Key points to have in mind to help keep your confusion to a minimum:
- Buy only major brands, whether scanners, digital cameras, printers, paper.
- Support information is more readily available, and quality is generally better.
- Scanners are useful if you have lots of printed art work, or if your work if flat and will fit on a scanner bed.
Scammer settings for publishing to the web:
- 72 ppi (pixels per inch) and dpi (dots per inch) are essentially the same. PPI refers to screen presentation, DPI is printer resolution.]
- Use sRBB colorspace, if you have a choice.
- If you are scanning an offset printed piece, use the descreen function in your scanner software.
Note: If you are serious about scanning, invest in VueScan scanning software.
If you are using a camera:
- Turn off the flash.
- Set color space to sRGB.
- Use a tripod and keep the camera back parallel and as directly centered to your artwork as possible.
- Capture in the highest quality JPEG.
- Use only one type of light source, don't mix them - either incandescent or daylight or florescent (although not recommended if you can avoid it). Set your camera"s white balance to the light source you are using. If you don"t know how, try to learn.
- Try to include something that is "pure" white and "pure" black in the image, however small. (You will use these to set your white and black point when you edit. If you don't have control of those settings, you'll at least be able to see what color bias you need to correct for with the sliders most software have to adjust color balance by "eyeballing" it.)Editing images
- Picasa - free - basic, worth trying.
- Flickr - free (online) - Allows you to group into albums, premium features also.
- GraphicConverter - $49 - Very capable and affordable.
- Apple's Aperture - $79 - Pro app, easy to use, great results. Many sharing options. Can make your online gallery for you.
- Adobe Lightroom - $199 - Great if you can afford it. Great editing capabilities. Can make your online gallery for you.Note: If you are trying to prepare files for a print run, hire a pro to shoot and process your files. Finding a good one is another story. I hope to be able to tell you now to find one suitable for your needs soon. This can be "expensive", but there is no way around it if you need quality.
Online Storage and Presentation
- Picasa (Google)
- Flickr
- Facebook or Google+
- Jalbum - novel, neat, exciting. Recommended. Free for up to 20MB.
- There are many more options. You can check out Wikipedia's list of photo sharing sites and compare. or try eBiz's list.
- Make the effort to protect your copyright - read the Terms and Conditions of ANY service you post with.
- More information about protecting your copyright can be found at the Artists' Bill of Rights site.Blogs and Networking
Blogs allow you to get a free and effective presence on the web. At their simplest, blogs can be your online business card.
- Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Posterous - free, easy to use, basic template options.
- Sign up, pick a theme, try it out.
Social networks - consider where your audience might exists and choose one or more accordingly.
- Ning - the best (not free anymore).
- Facebook or Google+ - Choose to fit your style. Read and understand the T&C"s.That's it!