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Photographers who take the time to capture and print superior quality images by adhering to the following five steps — each a creative process in itself — will produce gallery-ready art prints that turn viewers into buyers. They'll enjoy your work for a lifetime. From taking a traditional portrait to making text-based art from a photograph, you'll travel through a land of light, space, time, and patience (remember, anything digital can get quirky) as you create some of the most original and high-quality work around.
Define yourself, your subject matter, and your audience
When making choices about what to photograph, think about what interests you. If it's sports, you've got it made with an abundance of uniformed players, cheerleaders, and wild fans in the bleachers. If it's rare and exotic orchids in Guatemala that you long for, your trek is likely a bit more arduous but achievable.
Master your craft and hone your photographic skills
Photography, like any art form, is based on some basic rules of composition. After you master important composition techniques, you can put your own artistic interpretation of a scene into your art photo. After all, it's your art and your photo, and you can do with it what you want. The more you can create and manipulate in-camera, the less you have to do in your image editor and when you print.
Trek from camera to computer
Snapping a photograph is only the beginning. Digital art photography requires following certain paths before you can print and frame your output (final image), including
- Getting the image into your computer: You do this either by transferring the files from your digital camera to your computer or by digitizing a film photo, in which case you want to scan either the photograph itself or (even better) its negative. (Remember, after transferring a film print, positive, or negative into the computer, it becomes digital.)
- Digitally tweaking the image: With your image open in Photoshop (or your image editor of choice), there's practically no end to the tweaking that you can do. You can crop an image, apply filters to it, resample it, use layers to merge it with other images . . . the list goes on.
- Saving your image in the appropriate file type: Whether you're shooting with a high-end digital single lens reflex camera (dSLR) or a mid-level point-and-shoot model, the files in which your camera stores your pictures are ultimately saved in a high-resolution file format called TIFF. Your digital image might travel across a number of devices and platforms before it's ultimately printed.
Print and frame your masterpiece
After you've tweaked and resized, the photo is ready for the world — just press Print, and you're good to go. When you have your printed image in hand, you're almost to the finish. Following are some choices for framing your digital photograph:
- Take your photos to your local framer and have mats and frames made. This is mostly for those who want a select look for their home or office that matches exactly to their décor. It's not a cost-effective route for those who want to sell their prints framed.
- Cut your own mats and make your own frames. This is a great way to get your work framed — if you're a carpenter. Many people cut mats themselves and buy premade frames.
- Buy your mats precut and your frames from a wholesaler or your local discount frame store. Hey, for people starting out (and even for people who do the art show circuit), this isn't a bad idea.
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