Basic raw-editing for art copy work

Software RawTherapee
1

Hi!

I would need some advice for basic raw-editing for art copy work.

I’m an artist and I’m trying to create reproductions of my artwork by printing at home. I’m a total beginner with this, but I have managed to figure out the photographing and printing parts quite OK. However, between those two, I should edit my raw-images and this is what I would need some advice for.

I am trying to make as accurate reproductions of my artwork as possible. I bought X-Rite’s ColorChecker Passport for correcting white balance and the colours with a camera profile, which I know how to do in Rawtherapee. Also, I have downloaded the ProPhoto colour profile and plan to save the files as 16-bit tiff for printing. I have adjusted the horizontal level and cropped the image as well. But other than that, I’m not sure what I should do. Maybe I should add some sharpening or something else? Noise shouldn’t be a problem since I take photos with ISO 125 in good lighting conditions.

I would be very grateful for any advice for essential steps in developing a raw-photo for art copy work for printing. I want to be sure that I’m not missing anything crucial that would compromise the quality of my prints.

2

Hi @Marigold, and welcome!

Your nick reminds me of the first time I came into contact with Winsor & Newton’s Designers Gouache. They had a tube named Marigold Yellow. Ah well…

I’m an artist

We all are, in one way or another. Personally, I am more of a tech pixel peeper than an artist, but I do believe that I get your dilemma.

If I understand you correctly, you would like to shoot a photo of an object (having a colour of RGB x,y,z) then you would like that photo to show up on your monitor (showing a colour of RGB x,y,x), and finally printing it onto a certain substrate (normally paper), where it still would show the colour of RGB x,y,z.

In other words: an object would show exactly the same colour irrespective of the present medium, right?

Your most important step would be to colour manage your workflow. Camera → Monitor → Printer (as well as web browser). All of them must be able to “understand” each other.

What’s your camera? Monitor? Printer? Do you own a colorimeter?

Now, do not get alarmed: this is a subject of great fun – but it needs a lot of thinking before you will get it fully working.

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

3

Hi Claes,

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. I make paintings and now I’m planning to take photos of them and try to make prints matching the original paintings as closely as possible.

My camera is Panasonic Lumix 1000, monitor Dell UltraSharp, printer Epson P800 and colorimeter X-Rite i1Display Pro. I’m planning to print on Hahnemuhle’s Museum Etching cotton rag paper using their profile for this specific paper and my printer model.

4

Good. With that set-up you ought to be able to find a suitable colour-managed-work chain.

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

5

I’ve done this a few times with varying levels of success. It is certainly a harder task than it seems to be at the outset.

I had a much easier time using a flatbed scanner when my work was small enough.

Are you happy with the color reproduction and is your contrast accurate? You could include the color checker in the frame and make your adjustments based on the swatches on the color checker.

For my processing, I’d add a bit of sharpening and some wavelet contrast, as both will make those edges pop. Of you have a lot of colors in your art work, some vibrance and saturation may help as well, in moderate amounts.

Again, if the contrast and colors are accurate, there isn’t too much to do.

6

@Marigold Hopefully, you are using some Linux variety. If so, here are two valuable links in this context:

https://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/argyll-display.html

https://www.ludd.ltu.se/~torger/photography/argyll-print.html

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

7

I think you need to create a printer profile as well and then use the profile as softproof in RT.

8

I already did a first photo shoot of my paintings a while ago. I took the photos outdoors in overcast conditions: ISO 125, aperture priority, F8, zoomed in 100mm focal length.

First, I set in-camera white balance using the ColorChecker passport’s greycard. RawTherapee seems to apply this white balance automatically. Then, I took a photo of the CC passport, from which I later made a DCP-profile with the ColorChecker Camera Calibration program. In RawTherapee I chose custom colour management using the DCP-file.

I probably should have used manual shutter speed and taken a shot of the CC passport before every painting. I chose the aperture priority mode since lighting conditions outdoors are never 100% stable, but now I’m not sure if the DCP-profile is correct for all my images, because of the different shutter speeds. I guess though, at least the balance between the colours should be correct since the lighting is very similar. Would it be enough to just adjust the exposure compensation a bit in the case that the shutter speed variation has had an effect on the colours?

I just received my printer, so I haven’t had time install it yet. However, I had a chance to try the smaller Epson P600 for couple of prints before the purchase. I managed to get quite good print results with it, although I didn’t do more to the raw-images than applied the custom colour profile from the ColorChecker. The colours were rather accurate and even the contrast was quite OK. Better sharpness would have been nice though; the original painting is made with acrylics and has a nice texture to it.

I played around a bit with the sharpening tool and wavelet contrast and can definitely see them contributing to sharper prints. I might experiment a little with the vibrance and saturation, but I need to be careful with those so that the colours won’t get altered too much.

Please let me know, if there are other editing tools I should consider? As said, I’m a total beginner, so I’m interested even in the most basic tools, so that I don’t miss anything essential.

Thank you for the tips about colour management. Claes, you had really nailed it in your photo. My operating system is Windows 10 and I’m planning to use Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration System (DUCCS) for monitor calibration. When it comes to the printer, I’m planning using Hahnemuhles own profile for the specific paper and printer. Would a custom printer profile give an advantage? I guess Hahnemuhle do their profiles with high quality devices which must be hard to match.

9

Morning, @Marigold,

My operating system is Windows 10

What a pity :frowning: Then the torger links (above) will be of less use to you :frowning: