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I have a painting of Mark twain that was painted in 1902. Have been unable to read who painted it. can U help
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Be happy to help, but need more information than a two line message. Here's my recommendation for photographing the work, which will allow you to zoom in on the image (you can accomplish this in a limited way with a magnifying glass, which they don't seem to sell as much anymore, but you can still find them).
Put the painting in a very well-lit space, that does not have sunlight. Sunlight, or any light with a strong UV component (live some aquarium and agricultural grow lights) can degrade materials, especially aged materials, very quickly.
You can supplement lights with any light you have on hand, lamps, portable lanterns, etc. You want even lighting though, so flashlights won't be much help since they provide very directional light. You don't want any of these lights to be so close that they'd endanger the painting (ie a hot lamp inches away from it), and of course working with electrical stuff and cords, always be careful.
Now get out the best camera you have available. Digital is more convenient, but if your digital camera is older or tends to give grainy/blurry images for some reason, you're probably better off with a film camera. If you're using digital, set it to the lowest ISO setting (often ISO 80 or ISO 100). This makes the camera less sensitive to light, but also gives the clearest image (least amount of "noise" from the sensor). If you're using a film camera, you can buy ISO 100 film just about anywhere with a decent film camera department (which by now may mean primarily camera stores).
You'll need a tripod, and the painting needs to be stationary (set flat on the floor works, but you may need to be clever and/or careful with your tripod). Now you can take a photo of the area on the painting you need (the signature). Make sure the exposure is correct. All the extra light is to make up for using such a low ISO, so that you can still use a decent shutter speed and not blur the image just by taking a picture (pressing the shutter does actually move the camera, unless you can use the "timer" function). You still want to use the lowest ISO for the most image quality.
Make sure it's in focus, snap your photo at the largest size your digital supports (no such setting on film cameras), and now you can bring it into your computer. If you're using film, you'll need to get it developed. If you have a scanner you can scan it yourself, otherwise you can have them put it on a photo CD for you. Once there, zoom in on the correct area. Here's some tips on that:
Use software like Paint.net or Gimpshot (both free) for the most control. There are features in programs like Adobe Photoshop that might help you, but probably not enough to warrant hundreds of dollars to purchase it, if you don't already own a copy.
Don't zoom in too far. Seeing individual letters at a time isn't as useful as you'd think, because your brain is used to seeing words as letter combination. You can still zoom in a great deal, but you want to be able to see the whole signature at once. Especially for signatures and handwriting in general, seeing the flow of one letter into another helps you figure out how they all fit together.
There are enhancements you can do to the image you now have in the computer, sometimes even just converting it to black and white and/or increasing the contrast will help. There's a lot more to that part of the undertaking, but size is still the most helpful part. I could write pages on image enhancement, but it would be a lot more targetted seeing the image to be enhanced first.
That's about it for reading who did the painting.
I've used the process described innumerable times at school for
documenting images for AP art students. It works well at capturing
"flat" images like paintings. And the advise about zooming in on the image comes from the security issues I've been called in, reading plates from cameras in the parking lot, clearing up faces in grainy video, that sort of thing. A lot of the stuff they do on CSI is reasonable and not really that hard (though it doesn't work so quickly/magically as they'd have it).
Good luck, let me know if I can be of more help.
Put the painting in a very well-lit space, that does not have sunlight. Sunlight, or any light with a strong UV component (live some aquarium and agricultural grow lights) can degrade materials, especially aged materials, very quickly.
You can supplement lights with any light you have on hand, lamps, portable lanterns, etc. You want even lighting though, so flashlights won't be much help since they provide very directional light. You don't want any of these lights to be so close that they'd endanger the painting (ie a hot lamp inches away from it), and of course working with electrical stuff and cords, always be careful.
Now get out the best camera you have available. Digital is more convenient, but if your digital camera is older or tends to give grainy/blurry images for some reason, you're probably better off with a film camera. If you're using digital, set it to the lowest ISO setting (often ISO 80 or ISO 100). This makes the camera less sensitive to light, but also gives the clearest image (least amount of "noise" from the sensor). If you're using a film camera, you can buy ISO 100 film just about anywhere with a decent film camera department (which by now may mean primarily camera stores).
You'll need a tripod, and the painting needs to be stationary (set flat on the floor works, but you may need to be clever and/or careful with your tripod). Now you can take a photo of the area on the painting you need (the signature). Make sure the exposure is correct. All the extra light is to make up for using such a low ISO, so that you can still use a decent shutter speed and not blur the image just by taking a picture (pressing the shutter does actually move the camera, unless you can use the "timer" function). You still want to use the lowest ISO for the most image quality.
Make sure it's in focus, snap your photo at the largest size your digital supports (no such setting on film cameras), and now you can bring it into your computer. If you're using film, you'll need to get it developed. If you have a scanner you can scan it yourself, otherwise you can have them put it on a photo CD for you. Once there, zoom in on the correct area. Here's some tips on that:
Use software like Paint.net or Gimpshot (both free) for the most control. There are features in programs like Adobe Photoshop that might help you, but probably not enough to warrant hundreds of dollars to purchase it, if you don't already own a copy.
Don't zoom in too far. Seeing individual letters at a time isn't as useful as you'd think, because your brain is used to seeing words as letter combination. You can still zoom in a great deal, but you want to be able to see the whole signature at once. Especially for signatures and handwriting in general, seeing the flow of one letter into another helps you figure out how they all fit together.
There are enhancements you can do to the image you now have in the computer, sometimes even just converting it to black and white and/or increasing the contrast will help. There's a lot more to that part of the undertaking, but size is still the most helpful part. I could write pages on image enhancement, but it would be a lot more targetted seeing the image to be enhanced first.
That's about it for reading who did the painting.
I've used the process described innumerable times at school for
documenting images for AP art students. It works well at capturing
"flat" images like paintings. And the advise about zooming in on the image comes from the security issues I've been called in, reading plates from cameras in the parking lot, clearing up faces in grainy video, that sort of thing. A lot of the stuff they do on CSI is reasonable and not really that hard (though it doesn't work so quickly/magically as they'd have it).
Good luck, let me know if I can be of more help.
source(s):
Years of photographic experience, working in the context(s) described for security/image enhancement and photographing art.
http://getpaint.net if you need the software.
Years of photographic experience, working in the context(s) described for security/image enhancement and photographing art.
http://getpaint.net if you need the software.
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