I know you take a photo of the painting, color correct (what is that process like?) the image, and then scale for printing. But do you need special equipment (cameras, lenses, printers) or software? My understanding is that the goal of color correction is to make sure the print comes out so it matches the actual painting, which might not be accurately represented on your computer screen, but the process is a mystery to me.
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For color correcting – you can use a white balance and color correcting cards combined with calibrating your monitor and editing program to get as close as possible to real life. It’s been a long time since I’ve done it so it may have changed since then however you photograph the cards in the setting you’ll take your photos and then use that to get an accurate white balance to match your scene/subject. There’s a dropper tool in photo editing software that allows you to do this. You can then apply that setting to all other photos from that photo session. Artificial lighting is helpful since it’s controllable however it’s totally doable in natural light you just have to be mindful of how the time of day affects how colors appear IRL. If you’re shooting for long periods of time outdoors with only natural light you will need multiple card shots to maintain that accuracy.
Sorry if this is long winded. Been a bit since I’ve talked about this stuff but I still find it interesting and fun lol.
You’re right it’s never going to be 100% accurate on a screen even if everything is calibrated as perfectly as we can. The screen is a light source vs the print is reflecting light into your eyes. But there’s also color matching systems like Pantone that standardize color representation so if you’re trying to recreate x color in a photo you can find the exact RGB combo for it. It’s not perfect but gets as close as it can. Brands will have specific color designations sometimes too. Like Coca Cola red, Tiffany blue, etc.
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