Part III: Editing Files of Your Child's Artwork

Here it is, the next part of the Archiving Your Child's Artwork Series.  We've been over Part I: Photographing Your Child's Artwork and Part II: Scanning Your Child's Artwork.

Now we've got all our files on the computer, so what's next...... you guessed it Part III: Editing Files of Your Child's Artwork.  Today we are going to look at uploading and editing digital files of artowrk.  A quick tutorial or I should say overview of how I use iphoto and picassa to edit my files.

Nothing fancy here folks just the basics, by the way I had over 130 photos to edit after this project of archiving Cyrus's artwork got underway!

I uploaded all the photos I took of Cy's artwork and organized them into iphoto.  I usually try and divide them into files by season/year or this case labeling them artwork so I know where to find everything and put a date to it. 

To crop I selected the individual photos, edit and brought the canvas size down to the edges of the artwork so you don't see any back ground.  This is when the dark background, we were talking about when photographing work comes in handy- Part I.  You can see a clear defined edge and it's easy to crop.  You can also play around with sharpness, brightness, balances ect. when editing.

For editing photos I also use picassa, because it's easy and free!  For editing you can cover the basics like it iphoto from cropping, working with balances, contrasts and effects.  My favorite use of picassa are the collages, you can dock the images you want to work with and then select make collage.

In picassa you can select your canvas size from formatted 4 X 6 or 8 X 10 to a custom size.  Collage options are photopile, mosaic, grid to thumbnails.  My version of picassa also connects to picnick for more editing options.  I do alot of my fonts and borders for blog headers in picnik.  But I've seen them advertising picnik wont be available as of April- it'll be missed!

I've made collages in both picassa and picnik saved the work and then been able to upload the file to order prints online at walmart, walgreens ect.  Remember these....... (Great gift or holiday ideas!)

That's it, editing digital artwork files.  Just the basics, upload, save, crop and enhance or add a few effects.  Next week the grand finale a few ideas of how to display and use all these great artwork images!  Don't think I'll be able to use all 130 plus Cyrus originals but sure we'll get a few of them in!

Part II: Scanning Your Child's Artwork

Welcome to Part II of my mini series Archiving Your Child's Art Work, last week we went over Part I: Photographing Your Child's Artwork.

Today we're going to do a quick run down on scanning images to archive your child's artwork, followed by a few short tips for preserving originals.
 
Scanning originals. When archiving children's artwork scanning works well if you don't wan to mess around with lighting and photographing each piece.  Honestly I think once set up, photographing is easier and goes faster.

Scanning does have it's advantages, especially when working with smaller pictures and light crayon or colored pencil drawings.  Additionally if the paper is wrinkled or warped, scanning will give you a clear, crisp image without worrying about crinkles and shadows.

Scanning pictures is pretty straight forward.  Scan your image and upload them to the computer.  Once on your desktop you have the option of saving them as a jpeg or pdf.  If you want to work with them within a photo editing program like iphoto, picasa, picnic or photoshop store them as a jpeg.  The option of saving it as a pdf or an additional pdf file will allow for the best quality image when re-printing, you can use the snapshot tool in adobe to resize your image canvas.

That's about it, like I said scanning, pretty straight forward.  Next week I'll feature a few simple steps once your images are uploaded to edit in iphoto and picasa/picnic.

To finish up this quickie post, here are a few tips for preserving your
children's artwork originals:

• Store in a cool, dry place
• Use a portfolio, binder or folder with plastic sleeves to organize & protect artwork
• Consider laminating artwork so that it is sealed and protected around every border
• Frame artwork to display, use protective glass so exposure to light doesn't fade pictures
• Keep out of direct sunlight or fluorescent lights to prevent fading
• Don't store inbetween cardboard, it attracts moisture
• Remember to date/ mark descriptions for future reference (I never remember, at least this archiving project will help me with dates!)

Part I: Photographing Your Child's Artwork

Part I of the series: Archiving Your Child's Artwork, is going to touch upon the basics how to photograph your child's artwork.

I've found photographing Cyrus's artwork is a good and fast way to create a digital file of it.  Some of his paintings and work from school are just too big to fit in the scanner.  With the right set up this will be a quick way to take some shots and preserve it forever.  Added bonus you can turn their artwork into collages and prints, which I'll touch on at the end of this series.

 To start with we organized all of Cy's papers and tried to lay them flat.  If you plan ahead you can lay papers out ahead of time cover with some heavier books to flatten them out.  In a few cases I used some rolled tape to keep the edges down, because of course we started this project on a whim.

*Important consideration BACKGROUND.  Ideally you should use a black background or surface to lay artwork on and photograph.  This will make it extremely easy to crop later on, once you upload your photos.  You can use a black sheet, table cloth or large piece of black poster board.  Going with what we had I used my dining room table, dark maroon tablecloth.

*My very "professional" LIGHTING.  Lighting has to be the most important thing to consider when taking photos of 2D artwork.  You need a well lit room so you can get the best, most detailed photo of the artwork.  Pay attention to where your light source is coming from, watching out for shadows.  If your light source is above the image and you're shooting over it, your shadow is going to fall on the image and be in the photo.

For my set up I used a light source above, supplemented with a light (shade pulled up) on the left that lit the whole area I was working with.  It was also the middle of the day with natural light coming in the windows behind me.

FLASH.  Play around with using your flash to see what gives you the best image.  If you're shooting directly above with a well lit room you shouldn't need it.  However I had a few pieces with folds and creases, using a flash helped washout some of the shadows I got in them.  Don't use a flash with glossy paint or paper, you'll get a reflection. See potato heads.

*TAKING the PHOTO.  I shot directly above the artwork getting the whole image on the screen with an inch or two of the background bordering the image.  Shoot all your photos and then load them on your computer to edit- which we'll be going over in PART III of this series.

That's it for Part I: Photographing Your Child's Artwork.  Next week another alternative, Scanning Your Child's Artwork also touching on starting a portfolio to preserve originals.