How To Get Your Art Online

Getting your art online may seem like a daunting task especially for those who aren't technically inclined. It can be overwhelming to try to figure out exactly how to enter the online art world, while also insuring the protection of your creative property. This article is meant to be an overview to getting your art copied and formatted for display on an online gallery, or personal website.

There are many mediums such as photography, graphic arts and illustration, to name a few, that have migrated to a digital platform. But what about those still practising traditional methods? If you are a traditional artist working in sculpture, oil painting, watercolour, pastel or any other physical medium, the first thing you will need is a digital representation of your artwork. There are several ways to go about this.

Large Format Scanning

If your primary goal is selling art prints, you may want to check out your local reprographics shop. Although this process can be costly, it is well worth it in the long run. Even though it comes with a price tag, the process often includes a cd or dvd of the digital files, with color balancing completed to make sure you have the closest match to your original artwork as possible. It's important to note your artwork will generally be placed face down on glass, so all artwork should be dry, set, and unframed.

Capturing Art Through Photography

Another popular method of digitizing art for online use is to simply take pictures of it. This may sound like an easy process, and depending on the desired quality of the end file, you may want to attempt it yourself. If however, you are looking for a professional representation of your work, you should hire a professional photographer. The bonus of hiring a photographer to document your work is that, as with most things, the professionals have the appropriate tools, skills and experience.

Lighting your artwork is one of the most important aspects, as it ensures that textured or sculpted work will be devoid of shadows. A properly light photograph can also reduce the amount of color correction needed for a true representation of your art. Also, most professional photographers have image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop, which are incredibly handy for color correction and color balancing.

Copyright & Watermarking

Once you have a digital copy of your artwork that you are satisfied with, it's important to use a copyright watermark on all digital files that will be put online. This will ensure that even if your work is used without your permission, you will still be credited for the work. If you have a website, including it in the watermark is a great idea, as it gives the viewer a location where the public can find more of your work. There are some great free programs out there that will do this for you. Gimp (gimp.org) is a great free image manipulation software that mimics some of functionality of Adobes Photoshop & Fireworks. It supports plugins that will overlay a watermark and batch process images to fit a certain dimension. Because it is free software, there is a large community of users that provide help and support for those new to the program (gimptalk.com).

When you are processing your images it's important to remember to keep them small in file size as well as in dimension. Having properly formatted images can greatly affect the performance of your personal website. If you are submitting your work to an online gallery, they may have target dimensions and file size specifications that you will need to adjust your image to.

The files that you receive from a reproduction house or photographer may be meant for selling prints. These files are far too large to post online as is. Using programs like Gimp or Fireworks to process your images and reduce their file sizes, is fairly straight forward and there are many tutorials that can be found online that can guide you with this. The size of the image versus the quality ratio will be largely depend on the end user's monitor size and resolution, so it's hard to offer definitive advice on what size files should be.

If you are not technically inclined and the learning curve for putting your images online seems too great a task, you can always hire a professional to process your images for you. Most web designers are familiar with the processes involved to properly format images for the web. If you are determined to do it yourself, just remember there are a ton of free resources available online for perfecting the process.

ARTmine provides collectors, consultants, architects and interior designers with access to the work of emerging, mid-level and established artists. To see one of the most comprehensive collections of contemporary fine art for sale available worldwide visit Agora Gallery and ARTmine today!

Source: http://articles.submityourarticle.com/how-to-get-your-art-online-301312

tony nominations dark knight trailer dallas mavericks washington capitals delmon young amare stoudemire tallest building in the world