Photographing Art, A Lot of Work For Close, But No Cigar

Carousel, 7" x 10" watercolor

The buyer of Carousel came to the house Friday to pick it up. She liked the watercolor, but was a bit disappointed that the horse wasn't as red as she thought it was from the picture she had seen on my blog. (What you see that's pink is actually a pale orange wash).  Her reaction got me back to thinking what I could do more to increase the accuracy of the colors of my computer reproduced photographs. I used Steve, the little portrait in progress on the easel to take a look at how I was processing my photographs in my computer with the tools provided by  Jasc. Photo Album. The camera I used was my Konica Minolta Dimage X1, digital, handheld, with default settings. I was wanted to take the time to experiment, because I believe accuracy in photographing art for sale or show is imperative for customer satisfaction and avoiding embarrassment when  photographed work doesn't quite match the real thing.

Steve taken ,under  the incandescent lights
of  the studio with no flash , then  transferred to computer.
The computer copy has  warm, even tones.
The contrasts  are evened off and diminished as well.

The  above photograph  touched up: 1)quick fixed; 2) color balanced;3) less exposure.
The skin tones don't match; they're pale and not as rich. The shirt and the hair are too saturated. The grays in the
background are right, the pink in the background is Cadmium yellow light in reality.

Steve taken with same camera, default settings, outside,
in open shade, NE exposure, 4:30 PM. A bit washed out wouldn't you say?

Steve, the photo taken outdoors in open shade,  put through the ringer using  Jasc Photo
Album's adjustment tool to get the closest match possible  to the real painting.
This is as close as I could get to matching the skin tones, : 1) quick fix; 2) Color stretch; 3) Less exposure; 4) more vividness.  But they are still a tad darker than in the actual painting. The shirt, his hair and the background
are more saturated  as well. The yellow is accurate in the background. No cigar here.

Bottom line: color reproduction disclaimers are necessary showing  art online or in photographs to be submitted or e-mailed. This poses a potential problem with online sales or photos used for submission to competitions. I can get close with Jasc photo album, but not on the money.  I don't think that's good enough. I also suspect that the ratios of red, blue and yellow to one another in a painting have a lot to do with how the photographic reproductions look.

What else isn't good enough is that I can't show these painting abreast on blogger so you can really see the differences without having to scroll.   Three photos should be able to be lined up--left, center, right- side by side. I haven't been able to do it. If anybody has, I'd love to know what they did.  --If anybody has a more accurate photographic adjustment program, I'd like to know what that is too.  I really didn't like my buyer being a bit disappointed.