learn: photo editing with Nicky Johnston

The 52-week Challenge wall is filled with an abundance of beautiful artwork. Here are some great tips to photograph and edit your photos so your artwork can be viewed in the best possible way.

Position:
Try to take a photo of your artwork in a space where there is natural light. Not in direct sunlight (as this creates unwanted shadows.)

Take your photo as square as possible to avoid any elongated angles of your artwork. I usually stand directly above the artwork and line up the edges of the paper to the sides of the photo frame.

Editing:
Cropping and basic editing can be done on most phones these days. Crop the unwanted background so you only see the image. Most phones also have basic colour/lighting tools that you can experiment with too.

Here is an example of artwork I did for Week 4 - Insects:

PIC 1 - You can see here that I took a wide photograph. I tried to keep the illustration as square as possible.

PIC 1 - Taking a photo as from a height keeping it as square as possible

PIC 2 and 3 - Cropping
I used my phone's editing options and cropped the unwanted background of my photo.

PIC 2 - select the area I want cropped

PIC 3 - the cropped selection

PIC 4 - Lighting correction
Using my phone, I selected 'light' and I played with the levels that I preferred.

PIC 4 - the level of preferred colour

PIC 5 - After cropping and lightening....this was my final artwork I posted to the Challenge wall. A marked difference from the initial photograph I took.

Other helpful apps and programs (for phones and computers) to assist with editing photos, recommended by Challenge members.

Apps:

• Camera+
• Google Scan (free)
• Snapseed
• Instaphoto editor (Android)
• Phonto - for text or watermarking

Computer Programs:

• Picasa
• Gimp
• Photoscape
• Photoshop Elements

I highly recommend that you have a 'play' with cropping and editing - it really does help display your artwork in the best possible way!

Stay creative,
x Nicky