Selling My Original

Thank you Nicole....If I had not ordered a print of my work I would not have known there was a prob....good advice.

YES! You can still sell your prints. The best way to go about it is to order from FAA a print of the same size before you sell it. If FAA finds the print of good quality the picture will be reproduced. If you sell it, without having a good image on file, and there is a problem, you will not be able to upload a new picture and FAA will ask you to remove the picture.

ok i think I have some better pictures......it was very cold outside too....replaced all of my pictures now

thanks Margaret and Janine....My best friend with the best camera is in Florida;( but I do have another friend who may also be able to help me...I also see what your saying about what size to offer the picture for sale. This all helps a lot......Im new to this I have only ever sold originals on ETSY and in galleries. I just took the ghost ship off because I sold it in a Gallery last week. I think some of my pictures are a little hard to photograph because I paint small...as in small objects on a large canvas. If that makes since.....the ghost ship was my first venture into a diffrent style than I normally paint and some how I did manage to get a very soft look with the paint and not a lot of brush strokes...I dont know if I will ever do that again im not sure how i did it to begin with...lol...it just happened....like most art i think.

Virginia, I just looked at your Ghost Ship image that Mike had posted above. Apart from image quality issues for printing, you might like to consider another point which can apply to paintings that are photographed for printing. Using that image as an example, I see the original is 11' x 14" and you are offering prints up to approx 27* x 40". Apart from obvious print quallty issues at the large sizes, you should consider whether the painting style would look attractive when enlarged to this extent. While I normally leave the largest two sizes for my photographs that FAA offers blank, for paintings, as I paint small (around 8" x 10') I only offer one or two sizes larger than the size of the painting. It's a personal choice depending on how the artist feels their paintings will look when enlarged!

It is hard to learn how to photograph your work properly Virginia. Quite the hassle too - especially waiting for great lighting conditions. But you can learn how to do it @ home.
Call a couple of printers in your area - it may just be worth waiting until you have a group to bring over.
I think that is going to be my next project.

Mike - your 18 x 24 was on fabric. I can sometimes scan large drawings on paper piecemeal. Oil paintings on stretched canvas, watercolors on stiff paper, masonite panel work etc all have to fit completely on the glass or you get smearing at the edges of the scan.

I also somehow suspect that you're not worried about creasing the original version of your fabric drawing. Someone whose work is not primarily photography would be very concerned about damaging a large original by pressing sections of it against the glass.


Virginia, do you have any friends who photograph? Maybe you can borrow a camera or work out a trade for now.

Thanks for all the help....Im going to google dslr camera....:)

i can only assume it has to do when you crop your image in your editor. if you don't set it to a fixed size, it will crop whatever is in front it, and the size will be random. so if today you shot your image from across the room, it will be one size, if you stand and fill the frame it will be another site. you can edit your image any way you like. all of mine were. make it brighter, fix colors, fix problem spots, fix distortions, etc. fine art won't edit your images. but they will reject them if they don't look good.


this was a 18x24 image, i scanned it in 6 pieces and put it together later.


---Mike Savad

You will have a very difficult time finding a flatbed scanner with good resolution that can go larger than 11 x 14 inches. Most scanners won't scan anything larger than 8.5 x 11 inches. It is impossible to get a decent scan of a painting mounted on panel or stretched canvas by scanning it in pieces, because the rigid support will not lie flat on the scanner.

Sell the originals, save the money for a decent DSLR camera and tripod. Look for less fussy sites to sell prints of your current images. You won't have highest quality prints of some sold originals, but you'll paint more.

Even small camera photos will print just fine up to 8x10 or 9x12, but FAA probably won't do it. Place your small image files somewhere that will print them - lots of options available.

is it ok to photoshop your pictures....like make it brighter or should i leave that to fine art america when they go to print it.

Out of curiosity when I took all of the new pictures today how did the one snow day end up being smaller than the others...I did not change anything between pictures...maybe im just not getting this picture taking thing......the camera I used is a Minolta.....I put it on a tripod and used natural light...no flashes.....man this is hard

the scanner i like and use is a epson perfection v600 photo scanner. they make a cheaper version that doesn't have a slide scanner. the only downside to this one is that the lid doesn't come off. so if it's something large you'll have to flip them around and stitch them together. off hand i don't know where to scan them. i could say staples, but i'm sure painters on here would know better than me, since i'm a photographer.

---Mike Savad

if you click on it (or at home view it at a 100%), you'll see a close up of it. it shows the overall pixels, around 2600 or so for yours, for the boat above. which is an ok size, but if you look at it, it doesn't look that sharp. i should be able to see canvas and brush marks. and up close it just looks soft.


where as this, you can see the brush marks, it's sharp, but very small around 1500px, it's also a bit dark looking, but that can be fixed after.


this is pretty sharp, though the paint seems unsharp, it may just be technique, there is some glare on the right, but i don't think they will nag that.


this one is my shot, i'm not much of a painter as i am a paint thrower. but scanned in, you can see how sharp it can be. you can see every sparkle and lump in there. though the scanner does flatten the lighting a little bit, you don't get the contours paint can give.


---Mike Savad

can you reccomend a place that can scan my paintings and put them on a disk.....a scanner is not in my budget right now......what kind of scanner would you reccomend?

thanks...im prob going to take this one off. the other pictures i just re photographed earlier today....How do you tell what size they are on FAA and if they are blur. when I looke at them they look allright....

Anybody that can help me....thank you.

you can leave the image yes, however make sure it's the very best it can be. because if it isn't, and there are quality issues, they will make you retake it again. and if you don't have it, that's a sale that will be lost.


like this one for example is a bit noisy, and not that sharp up close, has some motion blur, and pixelation caused by a small camera.

many of your images are on the small side as well.

i would invest in a good scanner and get them scanned in. this would work out best in the long run.


---Mike Savad

Of course - many of the images on here have no "original", as in a photograph or say my digital art that created on the computer. I also have images of paintings long sold - I'd like to sell prints - they were "good" paintings.