Just go with whatever window you have available and perhaps test it out at different times of day to see when the conditions are best. Ideally, you'll want a north-facing one (to avoid hard shadows), but again, not everyone has that option. If you live in the city with no garden and maybe a handful of days a year where it's not chucking it down or wizard-of-oz windy, taking pictures outside just isn’t practical. Of course, that's not an option for everyone.

The ideal setup would be to have the artwork lie flat, outside, on an overcast day at noon (when the sun is overhead). If you can wait a day or two until you've got a moment of proper daylight, that'd always be the preferred option.Īs explained above, daylight is always the preferred kind of lighting. Which is fine, you can change that in Photoshop, though it's of course always best to avoid too much need for editing. If you use a standard household lamp, the colour of your drawing might be a bit off, especially if it's not just graphite or charcoal. When I'm at home on the weekend I tend to just have the drawings I want to photograph ready and laid out so I can jump up and take some pictures in those lucky five minutes of the day where the conditions are ideal. The reason for that is that a layer of clouds will act as a giant diffuser to the sunlight, so they make shadows appear softer and not as prominent on your photographs. If you do go for daylight, make sure it's an overcast day, not full sun. If there is no daylight available (Scotland in winter, anyone?) any electrical source will do the trick, though you might need a little more time editing the photos later. I've tried various options and find that natural daylight gives me the best quality pictures. Let’s jump right in and deal with the main issue we face when taking photographs of any kind in a home-setup.

If your goal is to have the very highest quality images of your art with no shadows and perfectly crisp, it’s best to buy a good scanner instead. However, keep in mind that even with skill and experience there are limitations to what you can achieve with any photo camera. Here are some of the tips and tricks that I use to take photos of my own drawings and paintings, for a home-setup of course, since not everyone has access to a professional photo studio (nor do you need that). There's more to taking good pictures of your artwork for Instagram, Pinterest or even your portfolio than simply pushing a button on your phone. Do you want to find out why photographs of your drawings always look a bit ‘washed out’? How can you avoid shadows? What do you do about reflections?

Photographs of people to draw