There are so many different aspects to photographing art before you sell art online, so this article will be a brief overview to share some of the most important information with you such as composition, lighting, and how to optimize your images for use on the internet.
Because the photographs of your art are the first (and often only) thing a potential buyer sees when they see your art for sale online you need to make this first impression be a good and long-lasting one.
One picture might sell art online, but a series tells an even better story In many cases an artist will take a single photo of their art and use this as the first and last representation of the piece as they sell art online in a virtual gallery or on their personal website.
Because of the nature of online media, especially still pictures, it is very difficult for someone who knows little about the art to get a true sense of it from a single image.
Experiment with taking your photos in different lighting (direct natural sunlight is best), at different angles and distances, and in the case of sculpture from different perspectives by walking around the piece and capturing every detail.
Make every pixel count Because the photographs you take to sell art online are often always the first thing a potential buyers sees, they are a huge part of the first impression you can make on their minds so making every bit of the image count is very important.
It is a natural tendency people have to look for a fault or flaw so do your best not to give them one! You can do this by making sure your photos are lined up properly with horizontal and vertical lines as straight as possible and keeping your subject (the art) in clear focus.
Lighting is important as well and should be kept as even as possible; do not take your pictures in the dark or in bright light as this will create highlights and shadows which you do not want in your photos.
Less is not always more, but moderation is best Optimizing a photo for use when you sell art online can be tricky and you might think it is impossible to do without a graphic design program such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom but this is not the case.
Often you can alter the size of a file by saving it as a smaller version of itself, something which can be done using online services like Paint.
net or on your home computer using MS Paint.
You can also make a photo have a smaller file size by saving it as a different type of file; GIF, PNG, BMP, and JPEG are popular file types used to sell art.
If you are placing your photos on your own website any of these types will display on the page just fine.
Another caution; do not be so concerned with others taking your images without permission that you place a large watermark over your work or by making the file so small that no one can see any details! At the end of the day you are the only one who can take these pictures of your art and do the beautiful piece you created justice (unless of course you've hired a professional photographer) so get out there and do your best! If you heed the information in the this article, do a little research on your own, and experiment to find what works best for you it is certain that you will have better results than you would have gotten by just taking a quick picture and putting it online all by itself to help you sell art online.