How to Photograph Artwork for Online Submissions

In an online competition, the jury never sees your work. It sees a photograph of your work, on a screen, usually beside hundreds of others. A strong painting photographed under a warm bulb, with a highlight across the varnish and the frame slightly keystoned, is scored as the photograph it has become.

The good news is that a professional result does not need a studio. It needs even light, a square camera and fifteen minutes of care. This guide covers each step for paintings, drawings, prints and flat mixed-media work, with notes on glass and three-dimensional pieces.

Why the photograph is what gets judged

Jurors score what is in front of them. They do not mentally correct a colour cast or imagine the corner that was cropped off, because they cannot know what the original looks like. Everything the photograph gets wrong is, from the jury’s side, simply how the work looks.

It is also the first thing seen. A juror forms an impression at thumbnail size before opening the full image, and uneven light and crooked edges read as carelessness at that size even when the work itself is careful.

Light: a window, two lamps at 45°, and what to avoid

The free option: daylight

Indirect daylight is excellent and costs nothing. Hang or prop the work on a wall facing a large window, out of direct sun, on a bright overcast day or while the sun is on the other side of the building. Turn off every lamp in the room: mixing daylight with warm indoor bulbs produces a colour cast that no single white-balance setting can fix.

The controlled option: two lamps

For consistent results at any hour, use two identical daylight-balanced lamps, around 5000–5600K, one on each side of the work, each angled at about 45° to the surface and at the same distance from its centre. The equal angles cancel each other’s shadows and send reflections off to the sides, where the camera does not see them.

What to avoid

• Flash, including the phone’s. It bounces straight back into the lens as a hotspot.
• Direct sunlight. Too contrasty, and its colour shifts as it moves.
• Ceiling lights alone. They light the top of the work more than the bottom.

Glare on varnish, oil and glass

Glossy surfaces reflect the light source. The first fix is geometry: move the lamps further to the sides, lower their angle, and step the camera back. If a bright patch moves when you move your head, it is a reflection, not the paint.

When geometry is not enough, a polarising filter helps. On a camera, a circular polariser on the lens, rotated while you watch the screen, cuts most reflections from varnish and oil. The complete fix, cross-polarisation, adds polarising film over both lamps as well and removes nearly all glare.

Work behind glass is best photographed out of its frame. If it cannot be unframed, hang a dark cloth behind the camera so the glass reflects black rather than the room, and shoot very slightly from above or below so your own reflection falls outside the frame.

Phone settings that matter

A recent phone is entirely adequate for competition entries. A few settings make the difference:

• Use the 2× or 3× lens and step back. The wide main lens bends straight edges, especially near the corners. A longer lens from further away keeps them straight.
• Turn on the grid in the camera settings, so you can line the edges of the work up with it.
• Focus on the centre of the work and lock the exposure, usually with a long press, so it does not jump as you frame.
• Turn off portrait mode, filters and scene optimisation. They alter colour and sharpness in ways designed for faces, not canvases.
• Shoot RAW if your phone offers it, such as ProRAW or Expert RAW. It leaves far more room to correct white balance afterwards.
• Use the timer or a remote so pressing the button does not shake the frame.

Keeping it square: perspective and cropping

The camera must be parallel to the surface of the work. Centre it on the middle of the piece, at the same height, and check that the edges run parallel to the grid lines. A tripod, or a stack of books, helps more than any editing does.

Small remaining tilts can be corrected with the perspective tool in any editing app. Then crop exactly to the edge of the work, removing the wall, the easel and the tape. Unless a competition asks for it, leave out the frame.

Colour: white balance against the original

In the first test shot, place a neutral grey card, or failing that a sheet of plain white paper, beside the work. Use it to set the white balance in editing, and apply the same correction to the photograph of the work itself.

Then compare the screen with the original in the same light. Adjust brightness and colour until they match, and stop there. Do not add contrast, saturation or sharpening beyond what the work actually has: a juror who later sees the piece, or a buyer who receives it, should not find a different object.

Three-dimensional work

Sculpture and ceramics need form, not flatness. Use one main light at about 45° with a softer fill from the other side, photograph against a plain background, and take the views the work needs: front, three-quarter and a detail. Check whether the competition limits the number of images per work.

Exporting for an entry form

• Format: JPEG in the sRGB colour space, unless the competition asks otherwise. Other colour spaces can look dull or oversaturated in a browser.
• Size: follow the competition’s limits exactly. They are stated on each call; the current open calls list theirs.
• File name: your name and the title, not IMG_4821.
• Check at 100%. Open the exported file at full size and look at the edges and the brightest areas. That is how a juror will look at it.

With the image right, the rest of the submission is the words beside it: how to write an artist statement, and what the jury is scoring. For preparing a whole body of work rather than a single entry, see How to Prepare Your Portfolio for Online Art Exhibitions.