How to Photograph Artwork With the Camera You Already Have

How to photograph artwork comes down to four things: soft, even light, no flash, a camera that's square to the work, and color you've checked against the piece itself. A good phone can do all of it, and you don't need a studio.

This guide covers flat work, such as paintings, drawings and works on paper. Set it up once and you can repeat it every time you finish a piece.

Four versions of the same painting of dunes at sunset: one narrowing toward the top, one with a white hot spot in the middle, one tinted warm orange, and one straight with true color — Three common problems, simulated on one of our demo paintings: keystoning, glare from a flash and a warm color cast. The last one is the goal.

How to photograph artwork in soft, even light

Photographing art is mostly a question of light, so sort that out first.

The easiest good light is daylight with no direct sun on the work. An overcast day is ideal, because the clouds spread the light. Indoors, a window does the same job. Direct sun gives you harsh contrast. Warm bulbs shift your colors, and so does a mix of light sources, so turn off the lamps in the room.

Hang the piece flat on the wall. If one side comes out darker, have someone hold a white sheet or a piece of white card on that side to bounce light back.

No good window? Use two lamps

Daylight isn't always there when you finish a piece. Two matching lamps will do. Put one on each side, at about 45 degrees to the work and at the same distance from it.

Then check them with a pencil. Hold it against the center of the work, pointing at the camera. It should cast two shadows of the same darkness. If it doesn't, move one lamp until they match. That test comes from Steve Meltzer's guide in Sunshine Artist, and it takes a moment.

Two diagrams seen from above. On the left, daylight from a window at the side falls across a painting, with a camera straight in front of it. On the right, two lamps stand at 45 degrees on either side of the painting, with the camera in the middle — Two setups seen from above. Left: daylight from a window, with the camera straight in front of the work. Right: two lamps at about 45 degrees.

Put the camera square to the work

If the lens isn't parallel to the piece, a rectangle comes out as a trapezoid. Photographers call it keystoning, and it makes the work look like it's falling over.

Match the heights. Put the lens at the same height as the center of the work. Hanging the piece at your eye level saves your back too.
Turn on the grid. On an iPhone, open Settings, tap Camera and turn on Grid and Level. On a Pixel, the camera's settings have a Grid type option, and Framing hints show two lines that meet when the phone is straight. Most other cameras have a grid in their menus. Line up the edges of the work with it.
Step back and zoom in. A phone's normal setting is a wide-angle lens, which bends the edges of flat work. Moving back and zooming a little takes that away. If your phone has a telephoto lens, start with that. On a camera with a zoom lens, try between 50 and 100 mm.
Keep it still. Use a tripod if you have one, and set a 3-second timer so your finger doesn't shake the shot.
Lock the exposure. On an iPhone, touch and hold the work until you see AE/AF Lock, so the focus and exposure stay the same between shots.
Leave some room. Keep a little wall around the piece and crop it later. Few works match the shape of your camera's frame anyway.

If the edges are still a little off, you can fix small errors afterward. The iPhone's Photos app can adjust horizontal and vertical perspective, and most editing apps have a similar tool.

Get rid of glare

Glare is light bouncing off the surface and straight into the lens. It's the hardest part of taking pictures of paintings, especially with gloss, varnish or glass. Try these in order.

Turn off the flash. It sits right beside the lens, so on a glossy surface it reflects straight back.
Check the lean. Easels usually tip a painting back, which can make glare worse. Stand the work upright. If you still see glare, tip it slightly forward and tilt the camera to the same lean.
Move the light. Slide your lamps further to the side, or turn the work away from the window. Take a test shot after each change.
Add a polarizing filter. On a camera, a polarizing filter over the lens helps with glare from highlights on paint and varnish.
Take the glass out. Glass is the hardest case, so remove it if you can do that safely. If it has to stay, use a polarizing filter, put something black behind the camera and move the lights to a more oblique angle.

Match the color to the piece

Put the photo next to the real work and compare them. Look for a cast, which is usually a blue or orange tint over the whole image.

Start with auto white balance. Most phones do this well. On a camera, if the colors look wrong, try the daylight or incandescent setting.
Correct it afterward. Use the white balance or warmth control in your editing app, with the work in front of you.
Use a gray card for more accuracy. Lay it next to the painting for the shot. Then click it with the white balance tool in your editor, and crop it out.
Edit lightly. Skip the filters and the extra saturation. A buyer should recognize the piece when it arrives.

Take the shots you'll actually use

One full view rarely tells the whole story. Take these before you move anything.

The whole piece, straight on. Everything above is for this one.
Close-ups of the surface. Brushwork disappears in a photo of a large work, so move in without touching the lights.
A side-lit detail. If you paint with texture, light from one side brings out the brush marks. Use it for details, not the main image.
The work in a room. It shows the size at a glance.

Keep the best full-size file as your master and export copies from it. Save it on more than one drive, and name the file after the piece's inventory number so you can find it again. How to organize your artwork explains a simple numbering system.

The size of the copy depends on where it's going:

Applications. Read each call's rules first. The application site CaFÉ asks for at least 1,200 pixels on the longest side and a file under 5 MB. It recommends 1,920 pixels or more, in the sRGB color space.
Your website and social media. A good phone photo is enough.
Prints. This is where phones run out. An Art Storefronts guide limits phone images to small sizes, maybe up to 8 × 10 inches, and suggests a camera of at least 24 MP for prints you sell. Before you plan an edition, read how to sell prints of your art, and ask your print studio whether it can capture the original.

Turn your photo into a full record with Canvy

Once you have the photo, Canvy can keep it with everything you know about the piece. Add it to your library, and Canvy's AI finds the artwork and crops it straight, even if you took the photo at an angle or with the frame on. You can add a whole batch at once and check each crop. That helps with older photos you never got around to redoing.

Two phone screens showing Canvy's Add artwork step. On the left, crop handles sit on the corners of a painting of dunes at sunset, in a picture of the whole wall and sofa. On the right, the painting fills the screen, with shape options and width and height fields in centimeters — Adding an artwork in Canvy. Left: its AI has found the painting in a picture of the whole wall. Right: a straight photo, ready for its real size.

Your library is private, and each piece can hold its medium, dimensions, price and availability. You describe it once, and the details carry over to your website, collections and QR code labels. You can download your original image at any time.

A straight-on photo can't show how big a piece is, and a room can. Place the work in one of more than 2,000 rooms and it hangs at its real dimensions, so the scale is right. You can use those images commercially to show your work.