole body of work. Ask for flattened TIFF files in sRGB or Adobe RGB with embedded profiles, at the largest resolution available, and ask whether stitching is included for your biggest pieces.

If your work is smaller, on paper, or you're testing the market with a few designs, the DIY route in this guide will get you a print-ready file with a little care.

Checking the capture against a print

Even a careful capture benefits from one real print. Order the artwork at the size you expect to sell most, on the paper or canvas you plan to offer, and compare it to the original in daylight. Note any shift in a specific colour and adjust the master file, not just that one order. The test order checklist tells you what to look for, and the unframed fine art print is the lowest-cost way to check colour before committing to frames.

Once you're happy, that file becomes the master for every format: framed paper prints, framed canvas prints and, if the work suits a repeat, even wallpaper. The how it works page shows the production path from there.

A simple home setup that works

You don't need a photography studio. A repeatable setup most painters can build in an afternoon: a plain wall or a large sheet of grey card as a background; two matched daylight LED panels on stands at 45 degrees; a tripod; a grey card and, ideally, a colour checker; a remote release or the camera's self-timer. Mark the floor with tape where the tripod legs and the light stands sit, and note the distance to the wall for each canvas size you commonly paint. Once marked, every future capture takes fifteen minutes and gives you the same result, which matters when you want a series of prints to match.

If you paint on float-framed blank canvases, photograph the painting in the frame and then crop to the canvas edge inside the shadowline; the frame edge makes alignment easy and the crop removes it cleanly. The blank canvas guide covers painting with the frame in mind.

From capture to product, step by step

1. Capture under even light with a grey card and colour checker, bracketed, RAW.
2. Process: white balance from the card, lens correction, straighten, crop to the artwork, match exposure to the original.
3. Export a flattened 8-bit TIFF master in sRGB at full resolution, named with title and version.
4. Export a high quality JPG for upload, under 200 MB.
5. Check the file's proportion against the sizes you'll sell with the standard sizes guide.
6. Upload on the product page, preview at each size and border setting, and order one test print.
7. Judge in daylight, adjust the master if needed, lock the version.
8. Photograph the test print for your listing and set your price with the pricing guide.

Capturing textured and glossy work

Impasto, palette knife work and resin-finished pieces are the hardest to capture because the surface itself is part of the artwork. For texture, a slight raking angle from one light (move one panel further to the side and reduce the other) creates gentle shadows that show relief without creating hot spots; shoot both the even and the raking version and choose the one that reads as the painting. For gloss and resin, cross-polarisation is the dependable fix, and if you don't have it, photograph outdoors in open shade with the painting tilted very slightly away from the sky. Expect to spend longer on these pieces, and expect the canvas print version to bring back some of the surface feeling that a flat paper print can't; the paper versus canvas guide explains why. If your paintings will become canvas reproductions, the framed canvas page shows the sizes and finishes the capture needs to serve. The artist FAQs on files answer the quick questions about formats, size limits and resolution.

Frequently asked questions

Can I photograph my painting with a phone?

For small prints, yes, if you use even diffuse light, turn off HDR and enhancement modes, shoot RAW where possible and keep the phone perfectly square to the painting. For large prints a camera with more pixels and a proper lens will show the difference.

Should I scan or photograph my artwork?

Scan flat work on paper up to A3 with a flatbed scanner at 400 to 600 ppi. Photograph canvas, textured or large work. Stitch sections for anything larger than your scanner or camera can capture sharply in one go.

What resolution does Print Punch need?

Aim for 300 ppi at the final print size, with 150 to 200 ppi acceptable for large prints viewed from a normal distance. The file preparation guide has the pixel maths for each size.

How do I stop glare on a varnished painting?

Move the lights further to the sides and slightly higher, or use a polarising filter on the lens. Cross-polarising both lights and lens removes almost all reflection.

Why don't the colours in my photo match the painting?

Usually the light source. Use daylight-balanced lights or open shade, set white balance from a grey card and photograph a colour checker in the same light so you can correct precisely.

Will Print Punch colour correct my file?

We review files for visible resolution and crop problems before production and contact you if a decision is needed. We don't adjust your colours, because we can't see the original. A paid test order is the dependable colour check.

Next step

Capture your strongest painting using the steps above, prepare the file with the file preparation guide, then preview it on a product page. If you'd like advice on a specific capture before ordering, tell us about the artwork.