Good information, Courtney. I photograph a lot of art in my giclee business and I put together some tips that some of my clients have found helpful in doing their own photography. Here's a link to a PDF file of those tips. I hope it may be of some help to your.

www.sweet-pixels.com/Using%20Your%20Digital%20Camera%20to%20Photograph%20Your%20Artwork.pdf

Rick Givens

Thank you for this article. I consider myself professional yet always struggle to remove glare from photos. I have a regular polarizing lens but didn't not realize I could do better with a Tiffen type. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Lori, the important factor is that you use linear polarizers on your lights in conjunction with your polarizer on your camera's lens. The information in the blog is great, but the comment that a circular polarizer on your camera won't work is incorrect. I use one all the time and it works great. Circular polarizers actually have linear polarization built into them. They include another element that allows the passage of circularly polarized light, which is essential to the functioning of the metering systems of most modern DSLRs. Spend your money on the polarizing filters for the lights and try your existing circular polarizer with the new setup. You should be able to rotate the polarizer on the camera to eliminate glare.

Rick

thanks for your articles, Courtney.

I am just a principìant, but using my little camera 10 mpixs , and by diferent kind of accident or casuality, (trought a pair of ocassional dark glasses, or a peace of  infrared glass  of  my set for weld...etc. could to work with some nocturnal fotos, from flowers and skyies light., like the moon among trees, etc.

EXUSEME MY ENGLISH, PLEASE.

tAKE A GOOD YEAR.

Courtney, thank you for sharing this invaluable information. I have been in need of serious help in this department since I started to document my work in high school. This post has provided some great tips.

RickG, thanks very much for sharing your PDF! It contains the answers to a lot of my questions.

I definitely have to invest in some good equipment as soon as possible.

RickG has provided some great info as well!

Our own experiences with the circular vs. linear filter has been that the linear works better for us on our Canon 5D - others may not get the same results with different equipment.  While it is true that all digital cameras require a circular type filter in order for the light meter and the autofocus to work properly, in this controlled situation, I do not use the autofocus, and I bracket all exposures, so my meter is not that important. It is absolutely necessary to have the lights and filter film in combination with the lens filter in order to eliminate glare and hot spots.  After a few tries, the novice will quickly discover the perfect combination of F-stop, speed and distance for the camera and the lights, and then the process will be nearly automatic.  Concentrate on getting a good, not necessarily perfect exposure in RAW or TIFF format. The fact is, the really important adjustments, including out-of-square issues will be made in the digital darkroom software, and we encourage artists to invest in a professional-level copy of Photoshop CS and perhaps take a seminar in how to use it.  It will be money and time very well-spent.

P.S.

If anyone wants to go a little further and learn how digital cameras work, go to www.theartistsroad.net and read our extensive articles: The Artist's Guide to Digital Cameras, Parts I and II, in the member's section.  No technical jargon, just plain talk aimed at explaining the why and how of digital cameras. Join the site to access them and over 150 other informative articles, videos and tutorials about artists, painting and travel.