Scanning vs. Photographing Your Original Art with Vibrant Colors for Use in Adobe Illustrator — Video

I always use vibrant colors – part of my signature style. It's one of the reasons I love working with gouache paints so much. The pigments are rich and opaque. The pinks and the oranges have these killer neon hues. I love the intensity. What I don't love so much is how they translate into the computer.

I often scan my art, but the pigments are bright because they reflect light. When you scan these gouache colors, the scanner from the light is so intense directly on the paint, the paint just reflects the light. Therefore, in this situation, I choose to take a photograph of my art to bring it to work with in Adobe Illustrator.

Getting it to look the way I want on the screen and the way I would print it using Pantone inks is a story for a future blog post. I definitely will be covering it soon because I get a lot of questions about working with color in design production.

Watch the video below to learn more about how I solve capturing art with bright colors to use in Adobe Illustrator.

A Tip about Photographing Your Art

I often see people take pictures of their art, and they are warped and askew – not what they initially drew or intended. Take careful time to frame your art with your camera. Look to see that the edges of your paper are square to the edges of your camera view. I also do this by checking that the corners are aligned. Also, be sure to hold your camera (or mobile phone) parallel to the art as much as possible so that your image presents itself as flat as if it was scanned.

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