I have been puzzling over how (or rather, why) people use their low-powered smartphone cameras to snap photos of their paintings, for Instagram. An average smartphone cam is only around 6 to 8 Megapixels; I’d have thought the resulting photo was rather average quality and probably not doing the painting much good (guess this is why it’s called Insta(nt)Gram). Is it actually essential to use the smartphone to take the images for Instagram? Wouldn’t it be possible to put better images onto the smartphone and upload those instead?
And another thing…why is Instagram so geared to the phone? Apparently you can’t use a PC to upload work to the system.
I usually use my canon camera to take photos of my art then save the photos to my vidoes folder on the computer and transfer that photo to the phone.
I guess it’s just the convenience of using the phone to do it instead of all the transferring to do on the computer.
Also, I really don’t think you need to have perfectly sharp photos on the phone which is where most of them are seen by the viewers using instagram because the images are so small anyway.
If I do use the phone to take a quick picture of my painting, I use Photoshop Express to edit the picture to crop and take out any overexposure problems of anything like that. It’s a free download.
Not that I’m trying to promote Adobe or anything. I really don’t like the company anymore, but it’s a necessary evil to me.
Also, I think I heard that mobile viewing has overtaken the computer this year or last.
All of my art is photographed with my iphone. I’m not using the photos for prints, but it’s fine for online.
I don’t use instagram but I do use my phone to take pictures of my art. My Samsung phone is 16 megapixels and takes better pictures than my old digital camera. I don’t need to do any colour adjustment at all; just take the photo, crop it and it’s done. Good and convenient for posting online.
In answer to your question though, perhaps one theory might be that maybe people don’t want ultra high resolution photos posted online that could potentially be copied and printed?
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my phone only goes to 5megapixels so just considered it a bit woolly. I have Canon camera that goes to 24megs, obviously too much for online, but if you’re trying to sell somethin it needs to be reasonably visible. FOlk are welcome to scrutinise things on a seven inch screen, I find it far too small…IM on ten inch tablet this evening and don’t cope well with the keyboard and half hidden webpage…as you can tell from the bad grammar!
Heck, that’s better…back on a proper computer. The youngsters are welcome to the small screens. I might try the Instagram thing out, just for the fun of it, but use a camera for the photos (with the usual reduced resolution). Thanks for your inputs.
I snap photos of my paintings with my iPhone for Instagram and then take a second photo with my real camera for making prints/cards. I find I can reach a wider viewing audience for my art through Instagram. I don’t think the quality suffers much from posting the Iphone photos since most of the time they are viewed through the small screen of a cellphone.
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I love Instagram, however, I do not use my phone for the photos. There are programs that will upload your high quality image to Instagram. I use my digital Nikon SLR and color correct as needed, then I use Gramblr to upload to Instagram. Gramblr is a free program and I believe one of several that do the same thing. What drove me crazy was the required square crop of Instagram and Gramblr will help, but not totally eliminate that issue. Also a new feature of Instagram is to be able to enlarge the image, so I really want as good an image as I can upload.
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Not heard of Gramblr (so much new stuff around!), have looked it up this afternoon and am reviewing. Thanks for mentioning it!
I think Instagram was designed to be pretty much instant and for young folks who just want to touch base with their buddies instantly. While folks use it as a marketing tool now (because it is pretty instant), I would not use it as my only outreach tool because of it’s limitations. Make sure you always link back to a web location with an excellent photo of your work. That said, it’s been fun to use Instagram when I’ve been out plein air painting and want my painting buddies to see what I’m up to. I also use it to capture silly things or surprises (like having our Governor show up at the same piglet and sow exhibit at the State Fair when I was taking photos of her and her babies for possible reference photos. Dropped the camera and picked up my phone. Fleeting moment captured.).
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I find the easiest way is to take a photo with a camera and save to computer. Then email it to yourself and pick up the message on your smartphone and save the attached image. Then you are set to go when wanting to send it to Instagram.
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I am new to Instagram and just learning how to use it. I see that Carol Marine and some other DPW artists are posting pics of their auction paintings. They are using # s to link to the auctions. They post something like this:
HTTPS://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/ 00000 (the number of the auction)
Where does one find the auction number??
I have quite a few auctions up, but I can’t find any auction numbers for them.
Ahah! I found it. If anyone else is interested… Look on your Art Tracking and BUY URL. Click on it to the the Auction number. You only find a number if the painting is in an auction.
I too found the only way to upload a photo was to email a photo as an attachment to myself from my laptop computer and open it on my iPad. Open the email and save it to your library. Then you can post it in Instagram. One has to learn all these tricks. It will be interesting to see if this brings in more views / sales to my DPW. Here is hoping.
Ok now I really feel like a dunce. You can get the link to any DPW painting, auction or not. And I discovered I can open a DPW image of mine, holding down my finger on my image and copy or save it to my iPad library, However, for Instagram the image is not too clear and it is too big (if it is not square). The images I emailed to myself from my laptop were much clearer when posted to Instagram. Still exploring… still learning. Life is a challenge. … but worth it.