The Art of Copying

Your grandmother just left you an oil painting and you need a few copies: one for evaluation purposes, and two for your brothers and sisters who would like a copy, too. A trip to the professional photographer involves establishment of fees, printing costs and a negative that is not available for sale. The painting is too large for a flatbed scanner to digital copies are not feasible. One solution is to copy it yourself. A good SLR with a 35mm normal lens will probably focus on two feet and a half. Even better is a six-or eight-megapixel DSLR or EVF camera. Use a setting of ISO 100 or slower. Critical is the proper use of lighting. Allow the surface texture to show in your copies prevents the display of true colors and values of the image. Ideally, two identical incandescent lamps in reflectors with an angle of forty-five degrees will minimize surface reflections. Place the paint and the vertical line of the camera on a tripod exactly perpendicular to the painting. An alternative is to use the sun to forty to fifty degrees. Any other source of imbalance (only) should be avoided. Fill the viewfinder with approximately 80% of the viewfinder and make sure all edges are parallel. The circle of light cast by the fires which determines the distance between the lights in the image. Make sure that the surface paint is evenly lit. Use a filter 80B with outdoor cinema or set your white balance digital filament. A filter is not necessary if electronic flash is the source of light. The flashlight must be measured with a flash meter or calculated using the guide on the back of the flash. Equalize the distance from each flash in the center of the painting and the objective of the axis of the cone of light at the farthest edge of the painting. Bracket your exposure to a stop on and in Case F recommended. F8 or F11 are the largest judgments F. The resulting evidence is not a good guide for choosing the negative with the best quality. If a digital camera was then used to print a small test photo prior to enlargement. When viewed on a bright white surface, it is not too difficult to choose the negative with the best color and contrast. A slight increase in contrast is generally considered a plus. When done properly, it is difficult for the average citizen to tell the difference between the copy and the original when viewed from a normal distance. The digital world has changed only tools.