From: Brian Lawler Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 16:11 To: colorsync-users@lists.apple.com Subject: More on fine art reproduction
Hi everyone,
Regarding Louis Dina’s post about reproducing the oil paintings…
I have tried to do this using Alien Bees strobes, and eventually gave up in frustration.
I tried the same set-up with my four Paul C. Buff Einstein lamps, and that did the trick, mostly. These strobes are much better for fine art, and they got me very, very close. There were still some colors that did not capture correctly.
In a conversation I had with our friend Don Hutcheson, he suggested that I could solve the few small color problems I still have by using incandescent lamps.
These incandescent lamps use tungsten filaments, and they have a continuous CRI, where almost any strobe lamp, even the Einsteins, will likely have small gaps in the CRI “curve” of the lamp’s output.
Brian beat me to it. I've run into the same problems in the past with strobes. Elinchrome's worked well, AB's not so much. I found the best results using large soft boxes and tungsten lights. We did projects for two museums this way. Two Chimera mediums with hot lights. Shooting needed to be quick as the artwork couldn't withstand a hot room. If you go this route a trick with smaller artwork is to only use a single soft box for the lighting. Position at an angle and use a flag between the light and artwork to feather the light so it is even across the field. If you are shooting tethered, move a white (or gray card) around the frame and adjust the light and flag until everything reads within 1 L*. That said, Lou isn't seeing wildly inaccurate colors - contrast being the problem at hand. Light quality is likely a secondary issue. Ben's suggestions of eliminating reflected glare and checking with a mirror are right on. I suspect a shot of the mirror will show much unwanted light. As one of the constraints was using equipment at hand, we're working with the AB strobes. If you have softboxes or diffusers, I'd try them. Otherwise, see if mounting the lights at opposing 45 degree angles to the vertical and cross polarizing may help. Best of luck, Ethan