People often ask me how to make a good reproduction of a glossy painting. First of all use a tripod.
1.The most important thing is that there is no light source in front of the painting (nor behind). No window, lamp or a reflected light.
2.When impossible, hang a black curtain between the camera and the canvas. Make a small hole to put your lens through.
The light on your canvas must come from the side. If the light source is not strong enough to give a uniform lighting, use a big sheet of white paper as a reflector and bounce the light back to the canvas.
If still one side of the painting is too dark, repair this in Photoshop: make a copy of the image and paste it on top in a separate layer. In curves make this copy lighter. Use the photoshop eraser option. Make it a very big size with soft edges and rub out the wrong part of the image.
The good part of the first image will shine through. Join the two layers and that is it!
Also see this post on How to make a photo reproduction of a glossy painting.
The white paper is a good tip, I have never thought of doing that, I have limited Knowledge of Photoshop. Would it be possible to put a color strip at side so you could balance the colors also?
Hi Peter.
Yes I use a Kodak-strip. But to be honest I only use the gray scale of it.