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RE: Final Scan of "Space-Warp Terminal II" (original painting)

in OnChainArt5 months ago (edited)

I'm using a flatbed scanner for anything smaller than 60x50cm and a DSLR with a high quality 300mm tele lens for the larger formats. In both cases I have to stitch sections together, sometimes as many as 15 pieces. The biggest challenge with large formats is the lighting. For this I have four white fluorescent tubes hanging down from the ceiling (two on each side of the painting) and I'm using a circular polarizer filter to reduce reflections. I scanned 2 or 3 paintings with Schedy many years ago, but it was not only the ridiculous price but also the hassle to have to travel to Vienna and basically spend half a day with this. The scan result and resolution of my setup is as good as what Schedy can deliver with his minivan-sized cruse scanner.

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Good answer - as I suspected, your set-up, equipment and expertise is very good.
Myself, I achieve pretty good results with considerably less, got a choice of my old Samsumg Pro 815 or a Canon EOS 30D - both already almost 20 years old. I take pics outside with a tripod on an overcast day when the lighting is quite even from all directions (at my studio, outside, concrete all around). But then, my work is not all that large. The quality of what Horst Kaiser achieved on the few pieces I had him scan is quite a bit better of course when you get into oversize reproductions. The ones I took myself so far worked out not too bad, on same size as the original. I have yet to try enhancing my photos with the use of AI on Clipdrop Upscaler - but anything over 2x you have to pay for. I am notoriously known to be a cheapskate, lol. Otherwise I would invest in a proper Photoshop, instead of the old CS2 I got for free.

 5 months ago  

Outside on an overcast day it definitely can work, unless your painting is very glossy. It would be good to add a grey scale chart to the photo to adjust the white balance accordingly. If you have trees around they might cast a greenish tint. But there is another problem if you want to take multiple photos to merge them because even on a overcast day the light intensity is changing all the time and if the differences are too big it will be difficult to get a consistent scan.