Ferrari takes first place

How do you make your Ferrari print from an original oil painting?

There are several ways of doing this depending on the size of your print. The simple way is to make a copy of the Ferrari picture in your flatbed scanner.

Surprisingly enough the modern scanners make a reasonable job at reproducing the saturated colours in an oil painting. They also work reasonably well with watercolours although they can miss some of the subtle hues. If you are reducing the size for your finished print then that helps as well.

The difficulty arises if :-

The original is large and doesn't fit in the scanner
or the original is in a difficult to remove frame or has a glass front
or if you need to produce a large print

In the studio we have a specialist camera back which fits on our medium format system which connects straight into our networked computer system and delivers a file size of this ferrari print of over 200 megabytes.

Realistically at home you can't do this. The best you can do is put your digital camera on its largest file size ie: the setting that gives you the smallest number of pictures. Ideally using a TIFF or RAW setting. If not use the jpeg setting.

Put the camera on a tripod if you have one. If not use something to keep the camera steady - put it on a table, wall, chair etc. Try and use available light rather than a flash since the flash will bounce the light from the glass or the frame.

Take the photo with different settings. Try auto to start with, then if this doesn't look too good try an aperture priority setting if you have one with a higher rather than lower f. stop number. Try f16 to start with. With a little practice this will give you a photo which you can make into a greeting card.

If you are going to sell your finished print it may be better to seek professional help. If you do be sure and ask to see samples of any prints they have done. Do you like the tones, the sharpness, the contrast, etc? Have they colour calibration software and does the printer of the cards have the same software as the photographer?

This illustration of the Ferrari was painted in oil on canvas and measures approx 1500mm x 500mm. The limited edition Ferrari print which we have produced is 700mm x500mm including the border and title. Copies are available and are about £20 plus postage. If you would like one I shall pass the information onto my client.

Good luck

Gordon Flavell
www.flavell.com