| The beautiful drawing, paintings and other works of art | | | | that, or add it to the fridge. My favourite way to |
| are such a special part of the preschool and school | | | | photograph child artwork is to take a photo of your |
| years. At times there is such an abundance of huge | | | | child holding up their creation. Not only does it create a |
| paint covered papers, it is difficult to remember that | | | | more personal photo (perfect for sending to |
| eventually, our children will stop producing | | | | grandparents), your child will love having the chance to |
| mini-masterpieces. You probably have a few | | | | show off their art work. |
| favourites, and here I will give you two ideas for | | | | Scan it: Most paintings will not fit into a home scanner. |
| including them in digital scrapbooks and photobooks. | | | | In this case, scan the painting or picture in small parts, |
| Photograph it: I know it seems obvious. But i don' t | | | | and then use a stitch programme to put it all together. I |
| mean simply putting it on the table and taking a flash | | | | use Photoshop for this, but there are free ones |
| flooded snap. Do it properly. Go outside for some | | | | available. The benefit of a scan over a photo is that |
| natural light. Lay the paper down on the ground, and | | | | often the colours are more accurate and there is |
| then carefully stand on a chair above it. Aim your | | | | more detail. Also, if your scanner has the setting you |
| camera down, but check for intruding toes! Try to | | | | can scan the resolution quite high. i always scan at |
| avoid direct sunlight, as white paper will reflect too | | | | 1200 dots per inch, but 300 is usually fine. I scan at the |
| much light and over expose your photo. This method is | | | | highest resolution possible to that I can turn it into a |
| great if you want to extract your photo or turn it into a | | | | background paper or a photo matte for a scrapbook |
| background image. If you want to use your photo as, | | | | page. You can blend, erase edges, add texture- be |
| well, a photo, then try to think of interesting ways of | | | | just as creative as your child was in creating it! |
| presenting it. if your kids have an easel, put it up on | | | | |