A drawing on paper and a drawing in a photo often look different: the colors are duller, the white paper turns gray or yellow, the sheet becomes a trapezoid, and half of it is in your phone’s shadow. That matters for a practice journal: a month from now you’ll be scrolling through the photos, and you want them to look like the real pages.
The good news: you don’t need a camera for a good photo. A phone and a few simple rules are enough.
Light
Light comes first. It solves almost every problem with color and shadow.
- Soft daylight is best. By a window during the day, but out of direct sun: direct sun casts hard shadows and washes out color.
- An overcast day is ideal: the light is soft and even.
- In the evening, use one or two lamps with neutral light, placed to the sides of the page rather than above it. Overhead light makes glare on glossy marker ink.
- Avoid mixed light — daylight from a window and a yellow lamp at the same time. Part of the page comes out bluish, part yellowish.
Setup
- Lay the page on a flat surface — a table or the floor. If markers have made the paper wavy, weigh the corners down with something that won’t end up in the frame.
- Hold the phone flat above the page, parallel to it. If the phone tilts, the page becomes a trapezoid in the photo.
- Stand so your shadow doesn’t fall on the paper. Often half a step to the side is enough.
- Fill the frame with the page, leaving a little margin around it. Cropping extra space is easier than stretching.
Many phones can show a grid and a level on screen — turn them on in your camera settings. They help you hold the phone straight.
Camera settings
- No flash. Flash makes a bright spot in the middle and dark corners.
- No zoom. Move the phone closer instead of pinching: digital zoom lowers quality.
- Focus on the page — tap the screen in the middle of the drawing.
- Exposure. If the white paper looks gray, drag up next to the focus point to brighten the frame a little. Just don’t blow out the light colors.
After the shot
A few simple edits in your phone’s built-in photo editor:
- Crop — keep the page and a bit of margin.
- Fix the perspective if the page came out as a trapezoid. Many editors have a “perspective” or “keystone” tool.
- White balance — if the paper looks yellowish or bluish, make it neutral white. The other colors will fall into line with it.
- Go easy on saturation. The goal is a photo that looks like the paper, not one that’s brighter than it.
Compare the photo with the page side by side. If the colors are close, you’re done.
Document mode and scanners
Some phones have a document-scanning mode that finds the page edges and fixes the perspective on its own. For a black-and-white drawing that’s handy. For a color one, be careful: these modes often boost contrast and wash out light colors.
A flatbed scanner gives the most even image, but for an everyday journal your phone is plenty.
For your practice journal
In the Neurojournal practice journal, a photo of your drawing is saved together with a few words about it. A few tips specifically for the journal:
- Take the photo right after the session, while the page is on the table and the light hasn’t changed.
- Always shoot in the same spot, in similar light. Then a month from now your photos are easy to compare.
- One photo per page, the whole drawing. You can shoot details separately, but the journal works best with the full page.
What comes next
What to write alongside the photo is covered in How to Start Drawing as an Adult, and how to set up a spot with good light for both drawing and shooting is in A Drawing Corner at Home. The practice journal lives in your Neurojournal account, alongside the course; the first module of the course is open without an account — start there.
